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NEW YORK) CNNMoney.com -- Drugmaker Abbott Laboratories released positive results of a study on its new drug-coated stent Xience, bringing it one step closer to FDA approval, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

 

The trial proved that Xience was more effective than Boston Scientific's Taxus, the current top-selling stent on the $3 billion U.S. market. Xience is currently available in Europe and parts of Asia.

 

Stents are used to open clogged arteries in heart disease patients. Xience is a more advanced, drug and polymer-coated version of Abbott's earlier model of a stent called Vision, the market leader for bare metal stents.

 

As a by product of my heart operation a few weeks ago I got a fast and interesting education regarding  stent manufacturing due to a fellow ( waiting for pace maker)who works at Medtronic in Santa Rosa, Ca .  It seems that each stent sells for 6K to 10K each.

It takes 1200 QC sign-offs for each stent .  Clean room filters cost 7K to run each hour and every hour of downtime (clean room) cost $ 1 million. 

Very interesting technology and given the rate at which American's and others around the world enjoy over eating would seem to have a bright future.

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Thanks for the background information on the manufacturing process. I find that stuff fascinating and it's amazing that we as consumers can afford (through insurance or other means) some fantastic technology.

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If you ever want a good laugh, go read the 10-K disclosures for J&J and Boston Scientific regarding the intellectual property litigation to which both are party... especially against one another. I just did so last week.

 

The estimate of $6,000 to $10,000/drug-eluting stent is high, by somewhere between 2X & 5X. That may be the cost of the device & its surgical placement, and therefore the value of Medicare reimbursement, but I can assure you that neither Boston nor Cordis - the two companies sharing the drug-eluting stent market - earn that per stent.

 

Both companies are exposed to substantial class action exposure from recent research concerning drug-eluting stents. They will be fighting it for years.

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On a similar note, catheters are another medical device that may not have the price tag of stents, but they'll make it up on volume. My little biocrap company CGXP has a novel antibiotic which has potential to greatly lower infection rates from catheters -- or, of course, to go bankrupt. DYODD.

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/cera...GXP&sid=2034686

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'Short sale' brought them relief -- which IRS is going to tax

By Robert J. Bruss, Inman News

March 25, 2007

 

Question: I understand that a "short sale" means the mortgage lender agrees to accept as payment in full a sale for a home's market value even if it is below the mortgage balance. That's what we did to sell our house in Ohio. It was worth less than our mortgage balance, and we had to move for work reasons. The lender agreed to accept a short sale for $183,785 though our mortgage balance was $210,000. But we received IRS Form 1099 from the lender showing we had taxable "debt-relief" income of $26,215. How can we be taxed on money we didn't receive?

 

 

 

Answer: As an alternative to foreclosure when a mortgage borrower stops making payments, some lenders will accept a "short sale" of the property for less than the mortgage balance. The lenders realize it is better for them to accept a short sale than to go through a foreclosure sale and lose even more money.

 

However, the IRS says debt relief is taxable. That's why your mortgage lender had to send you that 1099 form showing the exact amount of your taxable debt relief.

 

For more details, consult your tax advisor.

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It's common practice in England to ring a telephone by signaling

extra voltage across one side of the two wire circuit and ground.

When the subscriber answers the phone, it switches to the two

wire circuit for the conversation. This method allows two parties

on the same line to be signalled without disturbing each other.

 

Anyway, an elderly lady with several pets called to say that her

telephone failed to ring when her friends called; and that on

the few occasions when it did ring her dog always barked first.

The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see

this psychic dog.

 

He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set and

dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring. He tried

again. The dog barked loudly, followed by a ringing telephone.

 

Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman

found:

1. A dog was tied to the telephone system's ground

post via an iron chain and collar.

2. The dog was receiving a 90 volt signalling current.

3. After several such jolts, the dog would start

barking and urinating on the ground.

4. The wet ground now completed the circuit and the

phone would ring.

 

Which shows you that some problems can be fixed by

just pissing on them

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Wndy's favorite Crash expert is on financialsense this weekend

 

Bob McHugh

http://www.netcastdaily.com/fsnewshour.htm

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Why would anyone waste their time, other than out of morbid curiosity?

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Ok, I didn't waste my time, but instead I decided to waste my time looking at 4th quarters on the spx for 2003-2006. I must have a little LeeWhee in me.

 

The object of my focus was the time in which the SPX pulled back either 1/2 or 2/3 of the gains made during the 4rd quarter.

 

4th quarter 2003 - 1/2 back in August 2004

4th quarter 2004 - 2/3 back in April 2005

4th quarter 2005 - 1/2 back in June 2006

4th quarter 2006 - 2/3 back in March 2007 ???

 

Seems as though our present pullback to retest 2/3 of the 4th quarter gains is either early or very bullish.

 

http://www.StockSharePublishing.com/ChartL..._1174883686.png

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I would also like to add that if the excesses of the 4th quarter were worked off very quickly here, then to me it's either mega bullish or there is another date farther beyond March 14 where the potential to pullback exists.

 

Guess it all depends on the pigman campaign.

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the $900k beanie baby down the street has a sale pending sign after only two weeks on the market.

 

Incredible.

 

The house has been sold three times since 1998.

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Still plenty of STRAW BUYERS out there.

 

The entire Ream Estate Bubble was based 100% on Fraud, nothing more, nothing less.

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