Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Not a Joke: Exciting New Medical Device Planned
Recently the satirical news source, The Onion, ran a piece entitled "New Device Desirable, Old Device Undesirable" which poked fun at modern press releases and analyst assessments, and never bothered to name or describe the device.
Today we came across a real life press release that, if we didn't know better, could have been ripped from the pages of The Onion. The Solutions Group has joined forces with CrowleyJones to study the feasibility of an exciting new medical device. What product is planned? How does it work? Who will benefit? What other products have been made by these folks? Absolutely none of these questions are addressed:
Terry Jones, Managing Director of CrowleyJones, stated, "Solutions Group has presented an innovative solution to a medical problem with a significant market for us. We look forward to working with them on this proof the concept stage, and to moving on to the engineering and manufacturing of the product."Sean O'Neil, Solutions Group CEO, stated, "It is exciting to work with this experienced team on this new medical device."
We'd excerpt the whole release, but while there's more text, there's precious little additional substance. One hint is below:
Due to the complexity of the technology, SGI will be working closely with Dr. Steven Robert Biegalski {PRIVATE}, P.E., Director; Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin, to ensure the success of the project.
Hmm... whatever this mysterious project involves, it requires a nuclear scientist for success! Perhaps there's a reason for all this vagueness and secrecy (but, of course, not enough of a reason to scuttle the press release altogether...)
Image: Whatknot
(1)
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Paul Levy and Dr. Val Talk Hospital Care and Safety
Our good friend Dr. Val Jones, the founder of Better Health, recently interviewed Paul Levy, the President & CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, for the Johnson & Johnson YouTube channel. Mr Levy, who is also an avid blogger at Running a Hospital and the winner of the 2007 Medical Weblog Awards, gives his thoughts on what his hospital is doing to improve efficiency, safety, and comfort of the facility.
(0)
Friday, April 24, 2009
FDA Office of Device Evaluation Holds Internal Meeting
The Food and Drug Administration held a rare all staff meeting on Wednesday within the Office of Device Evaluation. The NY Times cited an internal email memorandum sent by Dr. Donna-Bea Tillman, the Deputy Director for Clinical Affairs within the Office of Device Evaluation, calling for a meeting to discuss the "strategic direction of the device center." It is unclear exactly what was discussed or came from this meeting.
The FDA has recently come under fire yet again, with agency officials being accused by their colleagues and reviewers of acting illegally and potentially jeopardizing patient safety. This is in addition to the criticism we reported on by the Government Accountability Office with regards to the Class III medical device approval process.
It is unclear how all of these recent events will affect the future of medical device approval process.
NY Times : Rare F.D.A. Meeting to Discuss Complaints on Device Approval...
FDA : Office of Device Evaluation
Flashback : FDA Scrutinizing "New" Medical Devices...
(0)
Monday, April 20, 2009
FDA Scrutinizing "New" Medical Devices
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Food and Drug Administration is requiring Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Inc., Royal Philips Electronics, and a various other medical device manufacturers to further explain and justify their products' safety and efficacy.
This is a part of the Safe Medicals Act of 1990, passed by Congress, that tightens control and testing of Class 3 devices. There is some concern that these new actions by the FDA will lead to further increases the cost of development of new medical equipment and lengthen the time to clinical use in patients.
While the bill was made into law in the 1990s, the FDA has had significant problems fully implementing all of the aspects of it, and this has allowed Class 3 devices to be put into use based on a previous statute. The FDA is reviewing all of these devices now, and calls on companies to test efficacy and safety under the "new" 1990 guidelines, or possibly seek reclassification of devices.
From the WSJ:
Mary Long, an agency spokeswoman, said it could take several years for the agency to finish the process. Manufacturers would be granted a grace period to submit enough evidence backing their devices under the more-rigorous standard. "It is a priority, but it will really depend on the kind and amount of information we get on each type," she said.
We support our patient safety above all else, but mention this FDA review because of the potential impact it may have to current and future medical device development.
WSJ : Medical Devices Face new Scrutiny from FDA
Library of Congress : Safe Medical Device Act of 1990 (H.R. 3095 and S. 3006)
(0)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Latest Update on DoD, DARPA, and Dean Kamen's Prostheses
We have followed the Defense Department's investment in developing advanced prosthesis spurred by noted medical technology developer Dean Kamen. Over the weekend, CBS 60 Minutes, took us on a behind the scenes tour of Dean Kamen's company, DEKA, and the most recent advancements in prosthesis development.
Ling [Dr. Geoffrey Ling, an Army colonel and neurologist who's leading the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program] told Pelley [60 Minutes correspondent] it's a very large scale project. "It is very much like a Manhattan Project at that scope. It is over $100 million investment now. It involves well over 300 scientists, that is engineers, neuroscientists, psychologists.
The technology development is fascinating and ever improving, but clearly there is a ways to go to make this prosthetic cost effective and more functional for widespread implementation.
60 Minutes: The Pentagon Bionic Arm...
NOTE: Please join us in welcoming a new addition to Medgadget editorial board. Martin Neumann is a a post-doc in Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at University of Illinois. In addition to holding a PhD in Nuclear Engineering, he is also a medical student, now finishing his second year. In between exams, upcoming USMLE, post-doc work, ets, he will be blogging to educate all of us. This is his first post.
(0)
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Real Money from Virtual Walk For Breast Cancer
Not quite a gadget, but it's worth stretching a bit to support a great cause. Designhergals.com has come up with a very clever way to raise money for breast cancer patients and their families...a virtual cross-country walk! Users can create a look-alike avatar that walks from virtual Harvard Square in Boston, MA, and travels all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, visiting 29 cities along the way.
The event occurs between October 1-31 and "walkers" can sign up at any time for $5. Participants are encouraged to log in and view the change of scenery as they "cross" the country or chat with other people along the way. With the goal of raising $250,000, many celebrities have already endorsed the product with their likeness...no word on Elvis sightings as yet!
Links: Design-her Gals Website, 2008 Gal to Gal Walk Press Release, Gal to Gal Virtual Walking Website
(0)
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
NYT: CT Angiography May or May Not Be Worth the Cost
The New York Times has an interesting piece out on the overuse of medical technology. To summarize their five pager: There's not enough data out to suggest that CT Angiography actually reduces costs or improves patient outcomes, but doctors tend to request the tests all the time anyway. They go on to do a so-so job of generalizing the phenomenon...
The problem is not that newer treatments never work. It is that once they become available, they are often used indiscriminately, in the absence of studies to determine which patients they will benefit...Once the F.D.A. approves a test or device, Medicare rarely demands evidence that it benefits patients before agreeing to pay for it. But last year, Medicare officials raised questions about the benefits of CT heart scans and said it would demand more studies before paying for them. But after heavy lobbying by cardiologists, Medicare backed down.
One thing The Times fails to highlight is the factors driving the decision on behalf of the doctors. Not only will they be paid as a result of running the test, they're absolved of potential liability of not running the test. It was our experience in the Ortho world that MRIs and CTs were ordered "just to be safe," lest they be questioned on what could have been found in future malpractice proceedings.
Obviously, medical decisions should be based on statistically sound evidence, but there's a fundamental paradox to gathering sufficient evidence before reimbursement: who pays for all of those scans while the data's collected?
More from the New York Times...
(2)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Annals of Internal Medicine Article Advocates "Cost Effectiveness Analysis"
Dr Alan Garber, MD PhD's piece in the latest issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, titled "A Menu Without Prices", highlights the potential benefits of applying more cost effectiveness (efficaciousness?) analysis to medical reimbursement decisions...
For the well-insured, obtaining health care in the United States is like dining in a sumptuous restaurant that has menus without prices. A price-free menu encourages diners to ignore cost when making their selections. Similarly, well-insured patients usually don't know the prices of medical services at the time they receive them. Even for common procedures, few hospitals list their charges, much less the accompanying professional fees and the out-of-pocket costs; these are only revealed weeks or months later, when the explanation of benefits statement arrives.
Not a new concept or argument, but Garber does his best to back up the thesis...
By 2005, per capita expenditures were 92% greater than in Canada, 90% greater than in France, 95% greater than in Germany, and 135% greater than in the United Kingdom. Measures of population health have improved no more in the United States than in these countries, offering little comfort to those who presume that uniquely high expenditure is purchasing better health.
A point of contention with the previous paragraph would be the absence of a citation for that claim. It might be in one of the referenced articles, but a point so central to the argument should be cited right there.
As a non-MD member of the Medgadget staff, this Medgadgeteer is more involved with expanding the costs of healthcare with innovative new devices. While effective management of reimbursement is obviously critical to financial sustainability of any system, it does tend to dampen innovation. Innovative new devices are typically the product of small startup companies who don't have the funding to run years and years of cost-effectiveness studies to prove their product is better than the woeful status quo.
As fans/practitioners/creators of medical technology, we should be wary of (or offer alternatives to) solutions that could dramatically deflate the motivation to innovate.
(2)
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Medical Device Growth Outpacing Pharma Industry
Michael Rosen of the Wisconsin Technology Network (Wisconsin's got lotsa technology, don'tchaknow?) has a great analysis of how and why the medical device industry is growing faster than the drug industry. In short, it's because biomedical engineers are cooler than biochemists.
...ok, he doesn't say that (even if it is true). The real analysis is as follows...
The medical device market is about 50 percent of the world pharmaceutical market in terms of relative size, but is also growing faster than its drug counterpart. It is dominated by U.S. companies (16 of the 25 companies are U.S.- based) with 72 percent of the revenue. MX estimates that the medical device market will reach sales of $336 billion in 2008. Assuming similar growth to that of 2007, this means that the market last was in excess of $300 billion.According to MX, although the top 25 companies represent the lion's share of sales (almost 60 percent), there are an estimated 20,000 medical devices companies around the world. Only one company showed a decline (however slight) in growth, and two companies had flat sales. The remaining 22 companies all posted positive growth with 15 companies showing double-digit growth. Not mentioned, but with substantial sales and growth, are companies like Toshiba Medical Systems, Hitachi Medical Systems, and Gambro.
The medical device industry faces a number of challenges in addition to the technology convergence factor mentioned earlier. In general, this industry is at lower risk than its pharmaceutical/biotech drug counterpart for a couple of reasons:
• Shorter product development times (about 33 to 50 percent of drug development time).
• Less regulatory (Food and Drug Administration) approval risk.
Additional factors favoring the growth of this industry include the greater physician need for better and more precise diagnostics and imaging to guide them on patient disease status and proper disease management, whether surgical or pharmaceutical (or both).
There's more analysis of the challenges facing medical devices, with the biggest issue being reimbursement.
Snarky commentary aside, we would venture that medical device development does lend itself to more predictable product development cycles than pharma. Engineering project management and "gizmo" development is at least a century old, and medical devices are just a small subset of other devices, meaning there's tons of common knowledge regarding engineering project management. Drugs are a lot more of a biochemical craps-shoot, taking years of effort before you can even begin targeting production.
Full story: Global medical device market outperforms drug market growth...
Image credit: Wellcome images: Surgery by robot...
(3)
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Oh Alfred Mann, You and Your Inhaled Insulin
The LA Times is running a story on billionaire medical device magnate Alfred Mann's dogged persistence of successfully launching an inhaled insulin product.
The latest blow came Wednesday when Valencia-based MannKind Corp.'s stock lost almost 60% of its value after pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. said a study showed that its failed version of inhaled insulin might increase the risk of lung cancer.After dropping much of this year, MannKind shares lost an additional $3.50 on Wednesday, closing at $2.35.
Mann remains undeterred. In an interview, the chief executive was upbeat about his company's drug Technosphere, which combines a concentrated insulin powder with an inhalation device the size of a deck of playing cards. It is superior to rivals' efforts and will be a blockbuster when it arrives on the market as early as 2010, he said...
Mann has invested $566 million in the company and is the controlling shareholder. He has agreed to lend it hundreds of millions more, raising his total stake to $916 million.
When you've got billions to spend (lose?), you can afford to be stubborn if the payoff for being right is tens of billions (as is easily the case with inhaled insulin). Of course, sometimes things just aren't meant to be.
Time will tell if this is one of those cases.
More from the LA Times and from MannKind Corp.
(0)
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Wal-Mart's Healthcare Struggle
Wal-Mart's foray into healthcare, with their opening of dozens of in-store clinics, is both rough and persistent. A contracting company called CheckUps, hired to run a number of the clinics, has decided to close 23 of its Wal-Mart operations. On the other hand, Wal-Mart is pressing ahead with its partnership with Steve Case's RediClinic. (Mr. Case is also known as the founder of Revolution Health, a health portal) . The plan is for RediClinic to partner with local area hospitals to run the in-store clinics.
From the New York Times:
Wal-Mart has leased space to about 80 clinics in stores across the country, including the CheckUps clinics now closed. They are all operated by independent firms, including 13 by RediClinics, a unit of Steven Case's Revolution Health company, and two by hospital companies in Wisconsin and Florida.While some of the Wal-Mart clinics are headed by doctors, most are run by nurse practitioners who are limited to providing routine medical care like giving flu shots or prescribing drugs for sore throats. Operators say their main clients are mothers with small children, and that about 30 percent do not have a family doctor.
Wal-Mart said it hoped the CheckUps clinics would not stay vacant for long.
From American Medical News:
Among Wal-Mart's first expansions will be in its home state of Arkansas, where St. Vincent Health System will own and operate four clinics in Little Rock scheduled to open in April.At least half of the 400 new clinics will be opened through a deal with RediClinic, a chain owned by AOL co-founder Steve Case's Revolution Health. RediClinic will seek commitments from hospital systems as partners for Wal-Mart clinics, starting in Atlanta and Dallas. Hospitals could be contracted as strategic partners without an ownership stake. Or they might split a stake in the facility, such as RediClinic and Memorial Hermann do in 11 H-E-B grocery clinics in Houston.
More at the New York Times...
Read on at AMNews...
(1)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Roadside Medical Clinics: Bringing Care to Truckers
Hard working members of the trucking community will now find convenient medical services on their way thanks to Roadside Medical Clinics, a company based in Alpharetta, Ga. The company plans to introduce its chain of roadside clinics coast to coast, offering its services "in various subscription packages for an average of $15 to $30 a month," according to Bob Perry, Roadside Medical vice president, who is quoted in eTrucker.com.
Don't wait until you get home to get medical care. With Roadside Medical at Pilot Travel Centers, it's like we're a house call for truckers:
Minor Trauma Care
General Medical Care
Digestive Disorder Treatment
Sleep Disorder Screening
Respiratory Conditions
STD Testing & Treatment
Chest Pain & Heart Conditions
Chronic Care
Vaccinations
Muscular-Skeletal Diagnosis and Treatment
Medication Management
Head, Ear & Eye Conditions
(hat tip: Kevin, M.D.)
(1)
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
For Mann and Mankind
Israel's Globes Online has an article about the legendary medical device inventor Alfred Mann, whom we had a chance to see a couple of years ago at the Frost&Sullivan Medical Devices Awards. The article, which for the most part concentrates on Mr. Mann's interest in further developing Israel's already vibrant medical devices industry, also has information about Mann's biography and his outlook on the future of medicine.
Read: For Mann and mankind ...
(0)
Friday, August 31, 2007
Exubera, Pfizer's Insulin Spray Ordeal
Bad news for the insulin spray gun, as sales are not meeting expectations.
Analysts were forecasting blockbuster annual sales of $2bn (£1.01bn, E1.49bn) for the insulin spray. It delivered just $4m in the second quarter of 2007 - the first time Pfizer disclosed sales of the product.In July, Pfizer launched a massive television and print ad campaign in the US to jump-start sales. Reducing the number of inhalers produced is a clear indication management are unsure their next campaign will have much impact on sales.
The cutbacks are spelt out in a report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission by West Pharmaceutical Services, the American drug technology firm that makes about 60% of the device.
It said: "We expect Pfizer's high inventory levels and slower-than-expected demand will affect our fourth-quarter 2007 and full-year 2008 sales levels. In coordination with our customer, Nektar, we have reduced production to one shift per day at our dedicated facility beginning in the third quarter of 2007."
Perhaps the diabetics feel self conscious pulling out what looks like a bong in the middle of a restaurant, and taking a hit.
More from The Business...
(via KevinMD, and PharmaGossip)
(4)
Friday, July 27, 2007
Who Killed U.S. Medicine?
As some of you know, medical doctors on our editorial board have not been big fans of the American Medical Association (AMA). Some of us even quit this organization. (Medgadget does not have a unified editorial opinion on the AMA, but some of us do have a very negative opinion of the organization.) We've been battling the AMA on many fronts: for their obstructive internet practices, for their refusal to serve doctors' interests, for their waste of money, for their populism of the lowest common denominator, and for their current role of lobbying for the sake of lobbying, hoping to make itself more relevant.
Now comes a stinging editorial from Regina E. Herzlinger, at the Washington Post, that everyone should read:
America's physicians are the most trusted and valuable resources in our health-care system. Yet doctors' professionalism and incomes have taken a terrible beating recently. The American Medical Association, which received $286 million in revenue last year to protect the profession, has served physicians poorly.Physician incomes, when adjusted for inflation, declined 7 percent from 1995 to 2003, while those of professional and technical workers rose. But unlike other professionals -- lawyers, architects, authors and economists -- doctors' work is dictated by the policies of insurers and governments. Increasingly, independent physicians, accountable only to their patients and the Hippocratic oath, have been replaced by salaried doctors who are accountable to the hospitals or insurers that employ them...
You might expect that the AMA would fight the insurers, hospitals, government bureaucrats and ivory tower academics who have diminished physicians' incomes, besmirched their ethical reputations and compromised their professionalism -- but you would be wrong. No, instead, at its annual meeting last month, the AMA declared war on retail medical clinics, located in places such as CVS and Wal-Mart.
Read the whole thing, and consider joining some of us in quitting the AMA in protest, for the sake of our profession. Even if you are a medical student, with a free membership, make a statement by rejecting this organization with a great past but a questionable future.
(hat tip: Kevin, M.D.)
Flashbacks: Urgent Action Needed! ; How AMA and Other Societies Abrogate Their Responsibilities; American Medical Association: No Doctors Day Celebrations?
(0)
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
We Knew It All Along: Venture Capitalists Attracted to Medical Devices Over Pharma or Computers
The Grey Lady is running a business article on how medical devices represent an attractive investment opportunity compared to other typical investments...
In the first quarter of this year, seed investors put $1.1 billion into such businesses, a quarterly record for the medical-device industry, and a 60 percent increase over the same period in 2006, according to the National Venture Capital Association, a trade group."The venture-capital-backed boom in medical devices has delivered extraordinary new technologies," said David Cassak, an editor at In Vivo, a monthly publication for the medical-device field. "There's virtually no sector of medical devices that hasn't been given a tremendous boost."
Medical investments are by nature high risk, and devices take time and millions of dollars to develop. They must also be tested for safety and usefulness and then receive regulatory approval. It is a business that generates sales of $15 billion to $20 billion a year, and the venture capitalists are betting on its expanding into new niches.
Part of the lure, analysts and executives said, is that medical devices feel like a smarter gamble than investing in computer technology, which has fallen out of favor with public-market investors. Interest by these investors is critical for venture capitalists who want to profit by selling shares of their start-ups on Nasdaq.
At the same time, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who are attracted to life sciences are wary of investing in pharmaceuticals, which can typically take 10 years and cost several hundred million dollars to come to market. Devices typically can be developed in half the time and for much less.
For this Medgadgeteer, the cool thing about medical devices is the relatively linear path from recognizing a need to implementing technology to fix it. Consumer electronics have devolved into a melee of convenience features and silly trends. Pharma's development cycles are too expensive and risky...not to mention the work is tremendously boring.
More from Matt Richtel's New York Times Article...
(0)
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
The Power of Quicken, Applied to Health Care
Consumerism in medicine is a hot topic right now, and with the increasing utilization of Health Savings Accounts (HSA) the public will be looking for the software that helps organize the financial mess. Welcome to Quicken Health. Imagine the possibilities if Quicken can do for health care financing what it did for home and business accounting. Don't be surprised if Mr. Gates releases competing software in the near future to grab a piece of that market as well.
Quicken Health: Coming Soon! Explanations of benefits! Doctor bills! FSA reimbursements! HSA Substantiations! The list of paperwork & information people have to manage for their basic healthcare goes on and on and until now, there has been no help.Imagine a solution that will consolidate and organize the flood of healthcare information in one click. Imagine an easy to use tool people will turn to when they need to make better healthcare decisions. Imagine leveraging the lessons learned from connecting Quicken Personal Finance Software to more than 4,000 financial institutions. Now imagine Quicken - for healthcare.
Right now, Quicken is developing products and services that will simplify the way millions of American consumers manage their healthcare.
Product Updates
For the first time, millions of people will have the ability to view and organize the flood of information coming from a variety of healthcare sources, including medical bills, insurance payments and medical records from physicians and hospitals, into one easy-to-use system.The first of the new Quicken-branded healthcare products will help consumers make better healthcare decisions and will help them save time and money.
Our engineers and designers are currently talking to hundreds of people across the United States to make sure that the final product, available in 2007, will truly change the way people think about their healthcare.
Product Page . . .
Product Fact Sheet [PDF] . . .
(hat tip: The Patient's Doctor)
(1)
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Former FDA Chief To Be Fined for Conflict of Interest
Many people these days associate the pharmaceutical industry with profiteering, misleading advertising, and misplaced development priorities. Just as many place faith in the FDA as the watchdog -- the government organization that will keep the drug companies honest, and keep harmful meds off the market.
These people were undoubtedly disappointed when former head of the FDA, Lester Crawford, was charged with lies and conflict-of-interest:
Crawford pleaded guilty in October to charges of having a conflict of interest and false reporting of information about stocks that he and his wife owned. The stocks were in food, beverage and medical device companies that Crawford regulated while head of the Food and Drug Administration.Crawford and his wife, Cathy, made roughly $39,000 from exercising options and in dividends from the stocks they held in the FDA-regulated companies.
In court, Crawford admitted to falsely reporting that he had sold or did not own stock when he continued holding shares in the firms governed by rules of the FDA, which is illegal. Beginning in 2002, Crawford filed seven incorrect financial reports with a government ethics office and Congress, leading to the misdemeanor charges...
...Though he lied about ownership of the stocks - including under oath before the Senate - government attorneys acknowledged there was no evidence he was "engaged in a concerted scheme to use his high office for personal gain."
When it comes to penalties for hiding damaging information, one wonders if Crawford, and the FDA, would be held to the same standards as Merck and other companies. Today, it will be revealed Crawford would avoid jail time and be fined $50,000.
Crawford's biography on the FDA website has not been updated to reflect this news.
Update: Like so much else concerning the FDA, today's sentencing has been delayed.
More context from The Dissident Voice...
(0)
Friday, January 12, 2007
How AMA and Other Societies Abrogate Their Responsibilities
Your correspondent, a double boarded practicing clinician, just doesn't get it. California governator Arnold Schwarzenegger comes out swinging with a proposal to tax MDs 2% off their income to finance insurance scheme for all. From few, to all: just like in the Soviet Union. In addition, clinicians are assailed from all the other sides: managed care companies and insurance firms, trial lawyers, litigating patients, and populist politicians of both parties. As it becomes increasingly difficult to practice medicine, AMA says nothing about these assaults. And it does nothing. Instead, AMA and nine other "leading physician associations" came out yesterday with a list of "principles" for reforming the U.S. health care system that read like Brezhnev's politburo talking points.
Can anyone explain what does principle #4 mean, in terms of reforming the U.S. health care system?
Improvement of health care quality and safety must be the goal of all health interventions, so that we can assure optimal outcomes for the resources expended.
What about principle #5?
In reforming the health care system, we as a society must respect the ethical imperative of providing health care to individuals, responsible stewardship of community resources, and the importance of personal health responsibility.
I don't know about you, but it seems to me that all these "leading physician associations" are there not to defend MDs but to take politically correct side of populism of the lowest common denominator, and to perpetuate their own bureaucracies.
Any ideas from you on what blogs can do to help MDs to regain some ground?
Talking points at the American Medical Association...
--by DrO
Flashbacks: American Medical Association: No Doctors Day Celebrations?; Urgent Action Needed!; The AMA takes heat from the medical blogosphere.
Update: The title of the post has been changed.
(18)
» Boston Scientific and Guidant: Quagmire? (January 11, 2007)
» Medgadget IPO Watch! Artes Medical Inc. (December 8, 2006)
» Medtronic Sheds Its External Defibrillator Business (December 5, 2006)
» Breaking News: Extraordinary Claims to Require Extraordinary Proof (November 30, 2006)
» Medical Device IPOs Are Back... For Now (November 28, 2006)
» Hospital Care, Ferrari Style (November 17, 2006)
» WebMD Announces Plan to Acquire Subimo (November 3, 2006)
» The Guidant Acquisition: It Never Ends (September 26, 2006)
» The Educators Corner (August 24, 2006)
» Financial Conflicts of Interest: CSMonitor's View, Medgadget's Commentary (August 10, 2006)
» Boston Scientific: Number One with a Patent (June 29, 2006)
» Silicon Valley Venture Forum to Highlight Medical Device Companies (June 23, 2006)
