Volcano Erupts
With so much talk about dwindling drug-coated stent sales, some smaller med tech firms are primed to take advantage. CNNMoney.com reports this week on two, Volcano and Acusphere, both of which have technologies to help detect blood clots in arteries. That capability may prove quite handy for the many cardiologists who have grown leery of drug-coated stents since safety issues surfaced at the end of last year. Volcano’s intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) product is a catheter with an embedded camera, which takes pictures to monitor for clogged arteries. Merriman, Curhan, Ford & Co. analyst Jose Haresco tells CNNMoney.com, “IVUS as a technology has been around for well over a decade, but there wasn’t a real driver to use it.” No longer the case since skepticism about drug-coated stents has risen. Volcano’s sales jumped 13 percent in 2006 to $103 million, and in the fourth quarter alone, sales experienced a 20-percent bump.
Acusphere’s technology, Imagify, injects microscopic gas-filled spheres into the blood to amplify the effects of ultrasound used to detect clogged arteries. It’s still in testing, so no sales figures are available yet. Analysts are lukewarm on its prospects, noting that the technology merely “makes an old technology a little better.” Still, projected sales of $200 million by 2010 is a good chunk of change for the small Watertown, MA-based firm (2006 revenue of $1.8 million).
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