Abbott Laboratories fired the latest salvo in the long-running stent war, saying it plans to begin selling its Xience Prime coronary device in Europe during the third quarter after winning CE Mark approval from the European Union.
The latest version of the Chicago-based medical device monolith’s drug-eluting Xience platform competes head-to-head with products from Natick-based peer Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic Inc.
Abbott said it hopes to introduce Xience Prime in the U.S. market by 2012, provided it wins approval from the Food & Drug Administration after its Spirit Prime clinical trial concludes.
“We would expect to be submitting for U.S. approval in first-half 2011 and have the product in the United States in first-half 2012, but it could be earlier,” executive vice president for medical devices John Capek told Reuters.