
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — Medical device industry lobbying group AdvaMed named 34 organizations aligned in the battle against the medical device tax in a new ad campaign urging Congress to act on measures to get the bill repealed.
In ads slated to run today in various online and print outlets, AdvaMed checked off a series of goalposts in favor of spiking the tax, including that repeal efforts could save 43,000 jobs, save billions and improve the U.S. industry’s global competitiveness.
"Congress must act now for jobs & medical innovation," the ad states. "The medical device tax has already cost medical technology companies more than $1 billion this year alone."
Alongside AdvaMed were the names of more than 30 other groups lending their names to device tax repeal efforts, including the American Assn. of Neurological Surgeons, the Council for Affordable Health Coverage and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The online ads are slated to run through the end of the month, an AdvaMed representative told MassDevice.com.
Experimental bionic limb allows 1st amputee to navigate stairs with near-natural gait
In what may be a revolution in lower limb prosthetics, an amputee was able to successful make his way up and down a flight of stairs with a bionic prosthetic that translates neurological signals captured through the skin into commands that manipulated joints.
Read more
Federal healthcare watchdogs awarded 7 grants worth a total of $3.5 million to researchers developing innovative new medical devices for pediatric patients, including researchers from the New England Pediatric Device Consortium, the Boston Pediatric Device Consortium and the Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium.
Read more
Ottawa-based Nordion (NYSE:NDZ) closed the books on a $90 million lawsuit accusing the company of causing the FDA to refuse Bioaxone’s spinal cord injury drug by exposing the developing therapy with contaminants that can cause mad cow disease.
Read more
The National Institutes of Health approved a $40 million initiative to provide funding for research analyzing the interactions of individual cells and neural circuits in the brain, in hopes of advancing research into prevention, diagnosis and treatment of neurological disease.
Read more