NxStage Medical Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTM) chalked up another boon with the news that former chief medical officer of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Dr. Barry Straube joined the board of directors this week.
Straube enters the NxStage board after six years with CMS, during which time he was also director of the office of clinical standards and quality. He oversaw initiatives in Medicare coverage decision-making, quality improvement collaboratives and many sections of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, among others.
His tenures as CMO and OCSQ director were the longest in CMS history, according to Straube’s LinkedIn post announcing his retirement in November 2010.
“I’ve known NxStage for many years and have a great deal of respect for their discipline in developing the clinical and economic fact base to support home, more frequent hemodialysis with the System One,” said Dr. Straube in the release. “I truly believe that home, more frequent hemodialysis can play a significant part in achieving Medicare’s goals for patient-centered care that leads to better health outcomes and associated lower costs.”
The news follows a Wall Street upgrade for NXTM stock and analysts’ predictions that the the Lawrence, Mass.-based dialysis maker was poised to drive double-digit annual growth in the billion-dollar dialysis market in June.
