Boston Scientific Corporation Message Board

Cool. How's that $30.00 trade feeling? I gotta
admit, since this whole thing started I've only added
about 500 CSCO, most of the additions have been in SUNW
which is just blind luck to have exploded like it
has...
Beez

Beezerx2, there you go again getting ahead of
yourself. Our last 6 month return bet between BSX and CSCO
went from 2/12/99-8/12/99(which was a tie). Our
current one is over the 6 months starting 8/12/99 and
ending 2/12/99. BSX was at 34.375 and CSCO was at
127.13(63.57) Granted CSCO has a good lead but we still have 4
months to go. See you at the finish line. P.S. while BSX
has been going down I did some buys, one at ~30 and
one at ~21. 34.375 really isn't a fair starting
point, 18-20 would be better, but we will use 34.375 so
that you don't have any excuses when you lose. Good
luck
Beez
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Just wondering where you have been since telling
me that investing in Cisco and SUN and letting it
ride is not as lucritive as trading BSX. Since that
little exchange, CSCO is up 24%, SUN is up 52% and BSX
is down 42%. Oh yeah, I've only paid about $32.00 in
trade commissions since then, how about you?
Beez

there were also some good data back in the 80's
that demonstrated efficacy in mouse with high m.w. in
<3mm arterial grafts that stayed patent for 5 years.
In l997, Schmidmaier, G., et al, Med. Klinic,
Technicsche Univ., Munchen, posted an Abstract at the ACC on
PLA/PEG-Hirudin results in pigs with no
inflammation.

No,I'm not the DrLipoxxx from L.I.

I understand
that the IP situation is grandfathered back several
patents, especially on the PGE-1 and various congugates.

Thanks for the info. I will take a look at the
data you referenced. Do you know which animal model
was used in the experiments you cited? The reaction
to the degradation products of such polymers varies
from one species to another so an important factor is
which animal was used.

Now, you're not the
famous Dr Lipoxxxx of Long Island, NY are you? Tell the
truth now.

You are right in that the data I
quoted is from studies performed some time back. If ENDV
is using a variant which overcomes the problems seen
with other biodegradable materials then they are
indeed on the right track. This has to be an area for
the future, but will have some lengthy regulatory
issues and extensive experimentation to contend with.
The FDA will need a lot of evidence of both safety
and efficacy before approving the product. Europe is
a different issue - still a lot easier to get your
product approved, and a great deal of inconsistency
between different Notified Bodies that allow the products
to be marketed.

The whole issue of
biodegradable coatings and also stents is interesting and there
seems to be increasing activity in this area after the
setbacks of three or so years ago. The abstracts from the
European Society meeting in Barcelona which took place
this week bear testimony to that. A small, but
significant number of papers on biodegradable stents
presented.

This is certainly an area to keep an eye on. ENDV's
biggest obstacle might be the IP situation, which if you
are the real Dr Lipoxxxx, you will know all
about.

Woody

but your information is slightly
dated.

Yes, low molecular weight (MW) poly L-lactic acid
(PLLA) produced some vascular inflammatory responce in
early stent experiments. However, ENDV uses a high MW
PLLA substrate cross-linked with prostaglandin E-1
(which has demonstrated potent smooth muscle cell (SMC)
inhibition): Seidel, et al, "Invitro Inhibition of Smooth
Muscle Cell Migration with Liposomal Prostaglandin
E-1(PGE-1)", Baylor Coll. of Med., Awarded Abstract, 46 Ann.
Sci. Sess, Am. Coll. of Ang. 1998.

The Finns
prsent more data this week at the Europ. Soc. of
Vascular Surg. in Copenhagan. (Hietala,E.M., et al., Self
Expanding Polylactide Stent Degradates Safely in Small
Vessels: Results..." In 15 stents Helsinki investagators
found no long term foreign body or inflammatory
reactions, and vessel lumens remained open after 24 months.


Seems to me that ENDV is on the right track.

What exactly have you been hearing about Cordis
being acquired? I know that JNJ has not supported them
well in the past. So tell me, what do you see in your
crystal ball? You seem to have some good insight about
this industry. Thanks, your input is always
appreciated.

Thanks for your informative comment of the past
and hopefully future. You obviously know what you are
talking about. About the CTSI deal. Rumor has it that
Richer F. will stick around for maybe a year to help in
integrating CTSI into GDT and then onto another startup.
Maybe a dot com with a medical connection. Apparently
this may be already in progress.

Maybe R.F.
figured that taking a smaller profit now was better than
losing later in a fight with a big company.There are
questions about the strength of CTSI'
I.P.portfolio.

On the charitable donation, that is a fine thing
to do. I will come up with a suggestion that meets
with your approval. However, I thought the collection
process would be memorable.

You are kidding about
Cordis?

How did I know about CTSI and GDT? - just lucky I
guess. I knew GDT and JNJ were looking at them (as well
as one or two others), but GDT seemed to make good
sense, and JNJ usually take forever to decide. Rumors
intensified about a month or so ago in certain financial
circles, which is when I made certain
conclusions.

So what do you think of the sell out after your
comments about Rich F (who's now Rich ER - pardon the
pun). It seemed the management decided it was a good
time to cash in their chips and go on to other things.
The very small premium over the current stock price
is no surprise. The deal was probably agreed when
the price was down around $15 - $16. Be interesting
to see how this is integrated within GDT. You're
right, it's a shame BSX didn't go for it, but it seems
it was the wrong time, although they must have been
interested. Not sure I like the companies left to choose from
in this field very much.

I believe that
selling now makes good sense. If we look at the
cardiovascular field it is tough, and very expensive for a young
company to move forward alone to commercialise its
technology. Selling through distributors in International
markets is one option, but so much training is needed in
this case, both of the physician and the rep, that you
need specialists to do the product justice. Plus we
are seeing this with other young companies in Europe
with good technology - the independent distributor
rarely does justice to the product, and until you can
build up sales and profits to a certain level you can't
afford to hire your own people. Faced with that type of
scenario, the best option is to get one of the big players
with the commercial infrastructure (extensive sales
and marketing) to distribute your product, or sell
out to one of them. Commercialising a technology from
ground zero, especially such a new technology as that of
CTSI requires big bucks. So the time was right to do a
deal. What this means is that BSX, GDT, MDT and JNJ (to
an extent) will dominate the field for years to
come. So who else might join the ranks of the big
cardiovascular player? - perhaps St Jude and Abbott - if they
make the right acquisitions. I don't rate Baxter's
chances very highly. All this is just an opinion and open
to debate.

Route17, regarding the wager, why
don't you donate the value of a bottle of Krug to a
local children's charity (including the Fedex charge
you would have incurred sending it to the UK, of
course!). I'll look forward to the next wager. Would anyone
like to offer an opinion as to who will acquire Cordis
in the next 30 days? My sources say....or am I
kidding?

Woody

Having watched Pete Nicholas in action for a
number of years I do not believe that he is the type
that is forced to do things. Parts of BSC may be on
the block as some parts of the business are not
performing as well as some of the other parts of the
business. How about some substantive information on these
topics like which part is on the block? Just because
some folks come in from Baxter does not mean that
Baxter will be buying. There are people in BSC from
Abbot and JandJ and Lilly and Medtronic and and and and
from just about every other medical device company.PS:
Woodfleet it appears that I lose the wager. It will have to
come out of my profits. I was really hoping that BSC
would somehow get a hold of CTSI. So how did you know?