Guidant Questions Stent Quality, Halts Shipments
April 04, 2006Guidant announced last week that it had stopped enrolling patients in Japanese clinical trials and halted shipments to Europe for their Xience heart stents after discovering some of the stents didn't meet quaity sandards.
Stents are mesh tubes placed in blood vessels leading to the heart after blockages are removed. Drug coatings on many stents are intended to prevent new buildups. The $6-billion-a-year industry is dominated by Boston Scientific Corp. and Johnson & Johnson.
Xience stents are not approved in the US, and Guidant said they would delay European sales until the third quarter of 2006.
See more on the Guidant stent problem.