It’s hard to believe by looking at the 11.5” cultural icon, but Barbie is celebrating her 53rd birthday today. Perhaps her life in plastic is the reason she looks so great for her age but the Society for Vascular Surgery is putting a different spin on the doll’s birthday – noting that Barbie has always maintained an active lifestyle. The organization is using the milestone to highlight the importance of women’s vascular health issues. “Women in their 50s should remain active,” said Kellie Brown, MD, a member of the Society for Vascular Surgery. “Thirty minutes of exercise daily, eating healthy,...

The story has been out for a while about transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), so maybe it's time to project into the future. Before we head there, however, we should revisit the past. The pivotal event in this story is the drug-eluting stent, a device that gave birth to what FDA's Bram Zuckerman, MD, described as the DES trauma. The DES story is twofold; rapid physician adoption and late-stent thrombosis (LST). FDA saw the rate of adoption as an unruly and harmful stampede because of LST, but...

It’s that time of year again when millions of us in the U.S. make New Year’s resolutions to improve ourselves in some grand way – often by means of getting in shape and/or leading an overall healthier lifestyle. And this year we’re sticking to it – right? Well, at least until mid-February. Fortunately this year there are dozens of free mobile health apps that can help us with our resolutions - or at least make it more fun trying.  There’s literally an app for everything from helping you lose weight to tracking your menstrual cycle, monitoring your heart rate, and...

“Okay, hon. I’m headed over to MammothMart. Need to grab some beer and munchies for the Monday night game, a replacement shower head for the bathroom and maybe that new Michael Connelly book." “I might as well get the oil change and lube done on your SUV while I’m there. And while I’m there, I’ll get that loose pair of glasses tightened at the optical shop. Oh yeah, and I guess I’ll have them check out that stomach pain I’ve been having off and on.” If any of the above seems to border on crossing the line between imagination and...

So far I’ve chronicled my visit to Canada by focusing on what I’ve learned so far about the country’s focused efforts on growing its medical device industry – which is, of course, the primary purpose of the Advanced Medical Devices Media Tour, organized by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation (MEDI). But in addition...

I don't directly invest in med-tech, but attending Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics for five years makes me wonder how an investor separates winners and losers. I know TCT 2011 has both, but which are which? Asking about the patient population is just the start of the investor conversation, but in an age in which indications for use are becoming increasingly narrow, it's probably the last question, too. After all, we have radio-frequency ablation devices approved for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, but not for persistent or long-standing afib....

Medtronic has the potential to be a trend setter with its attempt to have drug eluting stents (DES) treat erectile dysfunction (ED). The device maker recently moved one step closer in this effort as it reported that it had completed its ZEN (Zotarolimus-Eluting Peripheral Stent System for the Treatment of Erectile Dysfunction in Males with Sub-Optimal Response to PDE5 Inhibitors), feasibility study. The device, which hasn't been named yet, will be inserted into the pelvic area of the body. More specifically the stent is delivered using a catheter threaded up to the pelvis, where the pudendal artery is located. It...

A prolific inventor who died last week in upstate New York at the age of 92, Wilson Greatbatch is credited with more than 325 patents, including coming up with the first practical implantable pacemaker. Besides being memorialized for those breakthroughs, he truly should be viewed as an inveterate tinkerer who as much as any single individual represents the very best of what that term means to medical innovation. While the invention of the...

As a member of the trade press, I get a kick out of how routinely some people in the mainstream media and the population at large routinely assume that device makers are driven by greed and that doctors are morally flawless creatures who spend all their spare time pondering the public weal and woe, continuously devising ways to ensure their passage through the Pearly Gates with constant acts of selflessness. And then I see the parties weighing in on the question of Medicare coverage for the Sapien aortic valve made by...

After Johnson & Johnson (J&J, New Brunswick, New Jersey) said that it was going to discontinue its work in the drug eluting stent (DES) market, my eyes then began to focus on Medtronic (Minneapolis), which has recently taken a beating in the wallet and court of public opinion with its bone growth product, Infuse. I began asking myself how much longer before Medtronic finally abandons ship on this application. I mean if there ever was a shining example of a device that has caused problems for a company then Infuse is it. The med-tech juggernaut was dealt what one would...