Covidien withdraws from renal denervation programme

Covidien has announced it will cancel its renal denervation development programme due to slow market growth for the resistant hypertension treatment. It is another industry setback for the renal denervation medical device concept that only recently was still generating positive expectations in the United States.

Covidien's decision to withdraw from its OneShot Renal Denervation system followed Medtronic's announcement this month that a trial for its Symplicity Renal Denervation device failed to significantly lower blood pressure in patients with drug-resistant hypertension. Then, Boston Scientific temporarily delayed the start of its own US Renal Denervation study until more details about Medtronic's trial failure were available. The only active rival is St. Jude Medical which has confirmed that it will continue with its EnligHTN IV Renal Denervation programme.