Sometimes, a partnership deal can be a game-changing event that tangibly upgrades a drugmaker's future outlook. But the deal that Rule Breakers pick CV Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CVTX) inked with Medlogics Device Corporation on Monday isn't one of those. 

Medlogics may sound like a cheap Chinese-made knockoff of Medtronic (NYSE: MDT), but it's actually a California-based medical-device drugmaker. It has already received approval in the European Union to market one of its stents, and it plans to use CV Therapeutics' "stent coating technology" in a second-generation drug-eluting version of its EU-approved stent.

The drug-eluting stent (DES) market is saturated right now, to say the least. Following negative clinical trial data first released in 2006, the DES market in the U.S. has declined precipitously, as reported this week by The Wall Street Journal (although the market may now be stabilizing). Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), first-movers in the DES market, are being crowded with second-generation drug-eluting devices from Medtronic -- and likely Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT) as well.

Competition in the DES market is tighter than the clogged arteries in which the tiny mesh devices are used, so this deal with Medlogics is probably not going to amount to a whole lot of royalties or milestone payments for CV Therapeutics -- even if Medlogics eventually gets approval for its CV Therapeutics-inspired drug-eluting stent. We know this because if the deal were a large one, then CVT would have trumpeted its terms.

Next up on the calendar for CVT is a March 14 FDA decision on its imaging diagnostic aid Regadenoson. Currently, CV Therapeutics' only marketed compound is angina and potential type 2 diabetes treatment Ranexa, and it will be Ranexa's success or failure that largely determines CV Therapeutics' intermediate-term future. Nonetheless, this deal with Medlogics and the upcoming Regadenoson PDUFA date helps to highlight that there is more to the CVT story than just Ranexa.