Product innovation for patient needs

Key actions:

• During the year, we invested $2.05¹ billion dollars — 10.2%² of sales — in our R&D pipeline, enabling us to develop meaningful innovation that addresses unmet clinical needs.
• To further expand our ability to transform lives, we pursue strategic acquisitions and venture investments in high-growth, adjacent markets prioritizing novel therapies and technologies designed to address complex diseases. 

Education and training

Through 25 Institutes for Advancing Science and our EDUCARE platform, we provide hands-on training, simulations and on-demand education to support effective use of our technologies and improve patient outcomes.

Generating rigorous evidence to help ensure safety, effectiveness 
and equitable access.

Rigorous clinical science underpins our product breakthroughs. We generate high-quality evidence, leveraging advanced internal testing methodologies, diverse and representative real-world datasets and collaborations with global research partners.

Pre-clinical excellence

• Before progressing to human trials, we conduct rigorous pre-clinical research to confirm the safety, efficacy and performance of our devices. Our teams follow the highest standards in training, testing and regulatory compliance, publicly reporting research outcomes and submitting findings to regulators.

• Continuous safety monitoring begins at the product design stage and extends throughout development to help ensure our technologies meet the highest safety and quality standards.

Ethical research and patient safety

• We design and execute rigorous clinical trials in collaboration with external experts and regulatory bodies to document the safe and effective performance of our products.
• Patient safety and ethical research standards remain central throughout the process, with continuous monitoring and ongoing evaluation to help ensure our innovations deliver meaningful benefits for patients, providers and payers.

Animal welfare and alternative methods

• We are committed to the humane care and treatment of laboratory animals and follow the Three Rs — Replacement, Reduction and Refinement — to minimize animal use wherever scientifically feasible.
• Boston Scientific is accredited by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) and is routinely audited by internal experts and regulatory agencies, including the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Through our Pre-Clinical R&D Center of Excellence for Biological Innovation, we continue advancing in-vitro and alternative testing methods to supplement animal research while maintaining the highest regulatory standards.

Collaborating globally to accelerate innovation, identify unmet need and expand access to medical solutions.

We partner with leading healthcare providers, academic institutions and innovation hubs to translate insights into meaningful advances in patient care.

• Mayo Clinic (U.S.): A decade-long collaboration to identify gaps in patient care across multiple divisions, with current projects in interventional cardiology, oncology and endoscopy.
• MEDX Xelerator (Israel): Partnership with a leading Medtech incubator to identify and advance emerging technologies in cardiology, urology, oncology and gastroenterology.
• Scivita Medical (China): Improving access to innovative endoscopic devices in hospitals with Scivita Medical, a China-based medical device company.
• University collaborations: Partnerships with leading global universities, including participation in the European Union’s Horizon Europe research program, to advance medical device innovation focused on addressing unmet needs in heart failure patients.
• Design of Medical Devices Conference (University of Minnesota): Premier sponsorship supporting collaboration between academia and industry to advance healthcare innovation.

Using digital tools and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance clinical decision-making.

We are advancing digital solutions and AI to support predictive and preventive healthcare, improve clinical workflows and strengthen patient outcomes.

• Boston Scientific’s digital and AI infrastructure supports product innovation and enhances clinical decision-making. Generative AI (genAI) further extends these capabilities by producing new insights based on learned patterns.
• AI-enabled tools support predictive and preventive care through advanced analytics and real-time data interpretation. Solutions such as HeartLogic™, BeatLogic™ and the AVVIGO™+ Multi-Modality Guidance System help support earlier detection and more precise treatment.
• Our approach emphasizes the responsible, evidence-based development and deployment of AI, with a focus on improving clinical outcomes while ensuring transparency around how AI tools are used and their limitations.
• AI is designed to augment — not replace — clinical expertise. We support ongoing education and engagement with clinicians to promote appropriate use, build trust and enable responsibleadoption in real-world healthcare settings.