It’s not exactly news that the med-tech industry is under pressure from a variety of fronts – an uncertain regulatory environment, a looming tax burden and, not least, downward pricing pressure from its health care provider customers.
MassDevice Q&A
Intuitive Surgical’s Guthart: “The first rule of being disruptive is having people who believe they can change the world”
Gary Guthart knows a little something about disruptive innovation.
The hack-able body: Are device makers doing enough to shield patients from hackers?
Karen Sandler was 31 years old, working at a non-profit organization providing free legal help to computer programmers, when she was diagnosed with an enlarged heart and informed that she’d need a machine to help keep her alive.
Her mother accompanied her the day a doctor recommended that Sandler undergo surgery to implant a medical device into her chest. He handed Sandler a pager-sized machine called a cardioverter defibrillator – a miniature, implantable equivalent of having EMTs follow her around all day with defibrillator paddles should her heart stop.
Accuray CEO Euan Thomson: “We’ve never paid much attention to the opinions or messages of our competitors”
When Euan Thomson landed in the corner office at radiosurgery device maker Accuray (NSDQ:ARAY) in 2002, the company was just preparing to penetrate a very well-established market.
MassDevice Q&A: Teleflex CEO Benson Smith
Teleflex (NYSE:TFX) made news last year when it began a series of divestitures aimed at eliminating its non-medical-device holdings, ditching a cargo systems business and its aerospace arm.
MassDevice Q&A: LayerWise co-founder Peter Mercelis
LayerWise made headlines this month when it unveiled the world’s first custom-made total lower jaw implant, "printed" from a 3D schematic.
The device was constructed layer by layer from a digital file mapped to the patient’s jaw, a process called "metal additive manufacturing" that Belgium-based LayerWise has used in making custom spinal implants, cranial plates and acetabular implants.
MassDevice.com Podcast: ConforMis CEO Philipp Lang
Philipp Lang has ConforMIS looking to get a leg up on the knee replacement industry.
Last week, the Burlington, Mass.-based orthopedic implant maker said it raised $89 million in a Series E round from several investors, bringing the total nut raised by ConforMIS over the last 3 years to more than $140 million – a somewhat remarkable amount, given the fundraising climate over the past few years.
MassDevice Podcast: Soteira CEO Larry Jasinski
MassDevice.com Q&A: Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak
Just a few days into his tenure as CEO of Medtronic (NYSE:MDT), Omar Ishrak was confronted with a major crisis: The Spine Journal devoted its entire June issue to to exposing problems with growth proteins, including a repudiation of some of the research surrounding Infuse.
MassDevice Q&A: James Mazzo, Abbott Medical Optics
You don’t get more dialed-in to the device industry than James Mazzo, and you definitely don’t get busier.
In addition to his duties as senior VP of Abbott Medical Optics Inc., an ophthalmic company he spun out of Allergan (NYSE:AGN) and then sold to health care giant Abbott (NYSE:ABT) in 2009, Mazzo has been the chairman of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, or AdvaMed, for the past two years.