Edwards’ Sapien Ramp-Up Successful, But Medicare Policy Makes For Some Hurdles

Edwards’ rate of training hospitals on its new transcatheter valve procedure is on track with its goals but slower than the 20-site-per-month rate that the firm says it can handle, likely because some hospitals are struggling to ensure that they meet new Medicare coverage requirements.

Edwards Lifesciences Corp. remains on track to meet its one-year goal for training new centers to perform transcatheter aortic valve replacements with its Sapien device, but the recently established national Medicare coverage policy is inhibiting the effort to at least a small extent, the company suggests.

“Overall, we probably could have trained a few more sites than we did,” noted Michael Mussallem, CEO of Edwards, on the firm’s July 24 second-quarter earnings call

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