St. Jude Medical Distributes Programmer Software Upgrade to Eliminate Low-Frequency Anomaly

Business Wire, Jan 18, 2008

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE: STJ) today announced that it has distributed a programmer software upgrade to eliminate a random, low-frequency anomaly that could affect ventricular sensing in the Epic[TM] and Atlas[TM] families of implantable cardiac defibrillators.

Specifically, a potential loss of ventricular sensing has been attributed to an extremely rare timing sequence that occurs in a very small (61 microsecond) timing window. To date, an incidence of 0.00006 of the subject device population (eight out of approximately 143,000 implanted since July 2002) has been found to exhibit a loss of ventricular sensing. Although the company has not received any reports of adverse events or clinical complications associated with the anomaly and the rate of incidence is very low, the company has chosen to take a conservative and transparent approach in advising the medical community and regulatory agencies.

The new software will be downloaded into the device during a patient's next routine check up and will fully prevent the anomaly from occurring in the future. The simple, non-invasive software upgrade can be completed in approximately 10-20 seconds, during which time the device will maintain full functionality. St. Jude Medical, in consultation with its independent Medical Advisory Board members, has determined that no other action is recommended.

The company is in the process of distributing the programmer software to its physician customers. A copy of the physician communication can be found at

http://www.sjm.com/physiciancommunication_jan2008.aspx

The company does not expect this matter to have any material financial impact.

About St. Jude Medical

St. Jude Medical is dedicated to making life better for cardiac, neurological and chronic pain patients worldwide through excellence in medical device technology and services. The company has five major focus areas that include: cardiac rhythm management, atrial fibrillation, cardiac surgery, cardiology and neuromodulation. Headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., St. Jude Medical employs approximately 12,000 people worldwide. For more information, please visit www.sjm.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

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