Johnson & Johnson has filed a $5.5 billion lawsuit against Guidant Corp. in U.S. District Court in New York, claiming that Guidant leaked confidential information to Abbott Laboratories to secure a crucial component of the deal with Boston Scientific, reports Modernhealthcare.com.

Drugs traditionally used for the treatment of gastric ulcers could have therapeutic potential in chronic heart failure, according to new research coming out of Japan. One outcome showed that famotidine appears to reduce left ventricular end-diastolic (LVD-d) and end-systolic (LVD) lengths and reduce BNP (B-type natriuretic peptide) levels.

Siemens completed its acquisition of Diagnostic Products Corp. (DPC) in late July, marking a significant milestone for Siemens as it enters the in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) market. Together with DPC, Siemens Medical Solutions says it will become the first full service diagnostics company.

New SPECT/CT, cardiovascular IT and PET/CT technologies were on display by Philips Medical Systems at the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) annual meeting in Montreal.

Japanese radiologist Katsumi Nakamura, M.D., of Tobata Kyoritsu Hospital, received first place honors for his research in the area of non-contrast magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) imaging at the 14th annual International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) Scientific Meeting & Exhibition.

Enrollment is complete for a landmark study designed to increase clinical understanding of vulnerable plaque, the deadly, lipid-rich coronary plaque that ruptures without warning or symptoms and possibly the source of most heart attacks.

Positive six-month results of Abbott's SPIRIT II clinical trial of the XIENCE V Everolimus Eluting Coronary Stent System were presented at the World Congress of Cardiology conference in Barcelona, Spain. XIENCE V, which has received CE Mark approval, is currently an investigational device in the U.S. and Japan — Abbott says it plans to initiate European launch of the coronary DES in October.