Medtronic Stent Undershoots Target

WASHINGTON -- Medtronic (MDT Quote) presented clinical-trial data showing that the effectiveness of its Endeavor stent didn't vary widely from Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ Quote) Cypher, but the device missed its primary goal in the study.

Newer stents have had trouble beating out J&J's Cypher in terms of efficacy, but that isn't the only battleground. Companies have also been competing on how easy their stents are to use, or "procedure success" as opposed to success of the device itself.

Medtronic had hoped to show that the Endeavor kept arteries from narrowing as well as the Cypher, but the company said it just missed the margin that would have met the noninferiority endpoint. J&J's Cypher was the first drug-eluting stent approved in the U.S., in April 2003.

"The study did show a significant procedure success rate in favor of Endeavor when it came to deliverability and a lower rate of in-hospital myocardial infarctions," or heart attacks, according to Dr. David Kandzari, a trial investigator and professor of interventional cardiology at Duke Medical Center. ...