Boston Scientific Very Promising New Defibrillator Statistics (BSX)
Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) has been down and almost out for almost as long as memory serves. The company can’t even blame a bear market for its share price woes. But the company has some solid news in its cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators showing a great reduction in death. If this holds up, it could be one of the best things for the company in recent periods.
The company and the University of Rochester Medical Center have announced that the landmark MADIT-CRT trial has met its primary endpoint, where the preliminary results showed the cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators with a significant 29% reduction in death or heart failure interventions when compared to traditional implantable cardioverter defibrillators.
High risk, asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, New York Heart Association Class I and II patients were enrolled in MADIT-CRT, and the data committee expects to present and publish the trial’s full results later this year. This trial was sponsored exclusively by Boston Scientific.
If the data holds up this demonstrates that early intervention with cardiac resynchronization therapy can slow the progression of heart failure. This was also the world’s largest randomized NYHA Class I/II CRT-D trial with more than 1,800 patients enrolled at 110 centers in 14 countries.
The trial is being conducted under the leadership of Principal Investigator Arthur J. Moss, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
The group also noted that more than 80% of U.S. patients who receive an ICD or CRT-D were first indicated for this therapy by a clinical trial sponsored by Boston Scientific or its predecessors.
While patients in the trial must be in NYHA Class III/IV heart failure to be indicated for CRT-D therapy, the release noted that about 70% of all heart failure patients in the U.S. fall into Class I or II. Nearly 22 million people worldwide, including approximately 5.5 million Americans, suffer from some form of heart failure.
With Boston Scientific, you never know if another bomb is around the corner. But this could be some of the first solid news in quite some time. Shares are indicated higher by 6% at $9.83 in early trading indications, and the 52-week trading range is $5.41 to $14.20.
To see how this could translate to upside, before the upside of this news analysts were looking for $8.16 billion in total 2009 revenues and $8.55 billion in 2010 revenues.
Jon C. Ogg
June 23, 2009
