Edwards Lifesciences\u00a0on April 23 reported that its largest business, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR),\u00a0 generated Q1 sales of $1.2 billion, an 11% increase over the prior year (NYSE: EW).<\/p>\n
CEO Bernard Zovighian is bullish on the best-known product for OC\u2019s most valuable public company, noting on an earnings call that \u201cthere has been a shift toward proactive disease management with an increased focus on evaluation and intentional referral of patients\u201d suffering from heart valve disease.<\/p>\n
That optimism stands in stark contrast to a recent fear-mongering feature in the Wall Street Journal, which asserted that the company\u2019s \u201cbreakthrough heart procedure comes with risky tradeoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The April 23 story suggested that the artificial valves used by Irvine-based Edwards and competitor Medtronic in TAVR, a far less invasive surgery procedure than open-heart surgery, and one which results in much faster recovery times, \u201cdon\u2019t work as well or last as long as they hoped,\u201d particularly for patients under 65.<\/p>\n
Edwards officials dispute the story\u2019s claims, telling the Business Journal that it \u201cpresents a narrow and misleading portrayal of a highly specialized patient population and does not reflect the full body of scientific evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zovighian noted in the Q1 conference call that recent 7- and 10-year follow-up studies \u201cvalidate the durability and consistent performance\u201d of Edwards\u2019 TAVR products.<\/p>\n
The Insider\u2019s questions: why was the WSJ story timed to coincide with Edwards\u2019 earnings, and which company whose products compete with TAVR pitched the story to the publication?<\/p>\n
Shares in the $47B-valued company were flat in the week following the Q1 results.<\/p>\n
In early 2021, Masimo founder and then-CEO Joe Kiani penned a Leader Board for the Business Journal titled \u201cPulse Oximeters Are Not Racist\u201d (Nasdaq: MASI).<\/p>\n
Kiani\u2019s article hit back at claims made in a late 2020 New England Journal of Medicine article, titled \u201cRacial Bias in Pulse Oximetry Measurement,\u201d that highlighted a report showing challenges facing Black patients using the devices made by Masimo and others that monitor blood oxygen saturation and pulse rates.<\/p>\n
Data cited in the report indicated non-white skin tones produced substantially less accurate readings in the devices, which increased the risk of delayed or inaccurate treatment for those patients.<\/p>\n
Masimo testing \u201cfound a difference between dark and light skinned subjects of 1%, whereas that same test applied in the (study cited in the New England journal) found a 325% difference,\u201d Kiani noted. Masimo would do additional testing to confirm the validity of its findings, he said at the time.<\/p>\n
Some of those results are now in, and they back up Kiani\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
Masimo last week reported new study data showing that its pulse oximetry technology accurately monitored hospitalized newborns of all skin tones, following what it called \u201cthe largest-ever prospective real-world study of its kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later this year, Masimo said that it will publish data from another study involving 500 critically ill adult ICU patients of all skin tones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edwards Lifesciences\u00a0on April 23 reported that its largest business, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR),\u00a0 generated Q1 sales of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-299448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}