Yes, the figures are right. This under BIG's "Champion" DES using Everolimus drug, Biodegradable polymer and S-Stent (stainless steel). Guidant played "dirty" and claimed that the s-stent can crack and discountinued the "Champion" program. BIG wanted to further look into their complains as S-stent is a proven BMS already and no had such complains before. But Guidant just "bo chap" and started their own version of DES after they "leant some skills" from BIG. This is a basta#d Ang Moh Chao Kuan pattern. I think Guidant want to stop paying future royalties under "Champion" program and avoid breaching BIG's "Limus on biodegradable" patent so they started their own Everolimus DES on their "Multi-link Vision" BMS on durable polymer to avoid breach of patent. But they have learnt a bit of DES skills from BIG and created their own Xience DES. Up to them to use durable polymer because Xience have late-thrombosis problems liao. Xience DES can never beat Biomatrix on this blood clot area. I also believe Biomatrix has a slight advantage over Xience for short-term performance. BIG is the real grandmaster of DES technology. But what a waste BIG does not have the funds to accelerate their DES programs. If JNJ had taken over BIG years ago, ABT and MDT will never have a chance as a new entrant into this DES industry. I said before JNJ is calling bluff and they are starting their new Sirolimus Costar DES so that JNJ will not look so desperate for new acquisition. This new DES will never work and in actual fact JNJ is eyeing BIG. Its like a poker card game and they don't show their real intentions. Just like BIG said many times they want to remain independent. Offer BIG $3 and see what happens.    

Also, the bloomberg article figures may be wrong. Current global DES sales are over US$5B a year. It peaked in 2005 at US$6B a year. I think Xience only has a current market share of around 10%. One year later can grab 36% of global market share is overly optimistic. I have attached a pie chart on annual global DES sales from BIG's analysts conference on Aug 2007:

http://info.sgx.com/webcoranncatth.nsf/VwAttachments/Att_7598D0B0A5F0818D4825733300302CDA/$file/JWMS_Briefing_Presentatio_Slides.pdf?openelement

Hi Bengster,

What is yr comments on Abbot's stent:-

What's Abbott Xience Stent Worth? Market Bottom to $70 a Share
By Lisa Rapaport and Michelle Fay Cortez

May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Abbott Laboratories may seize more than a third of the $4 billion market for heart stents when its Xience is approved. That's enough to drive the shares to a 10- year high.

Sales of drug-covered stents used to prop open clogged arteries plunged 40 percent, and doctors turned to older, bare- metal versions, after studies in 2006 showed they can trigger clots and increase death rates. Research released in the last year found Xience is safer, persuading doctors to resume use of the drug-coated products.

Abbott anticipates U.S. approval of Xience in mid-2008. The performance of the device in patient tests is likely to help it grab market share from Boston Scientific Corp., Johnson & Johnson, and Medtronic Inc. As a result, Abbott may surge 33 percent to $70 a share over the next year as doctors embrace Xience, said Jan David Wald, a Stanford Group analyst. Stephen O'Neil, with Hilliard Lyons in Louisville, Kentucky, says Abbott may reach $75 within two years because of the stent.

``With Xience, Abbott has gone from being a wannabe to one of the most important players,'' said Wald, a Boston-based device analyst, in an interview. ``Abbott is going to trade as a stent company and rise on the success of Xience.''

Xience will garner about 36 percent of the global drug- coated stent market by next year, said Larry Biegelsen, an analyst with Wachovia Capital Markets in New York, in a note to clients. Xience will add about $1.5 billion, or 46 cents a share, to Abbott's earnings by 2012, he said. The market peaked near $5 billion in 2006.

Abbott, of Abbott Park, Illinois, fell 73 cents or 1.4 percent, to $52.75 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, after dropping 6.8 percent in the 12 months before today.

5,000 Stents a Year

Technology advantages will make Xience the top seller, said Samin Sharma, director of interventional cardiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. Sharma, who implants about 5,000 stents a year, said 60 percent of his procedures will use Xience.

``Abbott is the clear winner,'' Sharma said in an interview. ``Xience is the closest to the ideal stent available for the next several years.''

Medtronic spokesman Joe McGrath declined to say how much market share Xience may command. ``In order to gain any market share, it will have to come to market first,'' McGrath said in an interview.

Sharing the Gain

Boston Scientific will share some of Abbott's gain because the company will sell a version of Xience called Promus, said spokesman Paul Donovan.

J&J spokesman Chris Allman also wouldn't comment on how much market share Xience would grab. J&J's Cypher stent ``has the largest clinical body of evidence of any drug-eluting stent,'' he said in a statement.

Stents are tiny metal mesh tubes that keep arteries open after doctors clear clogged vessels in a procedure called a balloon angioplasty. The devices are coated with a chemical polymer and drugs to prevent the growth of tissue re-blocking the artery, the main complication of older bare-metal models.

The $3,000 drug-coated stents almost completely displaced bare-metal versions in the U.S. in 2005. Boston Scientific's Taxus and J&J's Cypher, both drug-coated products, were used in almost 9 out of every 10 U.S. procedures in the first quarter of 2006.

Doctor Attitudes

J&J and Boston Scientific have both said the proportion of stent surgeries done with drug-covered versions rose in the first quarter of 2008, the first hint new data is already changing doctor's attitudes.

Each percent rise in the share of operations done with coated stents adds $30 million to the U.S. market, and every percentage gain in the number of total procedures adds another $15 million, according to Boston Scientific research.

``The market is turning around now that the data is almost overwhelmingly about the safety of drug-coated stents,'' said Gregg Stone, head of cardiovascular research at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, in an interview. ``By the end of the year we will easily see more than 70 percent of surgeries done with drug-coated stents.''

Drug covered stents won't be used quite as much as they were before clot risks were revealed because some patients won't be able to take anti-clotting drugs such as Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Plavix, said A. Michael Lincoff, vice chair of the department of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, in an interview.

`Not a Good Candidate'

``There's a real risk of clots when patients stop Plavix, and any patient likely to be noncompliant with that therapy isn't a good candidate for a drug coated stent,'' Lincoff said.

In 2009, U.S. stent sales will rise 5 percent to $1.7 billion, Biegelsen says. Xience, and a version of the same product marketed by Boston Scientific under the name Promus, will gain 40 percent of that revenue, he said. Medtronic's drug- coated Endeavor stent will grab 20 percent, and Taxus will take 29 percent, leaving Cypher with 11 percent.

Bruce Nudell, an analyst with UBS Investment Research in New York, paints a slightly more optimistic picture of the longer term prospects for Cypher and Taxus, though he too sees the older devices losing share to new competitors.

Boston Scientific's share of the U.S. market will drop to 32 percent by 2010, from 55 percent last year, Nudell said in a note to clients. By 2010, Abbott will capture 30 percent of the market, and Medtronic will gain 20 percent, leaving about 18 percent to Johnson & Johnson.

Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson say they have long- term data that will help them compete with Abbott and Medtronic. New studies show their stents are particularly effective for high-risk patients, such as those with diabetes.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lisa Rapaport in New York at Lrapaport1@bloomberg.netMichelle Fay Cortez in Minneapolis at mcortez@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 1, 2008 00:00 EDT

Bengster,

In your previous psot, you mentioned that

"The regulatory agencies like CE or FDA don't have to reject your approval. They just need to delay and delay for years until competitors (in this case the rival DES big boys) catch up with BIG's technology. "

How likely would the competitors catch up with BIG? I am kind of concern if BIG no longer enjoy the edge in the technology.