Competitive Focus
“With that fine tempered steel whose edge o'erthrows, hacks, hews, confounds, and routs opposing foes.”
“Unheard-of prowess! and unheard-of verse!”
“But art new strains invents, new glories to rehearse.”
—Cervantes, Don Quixote, page 397
After studying this chapter you should be able to:
Competitive Dynamics in the Coronary Stent Market
In April 2003 the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved a revolutionary implantable cardiac device developed by Johnson & Johnson's Cordis division. A cardiac stent is a cylinder of flexible wire-mesh implanted by cardiologists to treat the coronary artery narrowing that can cause fatal cardiac events. Cypher, Cordis's new stent, was revolutionary because it was coated with sirolimus, a drug shown to dramatically improve postoperative blood clogging. Cypher delivered very superior patient outcomes over bare-metal stents. It had an initial average selling price of approximately $3,500, while bare-metal stents at the time sold for approximately $1,000.
With the introduction ...
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