SAN FRANCISCO − Early arrivals to this year's addition of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference at the Westin St. Francis Hotel were treated to something that would soon be in short supply . . . elbow room. This reporter was certainly envious when Managing Director Kevin Willsey noted that the first meeting back in 1983 had less than 100 attendees. This year's addition of what is arguably the preeminent conference in the healthcare sector had more than 8,500 registered attendees. (Medical Device Daily)
By JIM STOMMEN, Medical Device Daily Contributing Writer The arguments going on these days over the prostate cancer screening test known as prostate-specific antigen (PSA for short) might make one think that there’s something wrong with the test itself. Not so. The argument by what we will refer to as the “anti” side of the issue is with what happens after the routine blood test comes back with a positive finding. Those folks, who go by the name U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, maintain that the PSA test leads to demonstrative levels of over-treatment, doing so to such an extent...
I went to see my doctor a few weeks ago for a physical. Since I just turned 40, he recommended that I have a CT scan to check for calcification in my heart valves. Maybe I would have said "no," when he mentioned that the cost would not be covered by insurance, but his cautionary tale about a person he knew who had collapsed and died of a heart attack at the age of 42 persuaded me that maybe this was a good idea after all. I went in for the test yesterday and the entire procedure took less than...
Back in the early days of Medical Device Daily – in fact, it might even have been in the relatively brief very early period of time when the new publication was known as Medical Device Week – it’s likely that few if any healthcare-related companies got more frequent mention in our pages than MedCath. Thinking back on that time, it seems like news stories on the high-flying operator of heart-focused specialty hospitals were appearing in MDW and then MDD with amazing regularity. It was “MedCath reported this week plans to open a new hospital in . . .” or “MedCath...
Medtronic (Minneapolis) reported that it is funding two independent reviews of studies of its Infuse bone graft in the wake of criticism of the clinical trials it conducted to support the device. (Medical Device Daily)
When one thinks about countries that are hotbeds for medical technology innovation, Israel would not likely be at the top of anyone’s list. But people in the know will tell you that this small country, with a population of just a shade over 7.5 million people, has a reputation for being a tireless innovator in the field, with countries from all over the world flocking there to study their business model. According to the Israeli Life Science Industry, an advocacy group, the med-tech industry is also young and growing. Of the currently operating 702 companies, 56% were founded during the...
President Barack Obama unveiled his deficit reduction plan last week, calling for a mix of spending reductions and tax hikes that the White House claims would cut federal deficits by $4 trillion over the next 12 years without gutting popular programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, a challenge that may be difficult to achieve given the level of debt in the U.S. Obama's plan calls for a repeal of the Bush-era tax cuts on families making more than $250,000 annually. The president also called for the creation of a "debt fail-safe" trigger that would impose automatic across-the-board spending cuts and...
It’s easy to understand the excitement about the PARTNER trial, sponsored by Edwards Lifesciences (Irvine, California), the company that makes the much talked about transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) device, called the Sapien. After all, given the choice between open heart surgery or a non-surgical alternative most patients would prefer the latter. However, the data from the study, which was presented earlier this week at the American College of Cardiology (Washington) annual meeting in New Orleans, showed that TAVR patients were also more likely to have a stroke following the procedure. In the study, major strokes were higher for TAVR...
Late last month, Medtronic (Minneapolis) reported that it was cancelling several of its largest contracts with group purchasing organizations (GPOs) worth more than $2 billion collectively. Medtronic said the decision to cancel five contracts with Novation (Irving, Texas) and another with Premier (Charlotte, North Carolina) will save it about $60 million a year. Wall Street reacted positively to the news and some industry watchers are wondering if other companies will follow suit and bypass GPOs to sell products directly to hospitals. GPOs – which use high volume purchasing power to secure discounts for hospitals, introduce new devices to the market,...
The recess appointment of Donald Berwick, MD, to the administrator’s position at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) last July roiled many members of Congress, and a recent Senate letter to the Obama administration expressing disfavor for Berwick’s continued presence at CMS may have finally lain to rest any chance that he had of a successful confirmation hearing. The letter, whose principal authors include Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), the ranking GOP member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the ranking GOP member of the Senate Finance Committee, cite Berwick’s “past record...
