Weekend Rounds: NI Medical Ltd. of Israel bringing technology, jobs to Akron

Here are some of the top stories at MedCity News this week:

Israeli medical device maker NI Medical Ltd. will open an office in the Akron Global Business Accelerator, likely during the first half of the year, where it could employ up to 30 workers in four years. NI Medical, which makes a diagnostic device that uses impedance technology to measure heart health, is the second Israeli company to commit to Akron, Ohio, since the city invested in a Netanya, Israel, technology incubator in 2006.

The pacemaker and implantable cardioverter defibrillators revolutionized heart medicine by blending detection and therapy into one “smart” device. Now, researchers at the Mayo Clinic are perhaps a year away from commercializing a similar device for deep brain stimulation, a nascent technology that uses electricity to treat neurological disorders like Parkinson’s and depression.

Midwest healthcare start-ups attracted $780 million in investments in 2009, according to the BioEnterprise Midwest Health Care Venture Investment Report. While the number of companies winning investments last year — 156 — was about the same as in 2008, the dollar volume of the investments dropped 26 percent from the prior year.

Fridley, Minn., medical device maker Medtronic Inc. said Monday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new type of arterial valve designed for young children suffering from congenital heart disease. The company said its Melody system, the first transcatheter valve technology to receive approval in the United States, will help patients born with damage to their pulmonary valve, a type of spigot that manages blood flow between the heart and lungs.

A joint resolution to put a bond issue that renews the Ohio Third Frontier project on the May 4 ballot was adopted by the Ohio Senate Tuesday — at half its original size of $1 billion — and is on its way back to the Ohio House. The $1.6 billion, 10-year economic development project that has pumped millions of dollars into the Ohio biomedical industry will end in fiscal 2012 if it is not renewed.