Shortists traders should also stop being smug about being part of the 10% that makes money from the remaining 90%. Even ML and LB are going down due to debts. They were once the Super BBs. Shorting is essentially a process to try and make money from debt - borrow shares and sell. Debt is not what it used to be; its no longer acceptable now. I wonder if there will be new regulations to prohibit these kinds of debt given the current climate. I really hope there will be.

All the long term holders should just stop lending their shares. How much do you guys earn from lending it out? Compare that to the loss in value of holdings. Some people say, if its long term holders, its alright. Well, if the purchase price is 70c and the target is $2.10, that's a 200% increase. But now the price is 45.5c. That's >350% increase to reach $2.10. Given also the base being built at the lower price, there's also stronger inertia against going up to hit that high target price.

Bengster, since you are a substantial holder, are you also lending out your shares? Why don't you use your contacts to convince everyone to stop doing it? At the very least, it will stop the bleeding and it will also cause an upwards rationalisation of the prices as shortists need to buy back to return all the borrowed shares.

Abbott & Boston Scientific: Rising Stent Stars (CNBC)

Veteran medical device analyst Mike Weinstein at JPMorgan is out with a pretty remarkable research note about the fast-changing market for drug-coated stents.

Not too long ago, some had written off the potential for significant growth to resume in sales of the little wire mesh tubes that are painted with special drugs to help keep arteries from reclogging. The devices were plagued by safety concerns regarding blood clots forming several months or years after they were put in.

There are now four players in the space and Weinstein is telling clients that the latest entrant, the Xiences stent from Abbott, is quickly emerging as the dominant product. Boston Scientific sells the exact same stent, but under the brand name Promus. Weinstein says that Xience/Promus are already approaching 50 percent market share. "The speed of the shift is fascinating to watch, as cardiologists who just a few months ago were telling us that they would initially use Xience in only a quarter of their procedures are now apparently making it their lead product," he writes.

Medtronic won approval earlier this year of its drug-coated stent Endeavor. And BSX and Johnson & Johnson sell the older products Taxus and Cypher, respectively.

Studies show Xience/Promus work better and may be safer than the other stents and doctors apparently think the new products are easier to insert than the older ones.

Weinstein says, "Boston's (Scientific) marketing of Promus...has turned out to be much more aggressive than expected. The result has been higher Promus uptake, higher Xience uptake, and a rapid drop-off for the existing products."

But Weinstein points out that BSX could be a victim of its own success because it buys the new stents from ABT and then slaps the Promus name on them. "Boston's challenge is that it may not have enough Promus to continue to grow its share within the market. Under the Abbott agreement," he writes, "Boston (Scientific) must forecast and pre-order its supply for each six month period with 3 months of the supply fixed and 3 months variable. Boston can increase its order monthly, but each month there are caps on how much it can raise its order." Interesting.

New Drug-Coated Stent
Exceeds Abbott's Views

Hi D.T.B, couple of weeks back BIG presented the LEADERS results against JNJ. The trial was meant to prove "non-inferiority" which Biomatrix achieved all the objectives. However, the 9 months data superiority was not powerful enough to show statistical P-value superiority. I have summarised some of the key end point measurements of LEADERS (BIG's Biomatrix VS JNJ's Cypher) and ENDEAVORIII (Medtronic's Endeavor VS JNJ's Cypher).

Although this results has brought a lot of international recognition for BIG, somehow the share price still cannot perform. Jialat.

U.S. District Court Judge Sue Robinson ordered Boston Scientific and Medtronic to pay J&J's Cordis unit damages originally awarded in 2000, plus interest, for infringement of Cordis' original Palmaz balloon expandable stent patent, J&J said.

When the patent infringement cases were originally tried in 2000, Cordis received jury verdicts of $324 million against Boston Scientific and $271 million against Medtronic.

After a series of rulings and appeals, both cases were retried in March 2005, with Cordis again prevailing.

"We are very pleased that Judge Robinson granted our motion for reinstatement of damages and gratified that this litigation finally appears to be drawing to a close," said Seth Fischer, company group chairman for the Cordis franchise.

Stents are tiny wire-mesh tubes inserted into diseased coronary to prop them open after they have been surgically cleared of blockages.

"We have been awaiting this ruling for some time, and we took a charge for a portion of this judgment in the third quarter of FY08," a Medtronic spokesman said. "We are also now reviewing the details of the judgment before determining any further steps."

A spokesman for Boston Scientific did not immediately have a comment.