Boston Scientific ($BSX) is revving up for two major international product launches: a new drug-eluting stent system to treat peripheral artery lesions and an updated implantable defibrillator lead.
The company's Promus Element Plus below-the-knee, everolimus-eluting stent system to treat critical limb ischemia will now be available in a number of European countries in two different versions. Separately, Boston Scientific is rolling out in Europe and Asia its new Reliance 4-Front next-generation implantable defibrillation lead, which is designed to be smaller than previous iterations and is coated to prevent the growth of tissue into defibrillation coils.
Both of these moves are strategic steps for a company trying to shock its cardiac rhythm management and interventional cardiology business back into an upswing. To get there, Boston Scientific is pursuing both difficult and ambitious steps, with executives enacting an undisclosed number of job cuts in an effort to boost efficiency, plus strategic acquisitions and an aggressive bid to update products both here in the U.S. and overseas.
Regarding Promus Element Plus, Boston Scientific points out that critical limb ischemia, where blood flow to the feet and legs becomes severely restricted, hits between 500 to 1,000 cases per million people each year in Europe, so an updated product in this space can only gain attention and aid in the bid to boost market share. Similarly, Boston Scientific notes that Asia is one of the world's fastest growing markets for implantable cardioverter defibrillators. Europe, by contrast is a more mature market where experts are focusing on lead reliability. But the company says its updated Reliance ICD lead addresses both needs pretty aggressively.
Over the summer, interim CEO Hank Kucheman told FierceMedicalDevices that he sees a steady update of both regular and new products as part of a long-term plan to generative significant new revenues over the next 12 to 18 months. We'll likely get an update as to how that plan is going, when Boston Scientific announces its 2012 third quarter results, likely some time in October.
- read the Promus Element announcement
- here are details about the Reliance ICD lead