St. Jude Medical Inc. (NYSE:STJ) won Japanese regulatory approval to sell an ablation catheter used to treat patients with irregular heartbeats.
The St. Paul, Minn.-based company’s Therapy Cool Path ablation catheter is a thin tube that delivers radiofrequency energy to cardiac tissue to create lesions that interrupt the abnormal electrical signals that can cause cardiac arrhythmia. The catheter is irrigated with a saline solution to cool its tip, helping to reduce risks such as charring and coagulation associated with ablation.
The approval marks St. Jude’s first entry into Japan’s irrigated ablation catheter market, according to a press release.
St. Jude’s stock was up slightlyto $36.65 in mid-day trading, despite a roughly 1 percent dip in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
St. Jude also said it renewed its purchasing deal with Kensey Nash Corp. (NSDQ:KNSY) for collagen plugs, a resorbable component of STJ’s Angio-Seal vascular closure device.
Kensey Nash is St. Jude’s exclusive supplier of collagen plugs, a relationship that is projected to have brought Kensey Nash $17 million for its fiscal year 2010, according to a press release. The new agreement will also see the end of the Exton, Pa-based company’s deal to supply St. Jude with polymer anchors, which will have brought the company $1.9 million in FY10.
The new two-year supply deal is set to begin Jan. 1, 2011 and will bring the Kensey Nash revenues equal to approximately 25 percent of current annual collagen plug sales during its first year, according to the release. Kensey Nash CEO Joe Kaufmann said in a prepared statement that the minimum collagen plug order levels for FY11 are 45 percent lower than FY10, but the company anticipates overall revenues of $81 million and $83 million for the coming two years, slightly higher than the $80.2 million to $80.6 million projected for fiscal 2010. Kaufmann said recent Food & Drug Administration clearances and CE Mark approval in the European Union for the company’s Extracellular Matrix products and a CE Mark for its cartilage repair device will help stabilize the company’s top line.
