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The New Math of Drug-Device Convergence

In combination products that span the device and pharmaceutical industry, one plus one doesn't necessarily equal three. Speaking at "Convergence: the Drug/Device Summit," Paul LaViolette, chief operating office of Boston Scientific, recounts the intricacies of getting Taxus, the largest combination product in history, to market. For all the success BSC has had, both with Taxus and generally speaking--a huge infrastructure, billions of dollars in revenues, and 18 PMA approvals under its belt-the first lesson it learned from its drug-eluting stent program was, "As hard as you think it may be, it's harder than that."

In Pittsburgh in mid-March, some 140 drug, device, biomaterial, and venture capital firms gathered at "Convergence: the Drug/Device Summit," to suss out the next major product opportunities to come from combining drugs and devices. The conference was organized by Bio and AdvaMed, advocacy groups for the biotechnology and device industries respectively, as well as the incubator Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse and Windhover Information Inc. The device and drug industries are pinning great hopes on convergence, since the highest profile example—the drug eluting stent—is already an almost $5 billion market that's forecast to grow to $10 billion by 2009.

But drug-eluting stents, notwithstanding their success, only skim the surface of possible drug/device convergence: already, BMP products such as Medtronic...

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