NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Is Guidant worth all this fuss?

Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific are locked in a nasty takeover battle for Guidant Corp. (Research), an Indianapolis-based maker of implantable defibrillators and other medical devices that was hit with product recalls in 2005 that were connected to seven deaths.

Guidant's board is facing a Friday deadline on whether to accept a takeover bid from Boston Scientific, which raised its offer late Thursday by $1 to $73 a share, or about $25 billion.

The proposed deadline passed without public comment from any of the companies Friday. (Full story).

Vying with Boston Scientific (down $0.01 to $13.70, Research), which develops implantable devices with treatments for deafness and pain: Johnson & Johnson (down $0.46 to $61.82, Research), the New Jersey-based maker of prescription drugs, Tylenol and other consumer products.

J&J's latest offer is about $23.2 billion for Guidant. J&J and Guidant agreed to merge back in December 2004 for $25.4 billion. But that was before Guidant started recalling a line of defibrillators and ran into trouble with regulators, prompting J&J to cut its offer.

Why all the hubbub?

Guidant's stock has been wildly volatile over the last 12 months, and is trading about where it was a year ago.

Last July Guidant recalled tens of thousands of pacemakers because of faulty sealants that allowed moisture to damage the devices' electronic circuitry. Of the 78,000 pacemakers that had been distributed, 28,000 had been implanted, including 18,000 in the this country, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Then in December the FDA sent Guidant a warning letter stemming from its inspection of a pacemaker factory in St. Paul, Minn., three months earlier. The company replied that it had already addressed 90 percent of the problems cited in the letter.

Despite all these problems, whoever controls Guidant becomes the second-biggest player in the $10 billion industry for implantable pacemakers and defibrillators, said Keay Nakae, analyst for C.E. Unterberg, Towbin.

"The cardiac rhythm management business is large -- $10 billion, highly profitable and it's an oligopoly," said Nakae.

Medtronic (up $0.16 to $58.34, Research), currently No. 1 in the market, would remain the biggest, while St. Jude (down $0.24 to $53.53, Research) would come in at a close third, said Nakae.

Jan Wald, analyst for A.G. Edwards & Sons, described the cardiac rhythm device market as "one of the fastest growing markets in medical technology, and Guidant is number two in that market."

But if J&J doesn't raise its bid Friday and Guidant's board declares Boston Scientific the winner, that won't end the story, because J&J would still be able to put in another bid next week.

"I don't think they'll do it today," said Bernstein analyst Bruce Nudell, referring to J&J possibly raising its bid, if it so decides.

"But they have five days to put in a bid after a (competing) bid is deemed superior. So Boston Scientific is probably holding their feet to the fire and trying to flush out Johnson & Johnson to try and see where they're going."

Guidant declined to comment for this story.

To read about other potential takeover targets for Johnson & Johnson, click here.