Thoratec Downgraded to Underperform

We recently downgraded our rating for Thoratec Corporation (THOR), a leading provider of devices which address advanced-stage heart failure, to Underperform. Both revenues and earnings for fourth-quarter fiscal 2010 missed the Zacks Consensus Estimates. We believe that the company’s HeartMate II faces an end to its monopoly, in the foreseeable future, in the Bridge-to-Transplantation (“BTT”) [...]