Guidant Corporation And Its Never Ending Quality Issues

March 29, 2006 -- Guidant, now in the process of being acquired by Boston Scientific, issued yet another recall today. Because it has found quality problems in some of its new Xience V cardiac stents, the company will stop enrolling patients in a clinical trial of the stent and take a $15 million write-down. The European launch of the Xience V device will now be postponed until at least the third quarter of 2006. This particular problem will ultimately rest with Abbott Labs, which will acquire the division as part of the takeover. In the long term, Abbott must also figure out a way to break the long history of quality problems with stents from Guidant. More details...