10 Hot Devices We Can't Get in the U.S.—Abbott's Absorb

Abbott's Absorb Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffold (BVS) is a drug-eluting device that is used in angioplasty to open a narrowed coronary artery. The scaffold dissolves after about two years, so patients no longer have a foreign device in their arteries.

When it received CE Mark back in January 2011, Absorb was the first drug-eluting BVS to be approved. Since then, iterations on the platform have been approved—most recently, the Absorb GT1 with the GlideTrack catheter received CE Mark in May 2015. Abbott recently filed a U.S. submission for FDA approval of Absorb.