Bryan Roberts, a managing general partner at Cambridge’s Venrock Associates, will resign as a member of Athenahealth Inc.’s board of directors, according to a filing with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.
Latest News on MassDevice
Boston Scientific faces a class-action suit and settles a patent case, only to get slapped with another
March 16 capped off a rough week for Boston Scientific Corp. and its Taxus stent line.
The Natick-based device giant found out March 14 that it faces a class-action lawsuit over the 2004 recall of its Taxus stent.
Two days later, the same day the Natick-based device giant settled a patent infringement case filed by a Texas physician, it was slapped with another by a Hong Kong cardiovascular device maker.
Boston Scientific co-founders unload millions in BoSci stock
Boston Scientific Corp. co-founders John Abele and Peter Nicholas unloaded millions of dollars worth of their stakes in the company in March alone.
It’s part of their effort to salvage the Natick-based medical device leviathan’s stock price, which fell from about $45 per share five years ago to less than $9, according to The Boston Globe.
Add to that the failure of its Taxus Express drug-eluting stent and the disastrous, $27 billion buyout Guidant Corp. (which added $10 billion in debt and thousands of safety recalls in 2006).
Action for single payer advocates and money for young scientists
{IMGRIGHT:85×85:http://www.massdevice.com/sites/default/files/headshots/picture-38.jpg}Every week, veteran healthcare reporter Tinker Ready rounds up the latest news for MassDevice. This week, she takes a look at how Governor Deval Patrick plans to slice the state’s stimulus fund pie, a Harvard doc’s appointment by President Barack Obama and how to stop worrying and love your colonoscopy.
Rhythmia lands N.I.H. grant to develop “heart map” catheter
Rhythmia Medical Inc. won a $200,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to help it develop its electronic catheter for use during cardiac ablation procedures, Mass High Tech reported.
The Burlington-based startup plans to use its Small Business Innovation Research grant to develop its electronic catheter, which is designed to map the heart and its electrical activity during catheter ablations, in which surgeons remove the damaged cardiac tissue that causes arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeats.
The wait is over for Cyberkinetics
Delays at the federal Food and Drug Administration and dwindling cash resources will force Cyberkinetics to close its doors for good, The Boston Globe reported.
Lost in translation
A two-year survey by Crimson Life Sciences found that the average serious error rate — serious enough to cause harm to patients — was 400 percent higher than the serious error rate for industry best practices.
The Brighton-based translation services provider analyzed 21 languages, dozens of labeling audits and more than a million translated words. The high incidence of error suggests that many medical device makers face substantial liability and recall risks from translations of their labeling, company officials claimed.
MedAptus lands another investment round to expand its product line
MedAptus tapped its lead investor for another round of financing aimed at growing its suite of handheld products that help physicians more efficiently code procedures for reimbursement.
The Boston-based mobile physician coding tools maker secured secured $6 million in financing from Boston Millennia Partners, one of three venture capital firms with stakes in the company.
Inverness closes ACON Labs deal for $200 million
Three years after inking a deal with San Diego-based ACON Laboratories
to acquire a significant portion of its rapid diagnostic business, Inverness Medical will close out the $200 million acquisition with cash and stock.
The March 19 deal completes an agreement initiated in 2006, when Waltham-based Inverness acquired the rights to ACON’s rapid diagnostic businesses in the United States, Canada, parts of the EU, Australia, Israel, Japan and New Zealand.
EPA extends ToxCast deal with Caliper
The federal Environmental Protection Agency extended its contract with Caliper Life Sciences for its ToxCast project.
The program, which has added about $3.5 million to Caliper’s top line since it began the contract in 2007, is an effort to reduce costs and increase the efficiency of the regulatory approval process for new chemicals.
ToxCast has Caliper helping the EPA develop new lab approaches to identify environmentally toxic chemicals. Its first phase involved assessing overall data quality and determining if the data could accurately predict toxicity profiles.
Cooperation, quality controls and acronyms dominate EU-China roundtables
When the European Union and China convene to discuss topics such as medical device standards, it seems that just about any organization with a clunky acronym for a name can join the discussion.
The EU-China Trade Project (EUCTP) last year endorsed a series of medical device expert roundtables (MDER), beginning in Beijing and continuing through the year in Brussels and Suzhou.
The summits were aimed at fostering cooperation between the two continents and increasing quality and safety. Cooperation is critical for both sides, as China is the EU’s second-largest trading partner and the EU is China’s largest trading partner.