The Cypher sirolimus-eluting coronary stent from Cordis (Miami Lakes, Florida) has now been implanted in more than 1 million cardiac patients around the world since its first market introduction in Europe in April 2002. The total number of stents implanted in these patients is about 1.5 million stents.

Cordis, a unit of Johnson & Johnson (J&J; New Brunswick, New Jersey), said the Cypher stent is “one of the industry's most quickly adopted medical technologies and has been key in fundamentally changing the practice of interventional cardiology.“ The Cypher is available in more than 80 countries, Cordis said.

Martin Leon, MD, of Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital (New York), said, “This medical technology of drug-eluting stents has introduced a new era in cardiology where patients can be treated less invasively and have a better chance of avoiding a repeat cardiac procedure.“ Leon was the first physician in the U.S. to treat a patient with the Cypher stent after its approval by the FDA in April 2003 (Medical Device Daily, April 25, 2003).

The report from Cordis follows that of Boston Scientific (Natick, Massachusetts), which said it reached the 1 million mark of implantations of its Taxus drug-eluting stent (DES) in January (MDD, Jan. 24, 2005). The Taxus received FDA approval in March 2004.

CHF Technologies now BioVentrix

CHF Technologies (Danville, California), a congestive heart failure company, changed its name to BioVentrix — a CHF Technologies' Company. The company will continue to provide congestive heart failure (CHF) patients with a minimally invasive surgery option using the Blue Egg Sizer, a tool used in heart resizing procedures developed by BioVentrix.

More than 5 million Americans suffer from CHF, and almost 1,000 people die every day from the condition. The company's device, the Blue Egg Sizer, enables a surgeon to use a minimally invasive technique in which a 2-inch incision is cut between a patient's ribs — rather than cracking open the chest to reach the heart. The Blue Egg Sizer is temporarily placed inside the dying left ventricle and is used to resize the heart. This technique also “cuts the patient's healing time significantly,“ the company said.

ChromaVision to become Clarient

ChromaVision Medical Systems (San Juan Capistrano, California), a technology and services resource for pathologists, oncologists and the pharmaceutical industry, said that it is changing its name to Clarient “in order to better reflect a new strategy, direction and business plan that have been expanded to serve three distinct markets.“

The company expects the name change to be in effect by March 15. It has reserved the ticker symbol CLRT with Nasdaq, and the company's shares are expected to begin trading under that new symbol in mid-March.

CEO Ron Andrews said, “For years, ChromaVision has been creating a disproportionate amount of value for others in the diagnostics field by allowing them to market our imaging technology and expertise. Clarient will operate with the mission of capturing that value for the benefit of Clarient shareholders.“

Under the Clarient name, the company will be organized into three business units: diagnostic services, which provides a full range of onsite and remote advanced cancer diagnostic testing; biopharmaceutical services, which provides technology to drug companies in pursuit of a new targeted cancer therapies; and the company's legacy imaging equipment product line.