The Medical Device Business Journal — Medical Device News & Articles | MassDevice
Calypso Medical Technologies Inc. treated its 10,000th prostate cancer patient with GPS for the Body in May, an important landmark for the Seattle-based targeted radiation therapy company and its flagship device.
GPS for the Body won FDA clearance in 2006 for focused prostate cancer radiation therapy using a proprietary guidance system that tracks a tumor in real time as the body moves, keeping the radiation beam on target.
Covidien CEO Joe Almeida at the MassDevice Big 100 Regional Roundtable, July 11, 2011
Dr. Patrick Mooney took an interesting path to the top seat at Echo Therapeutics Inc. (OTC:ECTE), a Philadelphia, Pa.-based company developing a non-invasive, wireless, transdermal continuous glucose monitoring device for the diabetes market.
Sagentia is a company that thrives on complexity. Its business is built around helping both established and emerging technology companies avoid the uncertainties of innovation.
"We operate best where there is a complex scientific or technical problem that needs resolving as part of product development,” CEO Brent Hudson told MassDevice.
Hudson, who joined the research and development consulting firm in 2009, describes the services they offer as having a little ‘r’ and a big ‘D.’
Laser-based lab equipment maker Hamilton Thorne Inc. (CVE:HTL) derives a major part of its revenues from the life sciences R&D market. CEO Meg Spencer says that requires the company to surf the leading edge of several life science research waves, including stem cells and regenerative medicine.
The Beverly, Mass.-based company looks to help solve some of the problems scientists encounter as they develop their research on stem cells into regenerative medicine techniques. Those often involve the growth of millions — or even billions — of cells, so anything that can accelerate or automate that process is vital to innovation in the space.
When BG Medicine (NSDQ:BGMD) took itself public last month, three years after first announcing (then scuttling) its first initial public offering, investors seemed to like what they saw. Sure, the company cut its share price in half just ahead of the $7-per-share offering Feb. 11, but shares have averaged nearly $8.41 since then — a 20.1 percent increase.*
Coming generations of implanted medical devices will interact with the human body at the molecular level, using sophisticated nano-coatings to not only thwart microbial growth but to perform biological operations.
That’s the prediction of Nano Surfaces founder, president and CEO Joe Gatto. The Boston-based firm is developing technology it’s licensed from Cornell University to create self-assembling, anti-microbial coatings on a nanotech scale — and Gatto says that’s just the beginning. To prove it, he’s hitting to road to raise a Series A round from institutional investors.
Medical device developers have long sought to reduce the risks involved with implants by applying coatings to prevent both bacteria and blood from sticking to the objects once they’re inside the body.
But coatings can wear off or otherwise lose their effectiveness. Semprus BioSciences Inc. is developing a solution to this fundamental limitation of implanted medical devices with its Sustain technology, which CEO David Lucchino describes as a “physical extension” of the device’s material.
You could forgive Michael Mussallem if he didn’t want to bid farewell to 2010.
While the rest of us were still trying to pull our heads out of the lingering effects of the so-called “Great Recession,” the 57-year-old chief executive of Edwards LifeSciences Corp. (NYSE:EW) was busy watching his company clean up on Wall Street and set itself up for a sweet run this year.
More than 20 years ago, David Muller led a revolution in the world of vision correction.
As chairman and CEO of Summit Technology, he led a team that brought the first excimer laser through the Food & Drug Administration for use in reshaping the cornea. The technology, later dubbed Lasik, is a worldwide phenomenon and has helped tens of millions of patients shed glasses and contact lenses.
Decades later, Muller is at it again as the chief executive of Waltham, Mass.-based Avedro Inc., looking to finish what he started, this time with a new vision correction procedure he says will make Lasik safer and more effective.
Restoring vision to the blind is the sort of feat reserved for ancient religious texts and modern science fiction novels. But a company in Germany did just that with an eye implant.
Retina Implant AG is in the process of developing a sub-Retina Implant, designed to be inserted into the eye to treat back-of-the-eye disorders. A first clinical trial showed that the device can enable people suffering from a certain type of macular degeneration to see. The patients had retinitus pigmentosa, an inherited and incurable degenerative condition that causes tunnel vision and often, eventually, complete blindness. Retina Implant estimates that the condition affects about 200,000 people in the U.S. and Europe.
