We all know power struggles are part of life, but not all struggles for leverage are created equal. Following are three stories that tell us something about leverage and its many uses. Interagency conflict over Intermacs? The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently announced it would no longer require hospitals to forward data from their patients with ventricular assist devices to the Intermacs registry. Depending on whom one asks, that’s a plus for hospitals, but the flip side of that particular coin is that another registry will have to take it’s place. The problem with CMS seeming to pull...

GAITHERSBURG, Maryland — Boston Scientific (BSX; Natick, Massachusetts) scored a resounding 13-1 victory in the second advisory panel for the Watchman left atrial appendage closure device in a hearing that drew 10 respondents for the open public hearing. The vote came with a strong recommendation for a heftier post-approval study recommendation than the firm had proposed, which was a single-arm, five-year study of 1,000 existing and new patients. The big question is whether the company will have to foot the bill for a post-approval study and participate in the build-out of a registry.