( Abbott's Bioabsorbable Stent Technology...)Abbott Announces Positive Six-Month Results From the World's First,Clinical Trial of a Fully Bioabsorbable Drug-Eluting Coronary Stent,Health

ABBOTT PARK, Ill., March 24, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Abbott today announced positive results from ABSORB, the world's first clinical trial evaluating the overall safety and performance of a fully bioabsorbable drug- eluting stent platform for the treatment of coronary artery disease. Six- month results from the first 30 patients in the trial, presented at the 56th Annual of Cardiology Scientific Session in New Orleans, demonstrated no stent thrombosis and a low (3.3 percent) hierarchical rate of ischemia-driven Major Adverse Cardiac Events (MACE), such as heart attack or repeat intervention.

"The encouraging results from the first 30 patients of ABSORB suggest that drug-eluting bioabsorbable stent technologies may be a promising future therapy option for physicians treating patients with heart disease," said Patrick W. Serruys, M.D., Ph.D., professor of interventional cardiology at the Thoraxcentre, Erasmus University Hospital, Rotterdam, who is co-principal investigator of the study. "A drug eluting stent that would eventually disappear after restoring blood flow is an exciting concept that we look forward to further exploring."

The single MACE event reported was a non-Q-wave myocardial infarction. The same patient underwent a repeat intervention that occurred at the site of the original procedure, resulting in an overall target lesion revascularization rate of 3.3 percent. The trial results confirmed that the treatment effect of everolimus in the bioabsorbable stent is similar to that observed in Abbott's studies of metallic drug-eluting stents, with everolimus actively inhibiting tissue growth into the artery. The rate of device success (successful placement of the bioabsorbable stent at the site of the lesion) was 93.5 percent.

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