Start-Up News September 2007

The bloom is off the rose. In July, drug-eluting stent (DES) leaders Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific Corp. announced their second quarter results, each revealing that sales of drug-eluting stents had dropped by more than 40% compared to a year ago. The phenomenon of late stent thrombosis, revealed by the BASKET-LATE clinical trial and other publications, was to blame. With a focus on safety first, clinicians have been migrating back to bare metal stents while awaiting insights as to why this phenomenon occurs in some DES patients. Meanwhile, the controversy has led to a renewed interest in bioabsorbable stents, now in early clinical trials. (See Exhibit 1.)