[Click on Post Title for Link to External Article]
The Premise
The link up here refers to an article from The Canadian Press telling a grim tale of Angiotech's bleak future stemming from its inability to raise much needed funds.
And no, it has nothing to do with the "financial crisis" caused by banks that tried to make "something out of nothing". This has something to do with "drug eluting stents" which I also believe has a lot to do with the words something and nothing...
I have long lamented the lack of definitive proof that drug eluting stents, or for that matter if stents really work at all. The same question and lament goes to the "pioneers" of "balloon, bell and whistle angioplasty" who are labeling themselves experts and innovators quite generously.
Well, let's comeback to the stents beeswax anyway..
Not only have stents not performed in the market, they have also failed to perform inside the human body. Angiotech is just another proof of organizations that overtly stressed and counted on an unproven "technology", in this case Taxus.
What intrigues me is that the FDA has failed to question any of the drug eluting stents and their effectiveness. Our darling, the beautiful baby called "preemption" that the lovely Supreme Court handed us, allows us to theoretically assume that an FDA approval precludes "high levels of performance strictly in accordance with product labeling and marketing for which the device has been approved", how come reality seems to differ?
(Well, we all know accepting preemption is like stepping on horse do and continuing to stand on it, pretending the odor will just go away...well, if the device was put inside you and someone claimed preemption, how will you feel? Ever thought of that amigos?)
This is the last call for passengers of the "reality express" to dismount from the plumbing, er, stenting train.
Here are somethings to think about:
1. A nexus proof, large scale study on drug eluting stents. NIH should be dumping money on this, if at all to stop the money bleeding and waste on health care costs.
2. Companies, especially startups, (you know the ones that don't have too much money to throw away on full page ads, sponsorship of TCT and so on...) should really, really ask themselves if they want to go down the elusive, I mean eluting stent business?
3. VCs should really question further investment in stent companies. Let's see - where did Taxus get BSC and now Angiotech? What has Endavor done to Medtronic? And Xience, well its just Taxus (in case you don't know the whole Guidant story - which means a large portion of this rant makes no sense to you).
And no, I am not buying the bio-resorbable theory either..till I see scientific proof.
4. There seem to be so many companies with the -stent suffix, ThisStent, ThatStent and the NewNewStent..that soon we won't have "-stent" name combinations left...at least somebody stop it for that sake please!
5. Somebody should ask the FDA if it remembers what "post market followup" means. And they should also ask the FDA if they remember having something to do with enforcing something called "post market approvals and follow up".
People who advocate drug eluting stents to me right now look like people propounding all those "weight loss" drugs on TV.
Don't believe me? - I will give you a list of companies. Go look at their current status with reference to stents - BSC, Medtronic, Xtent, Angiotech...
A few random FEA runs on stent designs do not make for fundamental, analytical, scientific proof, without which we should rather be advocating healthier lifestyles and medical treatment.
No comments:
Post a Comment