Abbott Laboratories is poised to take over more of the market share for stents after reporting on Tuesday that its drug-coated stent outperformed competition in its latest trial.

The results of Abbott Laboratories (nyse: ABT - news - people )'s Spirit III trial comparing its Xience V stent with Boston Scientifics Taxus stent showed that Xience V is clinically superior.

A drug-coated stent is a small metal piece of scaffolding covered in a therapeutic drug that is used to keep the arteries of the heart from collapsing. The Spirit III study was conducted with 1,000 patients from June 2005 to March 2006. The study showed that patients with the Xience V stent had fewer heart attacks and were less likely to need treatment for the same heart lesion after two years.

"Not only did Xience V clearly differentiate itself from the Taxus stent in the first year after treatment, it has now demonstrated even more positive effects at two years in the Spirit III trial," said Dr. Gregg Stone, a medical professor at Columbia University Medical Center and the chairman of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York.

After two years, patients with Abbott's stent showed a 45% reduction in the risk of major adverse cardiac events and a 32% reduction in problems related to the area treated, according to data presented at a medical conference in Barcelona.

"Vessel retreatment rates actually became more favorable for Xience over Taxus between 12 and 24 months," said Wachovia Capital Markets analyst Larry Biegelsen. "Overall, the clinical benefit for Xience versus Taxus in Spirit III was more durable than in [earlier studies] and reinforces our view that Xience will ultimately become the workhorse stent of choice."

Xience V was launched in Europe and other international markets in October 200 and is currently awaiting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The company expects the stent to be approved by the FDA in the second quarter of 2008. Abbott also supplies a private-label version of Xience V to Boston Scientific (nyse: BSX - news - people ) called Promus. Biegelson forecasts that Abbot will have 47% of the marketshare by 2011.

"Importantly, the initial look at the data does not suggest any 'smoking guns' and should ease concerns about FDA approvability of the stent," said Goldman Sachs analyst Lawrence Keusch, in a note to investors. Keusch believes the stent will have 30% of market share by 2009.

Currently, the market is nominated by Boston Scientific's Taxus, and Johnson & Johnson (nyse: JNJ - news - people )'s Cypher.

Last week, Boston Scientific won a patent dispute with Johnson & Johnson concerning its NIR stents. The court ruled that Boston Scientifics had not infringed on the two patents. The companies are also disputing the patent rights of Boston Scientific's Taxus Express stent.

Upon the news, shares of Abbott jumped 3.1%, or $1.62, to $54.40, while Boston Scientific was down 3.0%, or 40 cents, to $13.01 at the close of trading on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.