Medical Device Company Intelligence Reports provide a full review of the company's activities, from its origins to its latest corporate activity, including mergers and acquisitions, agreements, divestitures, major purchasing contracts and litigation. Sections are included on products, international activities and R&D, as well as a full, in-depth five year financial analysis. An introduction to each report and a full table of contents is provided for review. More than 60 Medical Device Company Intelligence Reports are currently available. Abbott Laboratories, headquartered in Illinois, USA, is a diversified healthcare company engaged in the development, manufacture and marketing of pharmaceutical, nutritional, diagnostic and medical device products. Abbott markets its products in over 130 countries, employs nearly 67,000 people and generated revenue of US$22.5 billion in fiscal 2006.

This profile focuses on Abbott's medical devices which include a range of vascular, spinal, blood glucose monitoring and point-of-care diagnostic products, all of which it has acquired in recent years. The company also offered a broad range of medication delivery systems such as electronic drug-delivery systems, infusion therapy and critical care products, but spun-off these operations into a publicly-traded company, Hospira, in April 2004.

Currently, Abbott's medical device businesses are as follows:-

· Abbott Vascular - Formed by Abbott acquiring several product lines from bankrupt Jomed, as well as Biocompatibles' coronary and peripheral interventional business, Integrated Vascular Systems and Perclose. Significantly expanded in April 2006 through the acquisition of Guidant's vascular intervention and endovascular solutions businesses, including the Xience V drug-eluting stent (DES). Abbott Vascular now offers interventional cardiology products, devices for biliary and peripheral intervention, carotid stent and embolic protection systems, and vascular closure products.

· Abbott Spine - Formed after the acquisition of Spinal Concepts and expanded in October 2004 by the acquisition of Spine Next. Based in Austin, Texas, USA, and Bordeaux, France. Offers the Wallis dynamic stabilisation device outside the US, as well as products for thoracolumbar fixation, cervical plates and other traditional products for spinal fusion surgeries.

· Abbott Diabetes Care - Includes the acquired companies, TheraSense and MediSense. Based in Alameda, California, USA, it offers glucose monitoring systems and test strips for use in home and hospital settings. Its brands include Precision and FreeStyle.

· Abbott Point-of-Care - Formed through the acquisition of i-STAT in January 2004. It offers a hand-held analyser and single-use cartridges that include tests for electrolytes, metabolytes, blood gases, coagulation and cardiac markers that deliver results at the patient's bedside. Based in East Windsor, New Jersey, USA.

However, in January 2007, Abbott announced it will sell its core laboratory and point-of-care diagnostics business, including Abbott Point-of-Care, to GE for US$8.1 billion in cash, resulting in approximately US$6 billion in after-tax proceeds. Abbott's Diabetes Care and Molecular Diagnostics businesses will remain part of Abbott. The sale is expected to close in the second quarter of 2007 and is subject to regulatory approvals. The laboratory diagnostics business offers immunoassays and blood screening products to diagnose and monitor diseases such as HIV, hepatitis, cancer, heart failure and metabolic disorders, including point-of-care blood gas, chemistries and cardiac assays. Abbott's in vitro diagnostics business, including point-of-care, generated sales of approximately US$2.7 billion in 2006.

Apart from Abbott's move out of the laboratory diagnostics market, the most significant event has been its acquisition of the Guidant businesses, which generated combined sales of over US$1 billion in 2005 and had nearly 6,000 employees in three main locations: Santa Clara, California, USA; Temecula, California, USA; and Clonmel, Ireland.

Abbott now offers a wider range of coronary and peripheral vascular products, including an additional carotid stenting platform, the well-known Multi-Link line of bare-metal stents and the Xience V DES which is available outside the US and Japan. Pending regulatory approval, Abbott expects to launch it in the US in the first half of 2008 and in Japan the following year. Xience V had demonstrated positive results in clinical studies to-date and uses the Multi-Link stent platform, assessed to be a deliverable technology. Having gained Xience V and with its own zotarolimus-eluting ZoMaxx stent failing to meet its clinical trial end-point, Abbott discontinued the development of ZoMaxx at the end of 2006. The company is now focused on Xience V, as well as Guidant's new-generation technology, a fully-bioabsorbable DES which is currently undergoing clinical trials.

The Guidant transaction was part of Boston Scientific's merger with the remainder of Guidant, under which Abbott agreed to share rights to Guidant's DES programme with Boston Scientific. Abbott also provided Boston Scientific with a five-year US$900 million interest-bearing loan and purchased approximately 64 million shares of Boston Scientific's stock for US$1.4 billion. Guidant had previously agreed to a merger with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in December 2004. In September 2006, J&J filed a lawsuit against Abbott, Guidant and Boston Scientific, claiming Boston Scientific's acquisition of Guidant breached confidentiality clauses in its merger agreement with J&J and asking for damages of at least US$5.5 billion.