Before that, right, I think it is worth talking a little bit about that concomitant DRG that’s part of the proposed rule from CMS. We’re really gratified to see that. This is something that’s good for everyone. This is good for patients. This is good for hospitals. When you think about patients who are undergoing an ablation procedure, first off, I’ll tell you that even back when I was doing these procedures, almost every patient who came in for one, wanted to know would they be able to stop their oral anticoagulants. And that is still true today. And when you think about it from a patient-centered perspective, right, being able to do this all at one setting and avoiding the incremental risks that you have in undergoing two procedures, really, it just makes sense.
It also makes sense from a hospital standpoint when you just look at the procedural efficiencies and how that’s going to help hospitals improve capacity to be doing more AF ablations and doing more WATCHMAN procedures over time. So, we’re excited to see this. We think this is good for patients. We think this is good for hospitals. And we look forward to getting the data out from trials like OPTION and CHAMPION that’s even going to further increase the impetus for doing these procedures.
Travis Steed: Great. Thanks a lot.
Operator: The next question comes from Danielle Antalffy with UBS. Please go ahead.
Danielle Antalffy: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks so much for taking the questions. I’ll also say congrats on a really strong quarter. For my one question, I wanted to look at some of the, I’ll call them legacy businesses, not sure if that’s fair to describe and maybe slower growth businesses. I mean, a CRM mid-single digit growth is very strong. Interventional Cardiology of double digits, very strong. Just curious about how to think about those sort of slower growth in Interventional Cardiology. I’m thinking more on the drug-eluting stent portfolio, obviously, and then CRM. Can they sustain these kinds of growth profiles given that the end markets are — from a volume perspective, are arguably probably some of your slower growth end markets? And what needs to happen from an innovation perspective to sustain that sort of growth? Thanks so much.
Mike Mahoney: Thanks, Danielle. Really appreciate you asking that question. I would say the innovation has already happened. Let me just explain a bit more. We call it ICTX, our Interventional Cardiology business, essentially. And years ago, that was dominated by drug-eluting stents. Today, drug-eluting stents, I think, represent close to 4% of our overall mix and likely be 3% and 2% for the following years. So, it’s really a very small portion of Boston Scientific and a smaller portion of ICTX. So, what’s driving the 13% growth within ICTX is our advanced imaging portfolio. So, you’re seeing more and more patients come with more complex calcium and the growing adoption of IVUS imaging, especially with our AVVIGO+ platform, to identify that and help the effectiveness of these procedures.
So, you’re seeing wide adoption in Europe of our imaging platform, wide adoption in Asia, and growing adoption in the US based on this new platform. So, it’s really the imaging capabilities, as well as our complex coronary capabilities to break calcium with WOLVERINE and our other products. And then, in Asia, they’ve been very successful in launching our AGENT drug-coated balloon. We recently received approval for that. We’ll have some minor benefit in the second quarter ’24 from that product in the US, but we expect enhanced growth from that product in the second half of ’24, and particularly in 2025. So, the team there has really done a great job of completely revamping the portfolio and the growth trajectory of ICTX. Also included in that is our Structural Heart business in Europe.
On CRM, that grew 5%, and we kind of essentially grow in line, I would say, with the market, with pacemakers and defibrillators. S-ICD business continues to be quite robust, but the bigger growth driver in our CRM business is our diagnostics business. And we invested in that many years ago with our Preventice platform and also with now our second-generation loop recorder ICM device. So, we’ve really reshaped the portfolio significantly in both of those markets, so to continue to support the growth of the company.
Operator: The next question comes from Josh Jennings with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Josh Jennings: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to ask about the EP business and just hoping to get an update on your view of the diagnostic mapping opportunity. You initiated the NAVIGATE-PF study. FARAVIEW Software Module is going to be in play. I guess the question is really, are you seeing increased demand in these early stages of PFA launch for RHYTHMIA? And just how are you viewing the opportunity for Boston to take share in this diagnostic mapping segment of the EP world? Thanks for taking the question.
Mike Mahoney: Dr. Stein, if you could take that one?
Ken Stein: Yeah. Hey, Josh. It’s still early in the launch. And one thing that I do want to sort of emphasize as you look at how things are playing out in the launch is we’re really working with accounts to say, don’t change a lot of your work flow at the outset, get used to using FARAPULSE, see how it works in your cases, and then start modifying your work flow. So really what we’ve seen early in launch really are deliberately not a big shift in whether or not people are mapping, not a big shift in what mapping platform they’re using. Now, having said that, right, we have deliberately built our next-generation product and that’s the FARAWAVE Nav-enabled catheter, right, that interfaces with the FARAVIEW Software. And as I think everyone has seen, we’ve initiated our first human use studies of that earlier this year.
That really will bring some unique advantages to people who want to use a navigation system as they’re using FARAPULSE. It is our desire and our belief, right, that there will be people who don’t feel a need to use any mapping when they’re doing pulmonary vein isolation with FARAPULSE, who are adopting a very efficient workflow that’s been used in a lot of centers in Europe. There will be others who want to continue to use a navigation mapping system. We have no intention of forcing people to use our system. We’re not going to lock it down. But this new software platform really does bring some very compelling advantages to people who will use it.
