The hits just keep on coming for Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific, whose drug-coated stents (branded Cypher and Taxus, respectively) may be on their way from blockbuster to just plain bust. The two products lord over the $6 billion worldwide stent market but are facing, well, let’s just say challenging market conditions, after studies turned up safety problems with the devices. To make matters worse, rivals from Medtronic and Abbott Labs loom on the horizon, and according to safety data released by the companies on Tuesday, the new stents are likely to prove superior.
Drug-coated stents, which cardiologists insert during angioplasties to prop open narrowed arteries, emit drugs like paclitaxel that prevent scar tissue from forming and re-clogging the vessel. Considered a leap forward over bare-metal stents (which have no cure for the scar tissue problem), the drug-coated ones have recently come under fire, as studies have emerged indicating that they can cause dangerous blood clots over the long term. As a result, doctors have cut back on implanting the devices, turning to the older bare-metal versions or other remedies (such as drugs or surgery).
The good news for patients and cardiologists is that both Abbott’s Xience stent and Medtronic’s Endeavor (both of which may get FDA approval in 2008) seem to be safer than the previous generation of drug-coated stents. Unfortunately for J&J and Boston Scientific, the approvals would give Cypher and Taxus unwanted company in a market they once had all to themselves.
Oh, and whatever you do, don’t ask J&J about its efforts to introduce a new drug-coated stent of its own. No doubt it’s a sore subject, what with its halt in May of development efforts with CoStar, a product that provided much of the rationale behind J&J’s acquisition of Conor Medsystems earlier this year. The stent failed to beat Taxus in clinical trials, and J&J pulled the product from international shelves where it was already approved for sale.
Comments
kurt Says:
June 21st, 2007 at 10:05 am
Thank you for the post - heart disease patients deserve a safe and permanent treatment for vessel revascularization, protection against new myocardial infarction and the prevention of cardiac death.
Kurt
http://www.ideasforsurgery.com/2007/06/21/stent-graft-fixation-is-it-really-secure-rant/
kat Says:
June 27th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
I would like to comment on a nightmare experience involving Capital One Auto Finance. I recently sold a car and the buyer came with a Capital One check. I still had a small lien on the car also through Capital One. Both the buyer and myself were advised by Capital One to make the check out for the entire amount of the sale of the car to Capital One and to overnight the check to them. I was assured by them that the check would be processed and the remainder due to me after the lien was payed would be mailed out within two business days. Five days later and many phone calls has still not even resolved the payoff of the lien and now I am told that it could take three to four weeks and possibly up to six months before they will refund me the overpayment. They have approximately $18,000.00 dollars of my money and I am now without a car or my money. I would like to advise anyone selling a car with the buyer having a check from Capital One to reconsider their buyer.
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