Medical Devices News and Research

RSS

Viewpoints: GOP trapped between angry base and reality of health law; small businesses 'scrambling;' competing views of Medicaid expansion in Va.

Recent political reporting suggests that Republican leaders are in a state of high anxiety, trapped between an angry base that still views Obamacare as the moral equivalent of slavery and the reality that health reform is the law of the land and is going to happen (Paul Krugman, 8/18).

20 Aug 2013

First Edition: August 19, 2013

Today's headlines include reports about how public perceptions and political opposition continue to swirl around the health law's implementation.

19 Aug 2013

Chemical compound prevents fungal cells from adhering to surfaces

Targeting serious and sometimes deadly fungal infections, a team of researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) has discovered a chemical compound that prevents fungal cells from adhering to surfaces, which, typically, is the first step of the infection process used by the human pathogen Candida albicans (C. albicans).

14 Aug 2013

Medtronic adds disease management to its portfolio

Medtronic wades into the business of disease management in a bid to find business outside its medical device offerings. In the meantime, a popular calorie-counting app gets $18 million in new venture capital funding.

From Medtronic 13 Aug 2013

Derma Sciences reports financial and operating results for 2013

Derma Sciences, Inc., a medical device and pharmaceutical company focused on advanced wound care, today reported financial and operating results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2013.

12 Aug 2013

GE, UW scientists to develop new medical device for detecting infectious disease

You've heard of on-demand TV, now imagine on-demand medical diagnosis - anytime, anywhere in the world. Scientists at GE Global Research, the technology development arm of the General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), are working with a team based at the University of Washington to develop a new medical device, the size of a pack of playing cards, that can detect infectious disease by way of a simple nasal swab, in less than an hour.

9 Aug 2013

Verizon's Converged Health Management solution gets FDA clearance

Verizon announced today that it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance for Converged Health Management, a cloud-based, remote patient-monitoring medical device. This marks the first time Verizon has sought and gained FDA clearance for a healthcare solution.

9 Aug 2013

FitBionic completes $2.2M funding round with KMG Capital Partners, CID4 and High Country Venture

FitBionic has completed a $2.2 million funding round with a team led by KMG Capital Partners, with High Country Venture and the Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic Development. The investment was developed in support of the global launch of FitBionic's currently available first product, the FitBionic Foot, and as a bridge to the company's Series A financing, which is expected in 2014.

8 Aug 2013

Biodegradable surgical sutures could treat brain infections

A plastic material already used in absorbable surgical sutures and other medical devices shows promise for continuous administration of antibiotics to patients with brain infections, scientists are reporting in a new study. Use of the material, placed directly on the brain's surface, could reduce the need for weeks of costly hospital stays now required for such treatment, they say in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

8 Aug 2013

Researchers adapt microscopic technology for bionic body parts

Tiny sensors and motors are everywhere, telling your smartphone screen to rotate and your camera to focus. Now, a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University has found a way to print biocompatible components for these micro-machines, making them ideal for use in medical devices, like bionic arms.

8 Aug 2013

Viewpoints: Health law's marketing challenge; GOP not to blame for implementation challenges

More than half of working-class whites say [the federal health law] is a bad idea. Perhaps most stunningly, so do 48% of those currently without health insurance - the very people who stand to gain the most, in the form of help finding and paying for coverage. Meanwhile, by a 30-point margin, political independents think they will be worse off under the law.

7 Aug 2013

First Edition: August 5, 2013

Kaiser Health News staff writer Jordan Rau reports: "Medicare will levy $227 million in fines against hospitals in every state but one for the second round of the government's campaign to reduce the number of patients readmitted within a month, according to federal records released Friday" (Rau, 8/2).

5 Aug 2013

ConforMIS expands Series E financing to $167.7 million

ConforMIS, Inc., a privately held medical device company pioneering patient-specific orthopedic implants, announced today it has expanded its Series E financing to $167.7 million with participation from top-tier Sovereign Wealth Funds, Government Investment Funds and Private Equity Funds in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

3 Aug 2013

BD reports quarterly revenues of $2.053 billion for third fiscal quarter

BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a leading global medical technology company, today reported quarterly revenues of $2.053 billion for the third fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2013, representing an increase of 3.6 percent from the prior-year period, or 5.1 percent on a foreign currency-neutral basis.

From BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) 1 Aug 2013

Novocure uses NovoTTF therapy to treat first recurrent glioblastoma tumor patient

Novocure today announced that Dr. Tatsunori Okamaura, MD, Ph.D., of the Kashiwaba Neurosurgical Hospital in Sapporo, Japan has treated the first patient in Japan with alternating electric field therapy.

1 Aug 2013

CWRU grants technology transfer option to Disease Diagnostic Group to evaluate RAM device

Case Western Reserve University has granted a two-year technology transfer option to a research spinoff company developing a hand-held device that diagnoses malaria more quickly, simply and affordably than existing methods.

31 Jul 2013

Lawmakers' aides fret over requirement to buy Obamacare coverage

The New York Times explores how congressional staffs are anxious about a health law provision requiring them to buy coverage in online insurance markets because the federal government may no longer pay a share of their premiums.

31 Jul 2013

SAM Junctional Tourniquet gets FDA clearance to control difficult bleeds in the axilla area

SAM Medical Products is pleased to announce it has received 510(k) regulatory clearance from the FDA to add an additional indication of use to the SAM Junctional Tourniquet.

31 Jul 2013

State highlights: Mass. insurers back out of disabled adults experiment

Massachusetts health insurers' reluctance to join a national experiment to improve care for disabled lower-income adults has forced the state to scale back the program even before it starts. Massachusetts is among the first states to roll out the national program, but half the insurers that were expected to participate backed out because they feared losing money. That will mean fewer options for patients when enrollment opens for the voluntary "One Care" program in October (Conaboy, 7/29).

30 Jul 2013