Good intentions. That's industry's verdict on the Canadian government's ambitious plans for more technological innovation to aid its beleaguered healthcare system. Actual entry of innovative products into the system? Well, that's another matter. At a meeting with government agencies in June, eighteen small Canadian-based companies complained that public procurement is focused too much on cost minimization at the expense of innovation and its value to patient care.

A Canadian surgeon has become the first in North America to implant the world's first drug-eluting bioresorbable vascular scaffold. Jean-Fran ois Tanguay, MD, director of the coronary unit at the Montreal Heart Institute, implanted Abbott Vascular's (Abbott Park, Illinois) Absorb stent in a 67-year old woman with coronary artery disease in December. Three months later, she is living normally, free of chest pain. Tanguay told Medical Device Daily the device could "completely replace" the current generation of metal coronary stents.