Category: Stents

MEwens
It’s awfully hard for patients to participate in decisions about their medical care if they don’t know all their options.
But that’s exactly what seems to be happening, at least with many Medicare patients who received a stent procedure for coronary disease or prostate surgery for cancer, according to a new study.
The research, published […]

noreply@blogger.com (RCoffield@fsblaw.com)
Boston Scientific said today that it will pay Johnson & Johnson $1.7 billion (with a “b”!) to settle some longstanding patent disputes over stents.
One interesting way to put that number in context: J&J’s total sales of drug-eluting stents last year amounted to $919 million, according to this SEC filing. We haven’t seen […]

Jacob Goldstein
A year ago, eight companies, including several fierce rivals, announced plans for an unusual $100 million study to address a huge question plaguing the market for artery-opening devices called coronary stents: How long do patients need to take blood-thinning drugs to prevent rare but life-threatening blood clots from re-clogging the devices.
Now, the […]

Jacob Goldstein
A year ago, eight companies, including several fierce rivals, announced plans for an unusual $100 million study to address a huge question plaguing the market for artery-opening devices called coronary stents: How long do patients need to take blood-thinning drugs to prevent rare but life-threatening blood clots from re-clogging the devices.
Now, the […]

JGrimes
After years of bitter legal fights, peace could be rearing its ugly head in the stent world.
Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson today announced a $716 million settlement involving more than a dozen stent-related patent lawsuits.
In July, Medtronic said it would pay Abbott $400 million to settle their patent battles over stents. Medtronic […]

Jacob Goldstein
Sen. John Kerry hasn’t been shy about supporting new taxes to pay for the health-care overhaul. The Massachusetts Democrat was the force behind a provision in the Senate Finance Committee’s health bill that puts a 35% tax on generous health-insurance plans, the bill’s main source of new revenue.
But when it comes to […]

JGrimes
In addition to everything else, the Baucus bill wants to make drug and other medical companies to report payments to doctors and hospitals when they pass certain levels. How much triggers a report, you ask? Any individual payment over $10 or total payments to a recipient of more than $100 a year.
Under […]

Jacob Goldstein
In its earnings report late yesterday, Boston Scientific said it’s on track to have its first profitable year since 2005. Here’s the company’s statement and the WSJ story.
One detail that caught our eye: The company said U.S. sales of drug-eluting coronary stents were up year over year — $238 million for the […]

JGrimes
There’s a bit off buzz around a drug called rapamycin this morning: A study published in Nature that found mice that took the rapamycin lived longer than mice that did not. Aside from noting that mice are not people, we’ll leave the descriptions of the rapamycin study to today’s papers — here are […]

JGrimes
The American Diabetes Association’s Scientific Sessions were center stage this weekend in New Orleans. A few items of note:
Stents and certain branded drugs were no better at preventing death in some diabetic patients than a regimen of older, cheaper drugs, according to a randomized, federally funded study of more than 2,000 patients, the […]