Abbott's Drug-Coated Stent Is Approved

Abbott Laboratories received regulatory approval for its Xience V drug-coated stent, which is expected to be the top seller in the roughly $2 billion U.S. market because it appears to be more effective than rival devices.

Stents are tiny mesh scaffolds used to prop open diseased arteries, and coated ones release a medication that prevents the passageways from becoming reclogged by tissue buildup. Xience will compete primarily with Boston Scientific Corp.'s Taxus, which had $1 billion in domestic sales last year, and Johnson & Johnson's Cypher, which brought in $825 million in the U.S.

"It's the only approved stent that, ...