ML10

Richard Smith says it’s time to open up the finances of medical journals so we can see whether lucrative reprint business is risking clouding judgement. A bit more transparency about publications’ sources of income would perhaps provide comfort.

Teleflex Incorporated has acquired Semprus BioSciences who’s core Semprus Sustain™ Technology for coating devices is designed to reduce the attachment of platelets and blood proteins at the device surface.

A coating of selenium nanoparticles significantly reduces the growth of Staphylococcus aureus on polycarbonate, a material common in implanted devices such as catheters and endotracheal tubes, engineers at Brown University report in a new study.

Boston Scientific Corporation has announced a significant milestone for its telemonitoring technology with the initial use of the Latitude NXT Remote Patient Management System for pacemaker patients in Europe. The company says its next-generation wireless remote patient management system enables physicians to risk-stratify patients and more confidently make treatment decisions.

Back in February US congressional watchdog, the Government Accountability Office asked FDA to implement more stringent testing of medical devices before market release. Four months on a law firm sees fit to make a meal of it.

A new clinical study suggests endoscopic ablation for Atrial fibrillation generates good results with a durable outcome and a short learning curve for operators.

CardiaQ Valve Technologies has waited for the moment when its percutaneous mitral valve was first deployed in man, and it has now announced that’s occurred in what is believed to be a world first and a clinical milestone.

There’s no doubt that much of what is proposed in the European Parliamentary measures to improve patient safety represent sensible and overdue measures. But the European “PMA” is sounding like a hammer to crack a nut. Eucomed isn’t sounding convinced either.

Parliamentary select committee on medical device regulation saw witnesses from industry and regulatory stakeholders today. It’s all looking very harmonious, but has anyone thought about the cost of the brave new world that is being sold to us?

According to a news release from Reuters agency, Johnson & Johnson has, as expected, won U.S. antitrust approval to buy Swiss medical device company Synthes Inc. if it sells its system for surgically treating serious wrist fractures, and related assets (to Biomet Inc.), the Federal Trade Commission said on Monday.

It puts events in perspective when a natural disaster the size of that which has hit Italy in recent weeks is translated into what it really means for local people and businesses. Eucomed’s feature says it all and is an appeal for help.

The House of Representatives has voted 270-146 in favour of progressing the repeal act, but the game’s far from over as the bill may be squashed by a stubborn White House.

The harbingers of doom would have it that the medtech sales tax bit of Obamacare would reduce investment in innovation and in so doing kill people by not offering them lifesaving technologies that haven’t yet been invented. Mad argument maybe, but the real point is how well medtech industry has campaigned against the tax.

Ethicon’s legal representative has written to a federal judge in West Virginia stating it intends to stop selling four vaginal mesh implants after being sued by more than 600 women who say the products caused internal injuries.

Things are coming to a head over the US medtech sales tax levy this week as a new act designed to repeal the original legislation, has found its way through the Committee on Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives, with support from both parties.

Covidien says its new Radial Reload allows surgeons to cut and securely staple colon tissue up to 2 cm deeper into the pelvis than the Ethicon Contour® Curved Cutter Stapler.