The Wall Street Journal-20080204-Coated Stents- Market Stabilizes

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Coated Stents' Market Stabilizes

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Last year's fourth quarter was the worst in several years for drug- coated heart stents, new data show, but the coated stents' market share is no longer falling.

Stents are tiny scaffolds that prop open arteries clogged by heart disease. The fanciest, most profitable kind -- those coated with drugs to prevent reclogging -- were used in 88% of stentings as recently as mid-2006.

In December, only 62% of stent procedures used a coated stent, according to a survey of 75 U.S. hospitals by the Goodroe Healthcare Solutions unit of VHA Inc., Irving, Texas. That was the lowest in several years of the Goodroe survey.

Fears that the coated stents were leading to blood clots years after implantation have caused cardiologists to revert to uncoated, bare stents. Such stents are more likely to let an artery reclog and need another stent later, but have been suspected to be safer, especially in patients who can't afford the anticlotting drug Plavix.

Statistical analyses have generally found coated stents to be as safe as bare ones, and some studies have found coated stents to be safer. Manufacturers, including Boston Scientific Corp. and Johnson & Johnson, complained that the blood-clot fears were overblown and have predicted a comeback, or at least that the decline in market share would bottom out, since 2006.

The declines led to layoffs at Boston Scientific and J&J. Stents in general were also hit by a critical study last March, showing stenting could be delayed in favor of drug treatment in some patients.

Now, a bottom appears to have arrived, at least for coated stents' share of the stent market. Coated stents were used in 68% of U.S. stent procedures in July, 66% in August, and then roughly 62% in each month for the rest of 2007, according to the Goodroe data. The firm didn't immediately have data on how many stents were implanted overall.

More competition is on the way in the market. On Friday, Medtronic Inc. won approval from the Food and Drug Administration to sell a new coated stent, the Endeavor, which will be the first new coated stent on the U.S. market since 2004. Later this year, the FDA is expected to approve another coated stent, the Xience V, sold by Abbott Laboratories and Boston Scientific. Boston Scientific's Taxus Express stent currently has about 55% of the U.S. market. J&J's Cypher has the rest.

Tomorrow, Boston Scientific will report fourth-quarter earnings. Analysts are predicting a net loss of three cents a share on average, including restructuring charges, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.