St. Jude Medical (STJ) and its investors have weathered quite a storm in the medical device industry. The company has pushed past falling sales and earnings through 2013 to post remarkable gains over the past 52 weeks. Still, growth has remained elusive in some of St. Jude's top business divisions. The company has turned to one of its smaller businesses with big potential for its future: neuromodulation.
St. Jude's neuromodulation business made up less than 10% of its total sales through the nine months of 2013 that ended in September, but this division's managed to eke out minor growth despite slips at St. Jude's larger units. The company's banking on a new trial of its Prodigy next-generation neurostimulation device to help boost growth in the near future, launching a new study of the device in the U.S. this week.
But can the Prodigy device -- and St. Jude's neuromodulation business -- help restore growth to this cardiovascular giant? Fool contributor Dan Carroll tells you all you need to know in the video below, and explains how tough competition from the likes of Medtronic (MDT -1.84%) and Stryker (SYK -0.50%) will weigh on St. Jude's neuromodulation push.
