Osiris Therapeutics creates biosurgery division

Osiris Therapeutics (Columbia, Maryland) reported the creation of a new biosurgery division focused on developing and marketing high-end biological products for use in surgical procedures. The company intends to build on the success of its first generation implantable product, Osteocel, which it launched in July of 2005. In its first three years, Osteocel generated over $40 million of revenue for the company before being sold to Nuvasive (San Diego) for up to $85 million in 2008 (Medical Device Daily, July, 28, 2008).

"We believe we have the best-in-class team, infrastructure, and experience to attack unmet surgical problems with biologic solutions and significantly improve outcomes for patients," said Michelle Williams, PhD, chief scientific officer of Osiris Therapeutics, who led the successful development and launch of Osteocel.

Osiris Therapeutics is a stem cell therapeutic company focused on making products to treat serious medical conditions in the inflammatory, orthopedic and cardiovascular areas.

Harris Poll shows resistance to health plan

A Harris Poll of 2,029 adults surveyed online from July 20 to July 22 by Harris Interactive (Rochester, New York) reported the following:

In late January only 17% of the public claimed to know much about President Obama's healthcare reform proposals. By late July that number had more than doubled, to 36%, while fully 72% felt they knew "a lot" or "some." The full importance of this question is that how much people feel they know about the president's proposals are strongly correlated with opposition to them.

This survey also repeated another question that we asked in January to measure support and opposition to the president's health reform proposals. In January, a 50% to 20% plurality supported them (while in most cases admitting that they did not know a lot about them). In our late July survey the public was almost equally divided, with only a slender 42% to 38% plurality supporting the president's proposals.