RAISING DEFIBRILLATOR AWARENESS

MEDTRONIC INC. WILL LAUNCH A $100 MILLION MARKETING CAMPAIGN to raise awareness about the dangers of sudden cardiac arrest—and the role of heart defibrillators in saving lives.

Some of the advertising in newspapers and on TV will be aimed at consumers in addition to doctors. That's common practice in the drug industry, but rare for medical device companies. That could be changing as aging Baby Boomers take a more active role in their health care. Consumer advertising of medical devices reached the $50 million mark in 2005, an increase from "almost nothing" in 1996, according to a report by Cutting Edge Information, a Raleigh, NC, market research firm.

Medtronic said the "What's Inside" sudden cardiac arrest ad campaign is part of a bigger awareness push that is the largest in size and scope in company history.

"This is about saving lives," said Dr. David Steinhaus, Vice President and Medical Director of Medtronic's Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management division. "Sudden cardiac arrest kills more people than breast cancer, lung cancer and HIV/AIDS combined."

Sudden cardiac arrest can be prevented with a device called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD)—a stopwatch-sized device implanted in the chest that shocks an errantly beating heart back into rhythm. But a series of safety recalls by manufacturers in 2005—including Medtronic—dampened demand for the device in the past year.

Medtronic's campaign will include patient and caregiver information, physician education programs and outreach, ongoing clinical research of sudden cardiac arrest and defibrillator therapy, and increased staffing of sales and therapy support personnel in the field.