Breakthrough ideas tend to occur because someone or something triggered someone else to think differently, according to Suzana Nahum-Zilberberg, CEO of BioLight Life Sciences Investments (Tel Aviv, Israel). But the biomedical industry has traditionally operated in silos, rather than knowledge clusters, she told Medical Device Daily earlier this month during the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
About three years ago Phil Deschamps, a veteran in healthcare commercialization, was introduced to talk show host Montel Williams by a mutual friend. Upon walking into Williams' office, a unique-looking device caught Deschamps' eye. Williams explained that it was a device being developed in a lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that helped relieve his symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS).
SAN FRANCISCO — Breaking up is hard to do, but large global healthcare companies have a way of making it look like a painless, albeit lengthy, process. Baxter (Deerfield, Illinois) announced its plans to split into two independent, public companies in March 2014 and that separation is expected to happen by the middle of this year. While many of the details won't be divulged until Baxter's shareholder meeting in May, CFO Robert Hombach offered a few clues during last week's J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference about how the transaction is expected to shake out.
SAN FRANCISCO — Last year Congress reformed the clinical lab fee schedule for the first time in 30 years and now, beginning in 2017, the Medicare program will actually peg reimbursement rates to the private-pay rates. The passage of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) of 2014 called for both an extensive reform of the clinical lab fee schedule, as well as provisions affecting coding, coverage, and oversight of advanced diagnostic tests.
SAN FRANCISCO — After a long opening day of company presentations and meetings at the 33rd annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, snagging people's attention for a 5 p.m. panel discussion is an impressive feat. That's the time of day when most attendees' minds are on the evening cocktail parties or, as Venrock's Bryan Roberts put it, "beer and chips time." But a panel dubbed "Technology Led Disruption in Healthcare" moderated by Roberts proved that if the topic is hot enough, J.P. Morgan attendees will cram sardines-style into a conference room at the Westin St. Francis to hear what the panelists have to say.
SAN FRANCISCO — Investors heard from several leading healthcare companies on the opening day of the 33rd annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, all quick to highlight what sets them apart in their particular sectors. One such company executive, Namal Nawana, president/CEO of Alere (Waltham, Massachusetts), told conference attendees during his presentation that what makes Alere different and unique in the diagnostics space is the technology its focus on developing systems for outpatient settings.
