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ANALYSTS: OUTLOOK GETTING CLOUDIER FOR BOSTON SCIENTIFIC'S STENT PRODUCTS

January 15, 2007

Boston Scientific is facing serious challenges to its product lines, analysts say.

Those challenges include a lack of visibility in the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator market, mounting competition in the European drug-eluting stent market, the timing of U.S. approval for the Taxus Liberté stent and a lack of visibility on the internal new product pipeline, RBC Capital Markets analyst Phil Nalbone said in a Jan. 11 research note.

In looking at the firm's projected fourth-quarter 2006 earnings, sales of its core products declined 1 percent, to roughly $1.52 billion, and the firm's Guidant products overall were down 2.5 percent from the year-earlier $556 billion, Nalbone said.

Overseas, preliminary sales of the firm's Taxus drug-eluting stent came in "about $13 million below our forecast of $177 million, which underscores the competitive pressures Boston Scientific is facing in the drug-eluting stent market," Nalbone said.