St. Jude Medical Inc.STJ

St. Jude's Angio-Seal device still maintains its leadership in the vascular closure market worth about $550 million, despite a strong entry by Abbott ABT.

The atrial fibrillation market holds much potential, as currently available medical treatments are often ineffective for over 50% of patients.

As an indicator that St. Jude is playing against the top contenders in CRM, St. Jude now participates in bidding for the Veterans Administration contract, which is the largest single domestic account.

The ANS purchase leaves St. Jude well-positioned to take advantage of another billion-dollar market. Neurostimulators for chronic pain have been growing around 20%, and we expect this will continue as the technology proves efficacious in treating other conditions, such as Parkinson's, migraines, and essential tremor.

St. Jude's recent ICD market share gains should pay off again in about six years, when the replacement cycle for worn-out batteries begins. Read more 

St. Jude remains a distant second to Medtronic in the implantable cardioverter defibrillator market. Further, we wouldn't underestimate Boston Scientific as it strives to regain lost market share.

Although mechanical heart valves have proved themselves remarkably reliable during the last 25 years, on the rare occasion when something goes wrong, it's often catastrophic.

Advances in minimally invasive heart-valve repair could reduce demand for the traditional heart-valve replacements St. Jude offers, and the firm's efforts to develop a transcatheter replacement valve are several years behind front-runner Edwards Lifesciences EW.

Medtronic's recently launched MRI-compatible pacemaker could eat into St. Jude's substantial share of that market.

St. Jude could face several lean years ahead if hospitals remain under tight budgetary constraints and the expected volume increase from newly insured patients does not appear until after 2012. Read more