Just like teenagers complain that their parents don’t let them be, it’s expected that medical device and other biomedical companies will complain that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) slows them down. But it may be more serious than that. Timothy Hay reports in the Venture Capital Dispatch blog of The Wall Street Journal [...]
Medical Device Association Concerned U.S. Will Lose Lead
June 10, 2011 By 1 Comment
The medical device industry association has called on the White House to create an innovations office. In a recent policy agenda, the “Competitiveness Agenda” released by the Advanced Medical Technology Association’s (AdvaMed), the idea of an innovations office was among other proposals, such as increased basic research funding and shortening of the U.S. Food and [...]
West Looks to Chinese Plastics Market
April 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
As China undertakes a complete overhaul of its health care system and its medical device firms work to boost their competitiveness globally, some Western plastics companies involved in processing and design are looking to take advantage of these changes. As Asia bureau chief Steve Toloken reports in Plastics News: Government reforms, including a US$125 billion [...]
Johnson & Johnson to Buy Medical Device Company Synthes
April 21, 2011 By 1 Comment
The rumors began over the weekend and are growing stronger. Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is in discussion to acquire Synthes, a Swiss medical device manufacturer. If the deal crystallizes, J&JÂ could boost its revenue and profit in the short term and gain a strong foothold in the growing market for orthopedic surgery products. It will also [...]
Sudden Popularity of Biotronik Medical Devices Investigated
April 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Medical device company Biotronik decided to play it big in Las Vegas. An article in The New York Times discusses how the little-known company aggressively overtook the market for pacemakers and defribrillators at Las Vegas’ University Medical Center a couple of years ago. Before 2008, its products were not used at the hospital; in 2010, 95% of [...]
Going Bananas (And Pineapples) Over Polymers And Plastics
April 1, 2011 By 1 Comment
Polymers from plant by-products are a hot research topic these days, as we recently saw from Pepsi’s announcement that they will start rolling out bottles made from 100% plant material. Alcides Leão, a professor at São Paulo State University in Brazil, presented a couple of talks at the recent American Chemical Society meeting on this topic. [...]
Heart Device Stretches to Multitask
March 25, 2011 By 1 Comment
Your money does a lot more if you know how to stretch it. The same logic also applies to cardiac medical devices. The team of John A. Rogers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign recently published a paper in Nature Materials that describes a new, stretchy balloon catheter for heart surgery. The catheter comes with all [...]
Susan Freinkel’s Plastics Perspective: Use Them Wisely
March 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment
An op-ed piece in The New York Times by author Susan Freinkel puts a much-needed perspective on plastics. Plastics have been getting a bum rap these days, becoming synonymous with BPA-leaching baby bottles and bags choking up our waterways. Plastics do much good for society as well. Think of the disposable syringe the nurse uses for [...]
Polymer Solutions in Medical Product Outsourcing Magazine
March 22, 2011 By 1 Comment
Polymer Solutions Incorporated‘s founder and CEO, James Rancourt, is quoted in an article in the March issue of Medical Product Outsourcing (MPO) magazine. The feature article, “Materials by Nature“, is written by MPO managing editor Michael Barbella, who explores the lessons that scientists and engineers draw from nature to create new materials that will help to develop [...]
