J&J's exit from the coronary angioplasty market was a sign of the end of an era. Without a product at the high end of innovation, it was left with a basic product that in the interim had become commoditized.

Until now, B. Braun, one of the oldest players in cardiovascular devices, has been comfortable in its niche. B. Braun's cardiovascular business is actually made up of two units, one that makes products for interventional radiologists and surgeons in the peripheral field, the other on a range of devices used in interventional cardiology. But the investment the company is making in a new technology, drug-eluting balloons, could be disruptive, if not to interventional cardiology, at least to the cardiovascular device companies and none more so than B. Braun itself.

Ever since the transformative success of interventional cardiology, the emergence of new interventional subspecialties seems to come at ever quicker paces. One of the latest clinical spaces to embrace the interventional revolution is pulmonology, which over the past couple of years has seen a host of new procedures and devices transforming traditional procedures. Indeed, the pace at which interventional cardiology evolved now seems almost leisurely compared with that at which interventional pulmonology companies are now moving. Thus, many of the companies in the space face an interesting dilemma: how to establish a foundation in this new specialty and, at the same time, how to refine that technology to keep pace with the field as it grows. That's the challenge facing superDimension, whose executives believe they own not just the road map, but the road itself.

Guidant emerged as one of the important device companies, all but creating the interventional cardiology business and playing a major role in the evolution of cardiac rhythm management. One person stood behind all of these accomplishments and guided Guidant virtually to its end: Ron Dollens, who retired as CEO last year just before the sale of the company to Boston Scientific was made final. Dollens talks about his career at Eli Lilly and Guidant and about his-and Guidant's-final days.