So what happened with Boston Scientific in February…
Let’s start with Boston Scientific’s own press release site:
As I mentioned in my last entry, there has been a lot of news lately about the safety of drug-eluting stents (DES). In what I believe was an effort to show just the opposite, Boston Scientific released a press release on February 5 summarizing the results of a study of the outcomes of patients receiving DES versus those receiving bare-metal stents (BMS). In order to combat potentially negative press from the ongoing DES debate, it is important that Boston Scientific help provide consumers and investors with factual information from studies such as this that help show the benefits patients could see from the use of a DES.
Similarly, Boston Scientific provided another press release on February 12 about some articles the New England Journal of Medicine will be releasing in March.
Finally, on February 28, Boston Scientific had another news release announcing its “Race Against Pain” program. According to Michael Onuscheck, “The Race Against Pain campaign will help raise awareness for the under-recognized medical discipline of pain management and help guide chronic pain sufferers to possible solutions.” So why would Boston Scientific have such an interest in promoting pain management alternatives? According to Boston Scientific’s site, one pain management technology it developed, Precision SCS system, brings in $100 million a year in revenue. There are benefits the Precision system can bring to patients suffering from chronic pain, including a smaller, longer lasting system that is designed to send help right to the nerves causing the pain.
In other news:
In a February 12 Business Week article, it was reported that Boston Scientific’s stock prices fell 2% from the previous day. Looking at the stock price across the month of February, the outlook is bleak. The stock fell from $18.08 to $15.99 from February 5 to March 2, a decrease of roughly 11%. The article in Business Week attributed the fall on the 12th to competition in the DES arena as well as rising operating costs for new technology. As mentioned in this Wall Street Journal article, the fall in stock prices could be attributed to the fall in DES sales for Boston Scientific. Perhaps the fall could also be coming from the acquisition of Guidant Corp. that has gone sour.
We’ll see what happens in March…
