As it seeks to capitalize on new opportunities in both its CRM and interventional businesses, Guidant also confronts a device industry whose rules are changing. The second of a two-part series.

The boom times are over in devices. Now venture capitalists vow to focus more on business fundamentals. Entrepreneurs say the same, while they increasingly seek start-up money from private investors known as angels.

Over the past four years, Guidant has been one of the most impressive performers among a group of high-flying big-cap device giants. But even as it wrestles with the usual problems of managing large businesses, in its penchant for self-invention and relentless pursuit of new technology, Guidant behaves more like the collection of start-ups its once was.

Novoste is out to show that the changing device world still has room, in the right market, for a small single-product company to succeed against larger competitors.