Guidant Corporation, part of Boston Scientific and Abbott Labs, designs and manufactures artificial cardiac pacemakers, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, stents, and other cardiovascular medical products.

[1] In 1977 Eli Lilly & Co. buys IVAC of San Diego (a manufacturer of medical pumps and other hospital equipment) for $60.5 million.

The Medical Devices Division was spun off and went public in late 1994 under the name of Guidant Corporation (NYSE and PCX: GDT).

[6] In April 2003 the business acquired SyneCor, LLC, developer of a fully bioabsorbable vascular stent.

[8] In January 2004, the company acquired AFx inc., a pioneer in the field of microwave surgical cardiac ablation.

The same day, the New York Times published an article accusing Guidant of waiting years before notifying physicians about the problems.

The scope of the problems steadily increased, and on July 18, 2005, Guidant issued a warning for nine different models of pacemakers from 1997 to 2000.

This deal included Abbott Labs buying the vascular intervention business of Guidant for approximately $4.5 billion.