The battle to keep heart arteries from clogging is heating up and it’s hardly surprising. At the heart of this heart battle is a little medicated mesh tube, which itself drives a $5.5-billion industry. Called a drug-eluting stent, the device is implanted to keep blocked arteries propped open after they’ve been cleared (see Stent Carries 2 Drugs at Once).

Getting a crack at the market is an expensive endeavor that involves clearing costly medical trials and complex regulatory hurdles. In fact, only Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson have so far managed to get their medicated stents approved in the United States.

But the high entry barrier isn’t stopping other companies from trying to get in. Menlo Park, California-based Conor Medsystems, for example, received European approval for its drug-eluting stent in February and is now busy pursuing U.S. approval. With its eye on the future, Conor hopes to make a very serious dent in the stent market with next-generation technology.

Among its pipeline products is a stent that delivers a combination of drugs, not just one as now. Once implanted, the stent releases controlled amounts of medicine, keeping scar tissue from re-narrowing the artery in reaction to the device.

In late May, Conor reported that the new stent had already been tried on one test candidate, as part of a trial officially expected to start this summer.

The move puts the company on the road to testing theories surrounding the limitations of using a single drug. “Concern about a single drug-eluting stent for all patients lies in the issue that a number of factors may contribute to the re-narrowing of an artery within the stent,” explains William Fearon, an assistant professor at the Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. Fearon says one drug might not be enough to inhibit all of the factors.

Delivering more than one drug hinges on Conor’s unique stent design. It incorporates hundreds of small holes, each acting as a reservoir into which multiple drugs can be loaded and eventually released. Currently, the two drugs loaded on the company’s dual-drug stent are primercrolimus and paclitaxel, which both block cell division in different ways.

But will this be enough to shake up the industry? “There are theoretical reasons to believe it’s the better way to go,” says Jason Wittes, a Wall Street analyst with Leerink Swann & Company. But the company will have to show improved safety and efficacy, he says. “The devil will be in the details.”

Conor Medsystems will also have to beat out competitors like Abbott that are trying to make inroads in the same space.

Notebook: Kicking a Bunch of Things

A drug used to curb a cancer patient’s nausea caused by radiation and chemotherapy treatment might just help reduce another problem, cocaine addiction. Researchers from the University of Virginia Health System said in late May that ondansetron, the generic name for GlaxoSmithKline’s Zofran, can reduce cocaine’s reinforcing effects.

The findings come from preliminary results of a study that included 63 cocaine-dependent men and women. Cocaine’s addictive qualities, as the world has discovered, make it difficult to quit; relapse rates are high. But researchers hope that taking ondansetron while in therapy may offer an option for those trying to beat the habit. About 5.7 million people, or 2.4 percent, of the U.S. population have used cocaine in the past year. This problem isn’t going away: around 2 million have used cocaine in the past month, according to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Memory Medicine

Memory loss happens to many people as they age. But an experimental drug being developed by Targacept and AstraZeneca looks like it might help. In late May, Targacept announced its experimental drug TC-1734, aimed to treat age-associated memory impairment, worked in mid-stage clinical trials. This condition, which is characterized by gradual memory loss or other cognitive impairment, is most prevalent in the elderly. Estimates suggest it affects 38 percent of Americans over the age of 65. But the goal for companies in the field is to see the drug in part help Alzheimer’s sufferers. Alzheimer’s affects an estimated 4.5 million people in the United States. That number has doubled since 1980, and could exceed 12 million by 2050.

Mind Atlas

Trying to understand the origins of developmental brain disorders, researchers at WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis are turning to computerized maps of the mind. Not a moment too soon, researchers just announced they have come up with an electronic atlas which enables specialists to search for structural changes brought on by a rare genetic condition known as Williams syndrome. The disorder is in part characterized by mental and growth deficiencies. The new technology allows researchers to see 33 abnormalities in the folding of the brain’s surface. The thinking is the technique used to create the computerized atlas can offer more insights into more widely known brain disorders like autism.