• Hillel Bachrach has been appointed executive chairman of Intelligent Medical Implants (Zug, Switzerland). Bachrach was previously president and CEO of Orex Computerized Radiography, which was sold to Eastman Kodak. He currently also is chairman of the board of UltraSPECT and NaviCath. Intelligent Medical Implants, with its subsidiaries IIP-Technologies GmbH and Intelligent Medical Implants, is developing the Learning Retinal Implant System, the first product of its developing neuro-prosthetics technology platform.

Product Briefs

• Orthofix International (Huntersville, North Carolina) said that its BREG (Vista, California) subsidiary has launched its newest ambulatory infusion pump, e-PainCare. The programmable electronic infusion pump delivers local anesthetics to a post-operative wound site, allowing patients to stay one step ahead of the pain curve. e-PainCare is BREG's first electronic pain infusion pump, and is the latest addition to the company's line of patient-controlled local infusion pumps.

• Osiris Therapeutics (Baltimore) said that it has completed enrollment in the first human clinical trial of a stem cell therapy to repair tissue in the knee. A total of 55 patients were treated in the Phase I/II double blinded, placebo-controlled trial designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of Chondrogen, a preparation of adult stem cells formulated for direct injection into the knee. Overall changes in the joint, as well as the patients' perception of pain and quality of life will be tracked. The Chondrogen trial is one of five Osiris stem cell clinical trials currently active in the U.S. The company also has two ongoing Phase II trials for Graft vs. Host Disease, a Phase II trial for Crohn's Disease, and a Phase I trial for the repair of heart tissue following a heart attack.

• PHT (Charlestown, Massachusetts), a provider of electronic patient reported outcome solutions, unveiled the PHT eSense PiKo offering, developed in collaboration with PiKo manufacturer Ferraris Respiratory (Louisville, Colorado). The PHT eSense PiKo relies on a wireless personal area network to integrate objective measurement of respiratory function with eDiary entries by subjects in clinical trials on their experiences. The customized eSense PiKo monitors, available through PHT, are equipped with special radio sensor technology that wirelessly and automatically transmits all data from the PiKo directly to the subject's hand-held eDiary. Subjects then enter additional self-reported information on the PHT eSense LogPad and submit the completed diary to a centrally hosted server. Study sponsors and site coordinators can then access the data in real-time using the PHT StudyWorks online portal. To transmit measurement data, the subject places the eSense PiKo near the eDiary and the eSense protocol automatically collects all stored data from the PiKo on the LogPad. This improves data quality by providing accurate, time-stamped eSource readings that can be linked to use by the subject of the measuring device.