Medical Device Daily Associate

As the bidding war for Guidant (Indianapolis) continued to play itself out as the week began, several new factors were added to an already much-too-complex equation.

Guidant, which already has reported a slew of problems with its pacemakers last year, on Monday reported a new problem with some of its older devices. Additionally, rumors began to fly that Johnson & Johnson (J&J; New Brunswick, New Jersey), the original suitor in the escalating bid to acquire Guidant, was poised to make a higher offer for the company.

Guidant said it had identified a second batch of older-model pacemakers that are at risk of malfunction due to a problem with a sealing component. The company recommended physicians reassess their patients due to the discovery of additional devices with the potential defect.

Guidant, which said there have been 145 incidents of malfunction to date related to the seal problem, estimated 16,000 of the affected devices remain implanted in patients worldwide.

This new leak disclosure adds to a previous physician notification made this past July (Medical Device Daily, July 19, 2005).

At the time of the first notification, the company said that as of July 11 it had identified 69 devices that may have exhibited this failure, from about 78,000 devices distributed with this component, with about 28,000 devices still implanted worldwide.

It said that no failures were reported for the first 44 months of device use but that “the likelihood of occurrence increases with implant time.“ Of the 28,000 devices identified and implanted worldwide, 18,000 of them remain in service in the U.S., with an average implant age of 69 months.

As of Jan. 9, a total of five reported incidents out of the second identified patient population of 54,000 represented a rate of occurrence of 0.009%. Guidant said it has confirmed hermetic seal degradation in two of the five reports. It is estimated that 19,300 devices in this second population remain implanted worldwide.

At the time devices in the second population were assembled, the company said hermetic sealing components susceptible to gradual degradation were mistakenly mixed with a much larger group of non-susceptible components.

The devices in this latest notification were manufactured between Oct. 19, 1998, and Dec. 5, 2000.

Guidant's warranty supplement program, subject to certain conditions, provides a no-cost replacement device and up to $2,500 in unreimbursed medical expenses. The program is available through June 30 and is applicable to both patient populations.

Apparently neither this latest news, nor the documents un-sealed in a Texas court last week that showed that Guidant executives had debated whether to tell doctors about possible heart device malfunctions six months before the problems were publicly disclosed, has deterred J&J from making a possible new increased offer for the embattled, but apparently Teflon-coated company.

Rumors began circulating on Monday that J&J would raise its offer, possibly during its quarterly earnings report today, to somewhere in the neighborhood of $77 to $78 a share still significantly below rival suitor Boston Scientific's (Natick, Massachusetts) most recent $80 a share bid but higher than its own initial December 2004 $76-a-share offer.

Fueling this speculation were rumors, some of which apparently were planted by J&J personnel as part of an organized campaign to undermine the Boston Scientific offer in the minds of analysts, that two of its patents may be infringed if an unnamed company tries to launch a drug-eluting stent coated with a derivative of rapamycin.

J&J's Cypher stent is coated with that compound, as are the experimental stents under development by Guidant and its potential partner in the bidding war for Guidant, Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, Illinois). Abbott agreed to contribute $6.4 billion to the Boston Scientific bid and acquire Guidant's vascular business including the new cardiac stent.

Larry Biegelsen, an analyst with Prudential (New York), wrote in a research report that “this potential for J&J to prevent Abbott Laboratories and Boston Scientific from marketing [Guidant's] Xience-V DES, could give Guidant's board pause approving a Boston Scientific-Guidant merger.“

While Biegelsen said a $78-a-share offer was likely, he noted that J&J, with much larger pockets than Boston Scientific, could go as high as $90 a share for Guidant “before an acquisition of St. Jude Medical [St. Paul, Minnesota; another significant player in the cardiac rhythm management space] is more attractive.“

“They're trying to tell all of us that there are patents out there that they have that they feel can stop Boston Scientific,“ said Jan Wald, an analyst with A.G. Edwards (Boston), in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. Wald said he was called by a J&J employee he declined to name.

As part of its recent campaign, J&J also has argued that Boston Scientific's bid was breaking its bank and that its assumptions concerning Guidant's cardiac rhythm management were too aggressive.

While Guidant's board remained silent, Guidant's suitors disputed the rumors floating around Wall Street.

“We believe this issue has no bearing on our proposed acquisition of Guidant. Unfortunately, threats of legal action are commonplace in our industry,“ Paul Donovan, a spokesman for Boston Scientific, said in a statement.

Abbott spokesman Jonathon Hamilton said the company was undeterred by the report. “We are confident we have freedom to operate,“ Hamilton said of Abbott's stent. “With respect to Guidant's product, it would be inappropriate for us to comment.“

Guidant said last week that Boston Scientific's offer of $80 a share $42 in cash and $38 in stock is “superior“ to J&J's current bid of $24.2 billion, or $71 a share, consisting of $40.52 in cash plus 0.493 of a J&J share for each Guidant share held (MDD, Jan. 18, 2006). J&J had until today to make a counteroffer.