Investopedia: Johnson & Johnson Surrenders In Stents

Will Ferrell's Ricky Bobby may not have been the smartest character in movie history, but perhaps he had a point when he said, "If you ain't first, you're last." At the very least, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) seems to think there's wisdom there, as the company announced on Wednesday it would effectively abandon the coronary stent business. 


If a Dead Tree Falls in the Forest ...
At first blush, Johnson & Johnson made a surprising announcement on Wednesday morning, telling its shareholders that it had decided to end development of its next-generation Nevo drug-coated coronary stent, and wind down production and sale of the older Cypher stent by the end of the year.

Thinking through it a bit more, though, it is not so surprising. JNJ may have been the early winner in drug-coated stents, but the company's market share was subsequently pummeled by better mousetraps from Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX), Abbott (NYSE:ABT) and Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) (to a much lesser extent). Curiously, that is quite similar to what happened to JNJ so many years ago when bare metal stents were new - JNJ jumped to an early lead, but failed to innovate and became an also-ran. 



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