Medical device maker Boston Scientific has said sales in its fourth quarter rose 70 per cent, but warned that 2005 earnings could be hurt by a delay in the introduction of a key product in Japan.
The company employs around 3,000 people at several plants in the Republic.
Boston Scientific's Taxus drug-coated stent - a primary revenue driver in the United States - is not yet approved in Japan, where the company is six to 12 months behind in getting it to market, said chief executive Mr Jim Tobin, at the JP Morgan health-care conference in San Francisco.
"That represents a little bit of a disappointment," said Mr Tobin, who spent much of his talk defending the company's performance after a JP Morgan downgrade a week earlier. Analysts say the Japan launch has been pushed back to September 2006.
Rival Johnson & Johnson already sells its drug-eluting stent, called Cypher, in Japan, one of the biggest markets after the United States. "That's the main reason" for the problems in Japan, said Mr Eli Kammerman, an analyst at Cathay Financial.
In addition to the delay in introducing the Taxus stent in Japan, Boston Scientific said its Japanese revenue in 2005 will be hurt by changes in government pricing for medical devices.
These issues will lead to a decline of about $70 million (€53 million) in Japan's operating income in 2005, the company said. Boston Scientific, whose shares fell about 2 per cent yesterday, reported preliminary total net sales of $1.6 billion for the fourth quarter of 2004, up from $939 million a year earlier.
Sales of its Taxus stent, used to prop open unclogged arteries, were $691 million for the quarter.
The company introduced Taxus in the United States in March 2004. Taxus sales in the United States during the quarter came in at $503 million, missing at least one analyst forecast.
