Companies

It’s a boardroom thriller of a story, a David and Goliath tale of intrigue and no little desperation. Quite what the board of AorTech or for that matter St.Jude have gone through over the past year, goodness knows, but it looks like the turbulent waters have stilled at last.

St.Jude’s shareholders are a resilient lot. It’s been bad stuff on top of bad stuff for ages, but now that Durata seems to be weathering the storm and the coating supply deal is secured, there’s just the simple matter of dealing with a stern warning letter from the FDA over its practices.

Getinge says overall full-year revenue rose organically by nearly 3%, lower than the expected volume growth. Ii’s fingering weak demand for capital goods in Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

The first patient has been recruited to a new clinical trial, which represents one of the largest global studies to examine the effectiveness of an advanced mechanical treatment in stroke care.

When a company enters into a study as big as this one, it must be pretty confident of a favourable outcome. In the case of Medtronic’s New CRT-P study the company will win big if it can show patient benefit from treating earlier stage heart failure.

In what is another sign of consolidation in the medical device industry, orthopaedic giant Zimmer Inc is reportedly closing its Austin, Texas operation.

UK pharma outfit, Shire plc , is to acquire Lotus Tissue Repair, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company developing the first and only protein replacement therapy currently being investigated for the treatment of dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB). DEB is a devastating orphan disease for which there is no currently approved treatment option other than palliative care.

Stryker’s preliminary net sales for the fourth quarter of $2.3 billion, and full year 2012 $8.7 billion represent increases of 5.5% and 4.2%, respectively. The company is overhauling international operations in order to fully exploit opportunities in Europe and emerging markets.

Biomet has released its financial results for the most recent quarter, showing a net sales increase of 9% compared with a year ago. Income and earnings showed similarly healthy increases, although one-off costs translated into a significantly bigger net loss than in the equivalent period.

St. Jude Medical, Inc. revenues for the quarter just ended again showed a decline compared with the equivalent period a year ago, although the drop-off was overall slightly less marked than it had been in Q3. And the bottom line held up as cost saving measures played out.

GI Dynamics has announced that it has entered into separate research collaborations with GlaxoSmithKline and Medtronic in an effort to understanding how EndoBarrier® works in relation to diabetes.

Abbott’s newly announced Absorb™ absorbable stent trial is unquestionably huge, the number probably driven by the quest for significant results and the additional study end points identified in the protocol. Data from the ABSORB III trial will support U.S. regulatory filings for the device.

Orthofix International N.V., has followed its preliminary financials with the announcement that it is launching the CONSTRUX® Mini PEEK Titanium Composite™ (PTC) Spacer System through its spine distribution network.

A poor Q4 for Orthofix in its international markets, has meant that annual sales of approximately $462M are well below the projection of $472-475M made as recently as one quarter ago. U.S. business looks resilient however.

A new company, CardioLogical Solutions, has been formed from the merger of Emboline and VasoStitch, to provide a comprehensive suite of technologies. The focus will be on addressing the three biggest and most pressing clinical needs to make TAVR procedures truly percutaneous and safer.

Covidien is trumpeting the five-year results of its ClosureFast™ Long-Term European Multi-Centre Study in patients with Chronic Venous Insufficiency. 92% of patients still had effective occlusion of target vessels after five years, supporting the claim that the treatment is durable in the longer term.