Ask Dave Bergstein about the next big thing in diagnostics and his eyes light up. The Zoíray Technologies Inc. founder and CEO runs startup that’s developing a next-generation multiplexed immunoassay platform Bergstein thinks will become the new state-of-the-art standard for studying proteins.
MassDevice Q&A: Richard Schumacher
Richard Schumacher is no stranger to successful start-ups. The Pressure BioSciences founder, president and CEO had a hand in five early-stage life science ventures, including Boston Biomedica.
The MassDevice Weekly Checkup: September 8, 2009
{IMAGERIGHT:http://www.massdevice.com/sites/default/files/checkup/090908_index1.gif}Our Weekly Checkup takes the temperature of the medical device industry’s three largest U.S. clusters: Massachusetts, California and Minnesota.
The MassDevice Indices are weighted according to market capitalization, based on the number of shares outstanding for each company from its most recent quarterly report and each Friday’s closing share price.
The Massachusetts index for the week ended Sept. 4 closed at 5.2, up 1.2 percent compared with the prior week. Since Jan. 1, when we began tracking these companies, the index has risen 16.5 percent.
MassDevice Q&A: Philipp Lang
Philipp Lang wears a lot of hats. Besides being the founder, president, chairman and CEO of ConforMIS Inc., he’s a radiologist and former director of the Musculoskeletal Radiology and Distinguished Weissman Chair at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
But ConforMIS and its breakthrough custom knee implant technology aren’t Lang’s first forays into the startup medical device world. He also founded Imaging Therapeutics Inc. (where he remains chairman) and served on the board at ViOptix Inc.
MassDevice Q&A: Stuart Randle
Stuart Randle, president and CEO of Lexington-based GI Dynamics, has a long career in medical devices under his belt. Originally a mechanical engineer with a degree from Cornell University, Randle got into the device world during his MBA studies at Northwestern University and never looked back.
MassDevice Q&A: Michael Phalen
Michael Phalen, president of Boston Scientific Corp.‘s endoscopy division, began his long tenure at the Natick devices giant in 1988 as a sales rep. After several crossings between the outside sales world and inside marketing positions, he was named president of the endoscopy operation in 2001.*
MassDevice Q&A: Chris LaFarge
Chris LaFarge, president and CEO of MedicaMetrix, is betting on his firm’s ProstaGlove device to change the way doctors track and treat the prostate. The product is essentially a disposable rubber glove armed with sensors LaFarge says will provide a quantitative method for tracking the volume and growth rate of the prostate — the only human organ that never stops growing.
MassDevice Q&A: MassMEDIC president Tom Sommer
Tom Sommer’s been a major player on the Massachusetts medical device scene for more than a dozen years. As president of the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council (MassMEDIC), Sommer runs the nations largest regional medical device council, addressing the needs of more than 400 member companies.
With the council’s May 5 annual conference on the horizon, MassDevice visited Sommer at MassMEDIC’s offices at the Boston Medical Center (PDF) campus to find out what’s on the minds of the device company executives he visits each week, how they’re coping with a down economy and the challenges imposed by the Bay State’s stringent gift ban.
FDA spikes wider use of Stryker’s OP-1 putty
The federal Food & Drug Administration shot down Stryker Corp.‘s application for expanded use of its bone-growth putty after a panel of outside experts voted 6-1 against allowing the expansion, the Reuters news service reported.
The watchdog agency’s panel found that bias may have influenced subjects in clinical trials for the medical device giant’s OP-1 putty, a genetically engineered protein used to stimulate bone growth in spinal surgeries.
Stryker’s biotech division is headquartered in Hopkinton.
Venrock raises $194 million for healthcare VC fund
Venrock raised nearly $200 million to seed its healthcare venture capital fund and add to its portfolio of 39 healthcare companies.
The VC shop, originally formed as the Rockefeller family’s venture vehicle, has offices in Cambridge, Palo Alto, Israel and New York City. With the closing of its latest healthcare fundraising round, Venrock has about $2.2 billion at its disposal.
