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Abbott's (ABT) DAPT for High Bleeding Risk Gets Europe Nod

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Abbott (ABT - Free Report) recently got a new European regulatory go-ahead for its Global interventional cardiology business product. The company received CE Mark for shorter duration of dual anti-platelet therapy (DAPT) with its XIENCE stent.

This duration was as short as 28 days, which the company claims to be the shortest in the world for high bleeding risk (HBR) patients.

XIENCE Stent and DAPT in Brief

The company states this stent to be the most-used drug eluting stent (DES) in the world. It is the only stent to have evidence and data for both one-month and three-months DAPT followed by two different types of blood-thinning medication in patients with HBR.

According to Abbott, usually patients who receive stents are on DAPT regimens, which include aspirin and antiplatelet drugs known as P2Y12 inhibitors to prevent blood clots for six to 12 months. DAPT regimens help support vessel healing and prevent clotting from blocking the stented vessel.

However, for HBR patients there are side effects like bleeding during prolonged courses of DAPT.

The CE Mark for HBR

The latest CE Mark approval came on the heels of favorable results from two recent studies by Abbott namely XIENCE 28 and XIENCE 901 with two different DAPT durations – one-month and three-months. The studies showed that DAPT can be safely discontinued early with no increased risk in patient adverse events.

According to the company the results are consistent and conclusive, proving that short DAPT strategies with the XIENCE stent are safe in HBR patients.

Growing Market Prospect

Per a MARKETSANDMARKETS report, the global interventional cardiology devices market size is projected to reach $21.2 billion by 2025 from 2020’s $13.8 billion, a CAGR of 8.9%.

The increasing number of geriatric population along with growing prevalence of coronary artery diseases are the main causes behind this rapid growth.

At the same time, the increasing burden of hypertension globally is leading to prevalence of illnesses like HBR. As published in an article in NCBI PMC (US National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health), according to the HARVEST study, 15% of hypertensive patients had a resting heart rate.

We accordingly believe the latest CE Mark for Abbott’s XIENCE stentwith shorter duration DAPT to be well timed and will be accepted widely in the European market.

Price Performance

Shares of the company have gained 46.4% in the past year compared with the industry’s 28.3% rise.

Zacks Rank and Key Picks

Currently, Abbott carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A few better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are InMode Ltd. (INMD - Free Report) , Owens & Minor, Inc. (OMI - Free Report) and Envista Holdings Corporation (NVST - Free Report) , each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

InMode has a projected long-term earnings growth rate of 12.4%.

Owens & Minor has a projected long-term earnings growth rate of 15%.

Envista Holdings has an expected long-term earnings growth rate of 24%.

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