Panel recommends Abbott stents
From Times Wire Services
Abbott Laboratories’ experimental heart stent should be cleared for sale because it worked as well as devices already on the market to prop open clogged arteries, a U.S. advisory panel said.
Outside experts for the Food and Drug Administration voted 9 to 1 to recommend that the stent, called Xience, be approved. The panel also said the Abbott Park, Ill.-based company should do long-term studies on whether the drug-coated device causes potentially deadly blood clots.
Xience would compete with Boston Scientific Corp.’s Taxus and Johnson & Johnson’s Cypher.
