A review of life science current events reported by MedCity News this week:

Quintiles report: Healthcare payers to get greater drug development role. The Quintiles report says that lack of payer involvement in drug development indicates that pharmas are not interacting with their customers, who are increasingly the payers rather than physicians and patients. Payers will be pressing for greater communication.

5 niche markets for telemedicine. Pennsylvania’s move this week to expand its telemedicine programto include more specialties reflects a broader trend of states using this tactic to improve healthcare access in underserved communities. Some specialized markets have emerged. For entrepreneurs and investors eyeing the telemedicine space, here are six niche spaces to watch.

5 innovative new solutions for treating diabetes. Solutions to the “whole body” problem of diabetes are coming from a wide variety of sources: the chairman of Whole Foods, innovative but largely unknown startups, entrenched industry giants and stem cell researchers, for example.

Medtronic to partner with payers globally to leverage outcomes data. The strategy is being driven by a recognition that customers are not going to pay any amount of money for a therapy that works. They need products to be make sense from a cost perspective too. Or as Ishrak put it, “delivering economic value is increasingly becoming a critical factor in today’s changing healthcare environment.”

Medtronic’s Symplicity system not enough to keep lead in renal denervation. Last week at the EuroPCR conference in Paris, ’everyone and their mother,’ as one analyst described it, showed off renal denervation products. Another analyst called it a ’renal denervation deluge.’ Competitors are St. Jude Medical, Covidien and Boston Scientific, along with smaller startups.

[Photo from renjith krishnan]

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