Guidant Withdraws Defective Stents

Guidant Corp. suffered yet another setback yesterday when it announced it would scrap its drug-eluting stent slated for introduction in Europe because of manufacturing defects. The New York Times reports that European introduction of the Xience V stent has been pushed back to the third quarter of this year, and the company has taken a $15 million write-off for the first quarter. The firm found that about 1% of the products made in its Temecula, CA plant were not meeting specifications, but did not specify the production problem that caused them. No patients were harmed. The move does not affect the acquisition of Guidant's assets by Boston Scientfic Corp. and Abbott, and does not push back the timetable for U.S. market introduction. That's not expected until 2008. What may be affected is how long until Guidant gets out of FDA's doghouse.