Cleveland Clinic shuns Boston Scientific stents

Back in 2006, Cleveland Clinic anointed Boston Scientific as its preferred supplier of drug-coated stents. At the time, though, Johnson & Johnson had the only other coated stent on the U.S. market.

Times have changed--and so has the Cleveland Clinic. Doctors there will be trying out "most of the products" in the drug-coated stent market over the next year. Then, the clinic will whittle the choices down to one or two again.

The thing is, "most" apparently doesn't include Boston Scientific. Medtronic, Abbott Laboratories, and Johnson & Johnson all confirm that their products made the cut. Boston Scientific won't comment. Medtronic and Abbott, as you know, each have new coated stents approved this year; Boston Scientific has a new version of its Taxus product in the regulatory pipeline.

- read the story at CNN Money
- see the Wall Street Journal article