MASSDEVICE ON CALL —Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT) tops the list of the 15 most watched stocks in med-tech, followed closely by Intuitive Surgical Inc. (NSDQ:ISRG) in second and Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE:BSX) in third.
Citing a rich pipeline that the Minneapolis, Minn.-based device giant uses to "dominate market share in almost all of their segments they compete in" and a 2.14 percent dividend yield, Medtronic appears to be the company to watch, according to Daily Finance.
Not cited as a reason for heightened interest? Medtronic’s ongoing defense against accusations of misconduct surrounding its Infuse bone graft product.
Medicare to blame for 40 percent of government waste
Improper Medicare payments make up 40 percent of all government waste, according to a new report by the Government accountability Office.
That makes it the number one most wasteful federal program, Fierce Health Finance wrote.
Pagers may be less flashy, but they’re there in a pinch
While 80 percent of physicians in the U.S. carry smartphones and about a third have tables, pagers are still the top technology for speed and reliability, Critical Alert Systems president Ted McNaught wrote for MobiHealthNews.
When a tornado tore through Joplin, Miss., earlier this year cell phone towers were out of commission for days, but the hospital’s pager system stayed online, sending messages to personnel inside the hospital and to first responders throughout Joplin.
UMass Engineer lands $351k imaging grant
An electrical engineer at the University of Mass. Amherst landed a $351,303 National Science Foundation grant to develop a new generation of biomedical sensors that are more sensitive, less expensive and more portable than existing tools.
"The basic idea is to re-engineer the microscope given that we don’t use our eyes," engineer Christopher Salthouse said in prepared remarks. "Since we are going to take a picture, we don’t need to sacrifice performance just to create an image you can see through an eyepiece."
Why a broken heart can’t mend itself
Unlike newts or salamanders, humans can’t spontaneously regrow damaged organs, and stem cell scientists at UCLA may be the first to explain why.
The human heart contains myocytes that have a short regenerative phase early in life, about the first week, but regenerating animals can re-enter that cell cycled to repair torn muscle.
"In mammals, we’ve lost that potential. If we knew how to restore that, or knew the reason why adult myocytes can’t do it, we could try to figure out a way to use nature’s methods to regenerate the heart," stem cell researcher Dr. Robb MacLellan said in prepared remarks.