Boston Scientific in strategic alliance with REVA Medical

Boston Scientific Corporation announced in November that it has made an equity investment in and secured an exclusive option to purchase REVA Medical, a privately held company located in San Diego. REVA is developing a balloon-expandable, bioresorbable drug-eluting stent that combines distinctive geometry and resorbable polymer properties. The REVA stent is designed to perform comparably to metallic drug-eluting stents and then be resorbed by the body once the artery has healed. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

REVA was founded in 1998 to develop ultra-thin, radially strong vascular stents using tiny ratchet-like elements designed to lock the stent open and achieve superior radial strength. The "slide and lock" feature of REVA's stent geometry is designed to provide the strength necessary to make the stent from polymers. Previous experiments with bioresorbable stents have generally resulted in designs that required energy to polymerize the stent after it was deployed, or lacked the necessary strength to provide a satisfactory clinical outcome. Some clinicians believe that using stents made from resorbable polymers will allow them to treat more lesions per patient than metallic stents or to treat different vascular diseases where metal stents are not as desirable. REVA is developing an uncoated version of the REVA stent as well as one coated with paclitaxel. Paclitaxel is the active agent in Boston Scientific's TAXUS drug-eluting coronary stent system.

"Our alliance with REVA demonstrates Boston Scientific's commitment to expanding our technology pipeline and capitalizing on pioneering research in the field of interventional medical technologies," said Fred Colen, Boston Scientific Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. "We believe REVA has a better chance of solving the challenge of combining drug elution with a bioresorbable polymer stent platform than any other program we've seen."