Inside Our Products
Edwards Lifesciences continues to enjoy the leadership position in the growing heart valve replacement and repair market. Our premium Magna aortic valve sales continue to increase and this valve remains the number one heart valve worldwide, and the addition of our proprietary ThermaFix tissue treatment process further enhances our clinically superior product portfolio. Extending our leadership position is largely dependent upon a robust product development pipeline and regularly introducing new products—and we are committed to doing both. Additionally, research we conducted during 2006 confirms that many patients with aortic stenosis who should receive surgery do not, and we believe this will expand the market for our products for years to come.
U.S. and European adoption of our FloTrac minimally invasive cardiac output sensor continued to increase during 2006. Also during the year, we introduced the FloTrac system in Japan, where the product’s minimally invasive and ease-of-use characteristics are highly valued. We believe our FloTrac system’s unique features and benefits will lift the long-term growth rate of our robust Critical Care franchise.
2006 was a year of important progress in Edwards’ LifeStent line of stents. We launched our new LifeStent FlexStar biliary stent delivery system, which optimizes the deployment of our uniquely flexible nitinol self-expanding stents. We also expanded our product offering with the introduction of longer LifeStent FlexStar XL stents. Importantly, we completed enrollment of our groundbreaking RESILIENT clinical trial. This study’s very encouraging interim results reinforce our belief that our LifeStent product line can play an increasingly greater role in the treatment of the large and growing patient group who suffer from peripheral vascular disease.
Edwards Lifesciences continues to lead the development of innovative, catheter-based heart valve technologies that represent a new therapeutic option for a large population of patients who today go untreated. In 2006, we made significant progress in our transcatheter aortic valve program from both a clinical and product development standpoint.
We completed enrollment of our 55-patient U.S. feasibility study, which generated very promising results. We also pioneered the Ascendra transapical delivery system and completed more than
80 cases using this new delivery option. And, we began clinical studies of our next generation Edwards SAPIEN transcatheter heart valve, which incorporates all of our core tissue valve manufacturing capabilities. These developments position us very favorably as we move closer to commercialization of this important technology.
Edwards Lifesciences continues to enjoy the leadership position in the growing heart valve replacement and repair market. Our premium Magna aortic valve sales continue to increase and this valve remains the number one heart valve worldwide, and the addition of our proprietary ThermaFix tissue treatment process further enhances our clinically superior product portfolio. Extending our leadership position is largely dependent upon a robust product development pipeline and regularly introducing new products—and we are committed to doing both. Additionally, research we conducted during 2006 confirms that many patients with aortic stenosis who should receive surgery do not, and we believe this will expand the market for our products for years to come.
U.S. and European adoption of our FloTrac minimally invasive cardiac output sensor continued to increase during 2006. Also during the year, we introduced the FloTrac system in Japan, where the product’s minimally invasive and ease-of-use characteristics are highly valued. We believe our FloTrac system’s unique features and benefits will lift the long-term growth rate of our robust Critical Care franchise.
2006 was a year of important progress in Edwards’ LifeStent line of stents. We launched our new LifeStent FlexStar biliary stent delivery system, which optimizes the deployment of our uniquely flexible nitinol self-expanding stents. We also expanded our product offering with the introduction of longer LifeStent FlexStar XL stents. Importantly, we completed enrollment of our groundbreaking RESILIENT clinical trial. This study’s very encouraging interim results reinforce our belief that our LifeStent product line can play an increasingly greater role in the treatment of the large and growing patient group who suffer from peripheral vascular disease.
Edwards Lifesciences continues to lead the development of innovative, catheter-based heart valve technologies that represent a new therapeutic option for a large population of patients who today go untreated. In 2006, we made significant progress in our transcatheter aortic valve program from both a clinical and product development standpoint.
We completed enrollment of our 55-patient U.S. feasibility study, which generated very promising results. We also pioneered the Ascendra transapical delivery system and completed more than
80 cases using this new delivery option. And, we began clinical studies of our next generation Edwards SAPIEN transcatheter heart valve, which incorporates all of our core tissue valve manufacturing capabilities. These developments position us very favorably as we move closer to commercialization of this important technology.
