Originally Published
MX July/August 2002

BUSINESS NEWS

Medtronic
and Abbott Partner on Stent Program

Playing catch-up
in the race to capture a share of the rapidly developing market for drug-eluting
vascular stents, Medtronic Inc. (Minneapolis) and Abbott Laboratories (Abbott
Park, IL) have entered into a strategic partnership that promises to bring both
companies to market sooner than either could have achieved on its own.

Under the partnership
agreements, Abbott will grant Medtronic coexclusive access to its proprietary
immunosuppression drug ABT-578 for use in Medtronic’s drug-eluting-stent
program. Abbott’s ABT-578 is an analogue of the drug rapamycin, which has
shown early promise in clinical trials of drug-eluting stents.

The agreements
also call for Abbott to provide Medtronic with access to the phosphorylcholine
(PC) coating it has licensed from Biocompatibles International plc (Farnham,
Surrey, UK) for use in conjunction with ABT-578. PC is a biocompatible polymer
copy of the outside surface of a red blood cell that mimics the structure of