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Medtronic, J&J and Abbott all compare results to Boston Scientific's Taxus drug-coated stent.
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Three of the major makers of drug-coated stents used the annual meeting of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics conference in Washington, D.C. to tout the benefits of their respective products Monday.
Fridley-based Medtronic Inc., in a company-funded study, said its experimental heart stent Endeavor kept clogged arteries propped open as well as Boston Scientific Corp.'s best-selling Taxus device for up to a year.
About 6.5 percent of Endeavor patients had a heart attack, needed a repeat procedure or died from cardiac complications, compared with 6.6 percent given Taxus. After a year, 4.5 percent of Endeavor patients and 3.2 percent of Taxus patients needed another surgery for the same blockage, the Medtronic-funded study found.
Medtronic is trying to differentiate Endeavor from the two approved drug-coated stents in the U.S., Taxus and Johnson & Johnson's Cypher, after they were linked to deadly blood clots. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended Endeavor's approval this month. The company said it expects FDA approval before the end of the year, putting it on the market ahead of Abbott Laboratories' Xience.
A separate study on Xience also released at the meeting today showed it reduced the risk of heart attack, repeat surgery and death by 43 percent compared to Boston Scientific's Taxus.
"Xience is probably the best chance of invigorating the market for stents," said Jan David Wald, an analyst at Stanford Group Co. in Boston. The market will revive, he said, though "it will likely take some time."
Johnson & Johnson, meanwhile, said its Cypher drug-coated heart stent was safer than the competing Taxus device, causing fewer deadly blood clots and reducing the need for repeat procedures. The data were from the Western Denmark Heart Registry, which followed patients for 15 months,
Medtronic fell 48 cents to $47 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, while Abbott rose 24 cents to $51.64. Boston Scientific fell 12 cents to $14.30, and J&J rose 11 cents to $64.34.
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