Can Boston Scientific slide past more stent woes?

by Anne Law, August 15th, 2008, 7:00 am

It seems that this company may never see an end to its cardiovascular stent troubles. Leading medical device maker Boston Scientific looks to be facing renewed strife in overcoming the controversies that surround its interventional cardiology products, which are used to prevent clogged arteries.

Two stories published yesterday — a Wall Street Journal article questioning the reliability of Boston Scientific’s study data on stent pipeline candidate Taxus Liberte and a New England Journal of Medicine study re-examining the advantage of stents over traditional cardiovascular treatment methods — have caused a bobble in the company’s stock and may prompt future challenges for the company’s interventional cardiology product sales.

Last year Boston Scientific and rival Johnson & Johnson faced significant sales losses due to widespread criticism of their respective drug-eluting stents, which are touted by the companies to be improved versions of uncoated stents but have also been said to increase the risk of blood clots. Boston Scientific’s overall stent sales have yet to recover from the ongoing medical debate surrounding the use of drug-coated stents and stents altogether.

The Liberte stent, which is awaiting FDA approval, is part of Boston Scientific’s vigorous efforts to rejuvenate earnings in that product segment and fight off competition from Medtronic and Abbott. The company received FDA approval for another drug-eluting product line, the PROMUS stent system, just last month. Boston Scientific has also sold off some noncore operating divisions to battle the effects of lagging sales (as well as to pay down debts incurred mainly through its huge 2006 acquisition of Guidant, which brought on additional product controversies that I’m not even going to touch right now).

Adding insult to injury, news also surfaced yesterday that Boston Scientific has recalled a batch of non-cardiovascular stent products. While it’s rather typical for new medical devices to raise questions in the medical community, I can’t help but wonder whether Boston Scientific should abandon the stent ship altogether and focus on its other less-controversial products.