The Medical Device Business Journal — Medical Device News & Articles | MassDevice
By Angus McQuilken, vice president for communications, Mass. Life Sciences Center
The final day of BIO International 2010 convention in Chicago was yesterday and it was our last chance (for this year!) to showcase Massachusetts to the largest annual gathering of international leaders in biotechnology.
MassDevice.com is blogging on the topic of building innovative medical technology for the developing world, featuring some of the leading minds in the field.
This feature will continue up through May 17th and the first annual World Health Medical Technology Conference at Boston University.
By Susan Windham-Bannister, president & CEO, Mass. Life Sciences Center
Starting today, MassDevice.com will run several blog posts on the topic of building innovative medical technology for the developing world, featuring some of the leading minds in the field.
This feature will continue up through May 17th and the first annual World Health Medical Technology Conference at Boston University.
By Angus McQuilken, vice president for communications, Mass. Life Sciences Center
The BIO International 2010 convention got underway this week in Chicago, and the Bay State once again has a strong presence at the show. The Massachusetts Pavilion, a 2,300-square-foot space on the show floor, has been a busy place on this first full day of the convention.
It’s been a few days since I returned from my first trip to China and, while I’ve had a chance to digest some of the things I witnessed at the China International Medical Equipment Fair in Shenzhen, I’m still looking for some perspective.
Namely, how big an opportunity is the Chinese market for medical device companies in the U.S.?
From the outside looking in, it certainly seems to be an enormous one due to the sheer size and density of the country. There are something like 170 cities in China with populations of more than one million people. In the U.S. there are nine. Getting the proverbial 1 percent of that market just might make your head explode.
The U.S. may be the world’s leading medical market and many Chinese medical device manufacturers are very interested in cracking it, but not for the reasons you might assume.
Several Chinese executives I’ve spoken with say that, while they see the market opportunity as intriguing, entering the U.S. may have more marketing caché than sales potential.
Yao Wen, the international marketing director at Beijing Wandong Medical Equipment Co. Ltd., or WDM, one of this country’s leading domestic providers of X-ray machines, described the American market as crucial to validating a company’s bona fides.
CMEF opens with a traditional Chinese ceremony involving costumed drummers, men dressed as dragons and an endless parade of introductions of honored guests. Despite the fact that I have a front row seat for the festivities, my view is completely blocked by press and camera crews. Each honored guest is introduced twice, I guess to reinforce the fact that they are VIPs.
But I’m told that the opening ceremony is actually abbreviated, due to a gentle rain that lingers throughout the morning.
Still, the lesson learned is when it comes to ribbon-cutting, the Chinese seem to have cornered the market on ceremony.
MassDevice.com publisher Brian Johnson is in Shenzhen, China, for the China International Medical Equipment Fair and is blogging the event.
I arrived in Shenzhen on Saturday morning, April 17, essentially running on fumes after some 20 hours of air travel (and twice as much time spent waiting for connecting flights).
BoSci’s John Abele on collaboration: Our good friends over at MedGadget spent last week covering the annual TEDMED conference in San Diego and were able to catch Boston Scientific co-founder John Abele’s talk on his abiding interest in fostering collaboration. Abele even bought a conference facility called the King Bridge Center to investigate his ideas on collaboration; namely, that medicine lacks the productive collaboration that drives other fields.
GE releases pocket ultrasound: At 3-by-5-by-1 in., General Electric’s thumb-operated Vscan offers a color Doppler readout and can store voice recordings. Although it’s gotten the green light from the Food & Drug Administration and its counterpart in the European Union, GE plans to run a real-world clinician-use study before releasing it into the marketplace. 
