This year's European Society of Cardiology Congress drew cardiologists from across the globe to packed sessions. While drug-eluting stent reports were a mixed bag, remote catheter navigation explored new frontiers and emerging hypertension devices were a major draw.

The American Heart Association's scientific sessions in November 2007 presented new clinical data on drug-eluting stents, cardiac resynchronization, treatments for acute coronary syndrome, and better ways of diagnosing and treating myocardial infarction.

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.