We are studying the TAXUS™ product in a broad range of patients, including patients with in-stent restenosis, small vessels, long lesions, and diabetes. To gather more complete information, we assembled the largest Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) data sets for both drug-eluting stents and controls in the field rather than relying on angiograms alone.

TAXUS I. In 2001, we reported data from our TAXUS I clinical trial, which tested our slow-release drug-eluting platform and demonstrated a zero percent restenosis rate at six months. TAXUS I was a feasibility study designed to assess safety. It was a 61-patient, randomized, double-blind, multi-center safety trial conducted at three centers in Germany. No stent thrombosis was reported at six months. The 30-day Major Adverse Cardiac Events (MACE) rate was zero percent in the control group (that received a bare metal stent) and the TAXUS stent group. In addition, the six-month MACE rate was 7 percent in the control group and zero percent in the TAXUS stent group. At twelve months the MACE rate was 10 percent and 3 percent in the control and TAXUS stent groups, respectively, demonstrating excellent long-term safety.