When it comes to commercialization efforts of renal denervation therapy, St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) is behind Medtronic (NYSE:MDT).But St. Jude Medical is hoping that slow and steady may still win the race in the quest to use this novel treatment in patients whose high blood pressure is not controlled by medication.The device maker announced Tuesday [...]

Life science current events this week include J&J and MDT’s contrasting acquisition strategies, the transcatheter valve replacement market and cardiovascular disease medical device companies.

The Heart Rhythm Society’s annual meeting kicked off today in Boston, and reportedly the session on the faulty St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) ICD leads was packed.The problem with St. Jude Medical’s defective Riata and Riata ST leads is well known — lead wires have a potential to poke through insulation and hurt patients. Others have [...]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new, smaller implantable cardioverter defibrillator made by St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ), the medical device maker announced Wednesday.The announcement comes less than a month after the device maker said that European regulators had given the nod to the same device — the Ellipse ICD.The Ellipse is the [...]

St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) announced Tuesday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the Assura line of implantable cardioverter defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization therapy devices.The new devices reduce the potential for inappropriate shocking because the device has advanced algorithms that can discern between a real event requiring a life-saving therapy and one that [...]

St. Jude Medical and Abbott announced Monday that they are expanding a marketing relationship, and striking a new distribution partnership such that they can present a bundled package of cardiovascular products to hospital customers.A medical device marketing expert said that because the two companies have complementary products the partnership brings a potential competitive advantage. That’s [...]

St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ), which reported better-than-expected results for the first quarter, is expecting an improvement in its U.S. implanted cardioverter defibrillator business.“On the cardiac rhythm business, we have a lot of good, positive early indicators,” said CEO Daniel Starks, in a conference call on Wednesday. “We measure the total number of active accounts — [...]

By several estimations, the response from St. Jude Medical (NYSE: STJ) to a prominent cardiologist critical of the company’s faulty Riata leads has been unprecedented.St. Jude Medical launched an offensive against Dr. Robert Hauser, a senior consulting cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute, calling his study critical of the company’s recalled leads as inaccurate and [...]

St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) announced Tuesday that it has won Japanese regulatory approval to market a new smaller heart valve in Japan.The new Trifecta aortic stented, pericardial tissue valve has been implanted in procedures atOsaka University Hospital and Saitama Medical University International Medical Center, according to the company.To ensure the structural integrity of the valve, [...]

St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) announced Monday that it has won regulatory approval from the European Union to market a smaller implantable cardioverter defibrillator.The Ellipse is the industry’s smallest high-voltage ICD, said a company news release that described the product as the result of physician input.The device design was arrived at through focus groups of physicians [...]