Boston Scientific Predicts 2009 Will Be The Year Guidant Buy Proves Wise
This article was originally published in The Gray Sheet
Executive Summary
Boston Scientific CEO Jim Tobin says 2009 will be the year when his company's gamble on cardiac rhythm management begins to pay off the way it hoped when it entered the CRM business by buying Guidant in 2006
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Taxus in Japan
Boston Scientific launches Taxus Liberté paclitaxel-eluting stent after gaining reimbursement from Japan's National Health Insurance System March 2. Taxus Liberté was approved by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare Jan. 28, and is the "only second-generation drug-eluting stent in Japan," according to Boston Scientific (1"The Gray Sheet" Feb. 2, 2009, p. 15). The firm has pointed to Liberté as an example of accelerating approval times in Japan, where the regulatory pathway has historically been difficult to navigate for device makers. Abbott filed for Japanese approval of the Xience V everolimus-eluting stent in June. Boston Sci also markets its first-generation Taxus Express2 stent in Japan. Liberté was introduced in the U.S. last fall (2"The Gray Sheet" July 28, 2008, p. 10)
Taxus in Japan
Boston Scientific launches Taxus Liberté paclitaxel-eluting stent after gaining reimbursement from Japan's National Health Insurance System March 2. Taxus Liberté was approved by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare Jan. 28, and is the "only second-generation drug-eluting stent in Japan," according to Boston Scientific (1"The Gray Sheet" Feb. 2, 2009, p. 15). The firm has pointed to Liberté as an example of accelerating approval times in Japan, where the regulatory pathway has historically been difficult to navigate for device makers. Abbott filed for Japanese approval of the Xience V everolimus-eluting stent in June. Boston Sci also markets its first-generation Taxus Express2 stent in Japan. Liberté was introduced in the U.S. last fall (2"The Gray Sheet" July 28, 2008, p. 10)
Research In Brief
Cook Spectrum: Cook's minocycline/rifampin-impregnated Spectrum central venous catheter is nearly twice as effective at preventing catheter-related bloodstream infections as catheters coated with chlorhexidine and silver sulfadiazine, according to results of a 46-month, head-to-head study presented by Craig Coopersmith, Washington University in St. Louis, at the Society of Critical Care Medicine's Critical Care Congress in Nashville on Feb. 2. Results of a separate study, presented at the meeting by Spectrum's inventor, Issam Raad, University of Texas, showed that exchanging an infected central venous catheter for a Spectrum can quickly eliminate the existing infection in cancer patients. In the trial, 40 patients with infected central venous catheters had their catheters exchanged for the Spectrum, and 80 patients simply had their infected catheters removed. 95% of patients receiving the Spectrum had no bacteremia within 72 hours with no cases of relapse or infection-related death. By comparison, 88% of patients whose catheters were simply removed had no bacteremia within 72 hours, and there were six cases of relapse or infection-related death in the catheter-removal group