MEDICAL DEVICE INNOVATION - Medical Device Daily

MEDICAL DEVICE INNOVATION 2010
5
Innovative new companies
provide the lifeblood of med-tec
Of the hundreds of front-page stories published each year in Medical Device Daily, the
largest response often is accorded those in which our writers report on the product-related
activities of development-stage and emerging companies. These stories provide an insight
into the innovative activities occurring at firms that are not yet household names.
While news in this sector often is skewed toward corporate biggies such as Johnson &
Johnson, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Baxter Healthcare, St. Jude Medical and others – and that
certainly was true during 2009 — we also try to keep a sharp eye out for the activities of socalled
“little guys.” We enjoy being among the first to report on companies being built on ideas
that may turn into the medical technology breakthroughs of tomorrow.
Those ideas, and the future promises they hold, spark the investments that keep this
industry moving. Those investments — coming from financial “angels,” venture capitalists,
corporate collaborators or the public markets that have started to re-open for those firms
deigned to have the right stuff — fuel the climb from concept to commercialization.
The ideas that still are standing after running the harrowing gauntlet of testing, trials, regulatory
scrutiny and increasingly important reimbursement issues may go to market as products
in clinicians’ hands. Whether the eventual setting of such products’ use is hospitals,
physicians’ offices or diagnostic labs, the final product marks the end of a long journey of
development and the beginning, it is hoped, of solving a clinical need.
In a time of potential sea changes in the healthcare industry due to new leadership in
Washington, one thing that still has not changed is the value of innovation to the med-tech
field and to humanity as well.
No matter what, an increasingly large aging population in the U.S. and worldwide will continue
to demand the latest and greatest innovations in healthcare. Other long-term trends,
such as large unmet medical needs and increasing prosperity in emerging markets, spell
growing demand for healthcare and med-tech products. Additionally, larger companies that
have recently slashed their R&D budgets may increasingly rely on these innovative small companies
for their breakthrough products of the future.
These stories by MDD staff writers Omar Ford, Rob Kimball, Don Long, Amanda Pedersen,
and Lynn Yoffee offer insight into some of the innovative activities taking place at the young
or modestly sized older companies whose products help fill the pipeline of new technology.
As the daily news service of the med-tech industry, Medical Device Daily comes in contact
with both people and product ideas from companies across the entire spectrum of the sector
– from the smallest start-up to the aforementioned Goliaths. This collection of stories from
recent issues of Medical Device Daily touch on some of the most interesting developments
that have caught our attention during the past year.
— Holland Johnson, Managing Editor
February 2010
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