Dan Haugen is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer who covers growing companies and new technologies for several print and online publications.
Medical device jobs are growing. However, much of the job growth is being seen overseas, according to American recruiters. Also, companies developing new innovative medical devices expect a medical device sales specialist to come with contacts in hand.
Kips Bay Medical is moving closer to its IPO (it now plans to raise $21.2 million instead of $57.5 million). But in the meantime the company carries on, trying to get a foothold in Europe. It won approval to sell its eSVS Mesh vein support system in Europe in May, but had only sold 165 units in its first seven months after approval.
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
The Mayo Clinic Proton Beam Therapy Program will use an advanced type of proton beam therapy known as pencil beam scanning, which uses a narrower beam. Developed at a Swiss physics institute about a decade ago, it's still only in use at a few centers. The MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston became the first U.S. clinic to begin using the treatment in 2008. Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital announced the addition pencil-beam scanning at its center in 2009.
Vascular Solutions makes new innovative medical devices for peripheral and coronary arteries. Net revenue for the fourth quarter ending Dec. 31 increased 15 percent compared to last year's fourth quarter. Net revenue for the year was also up 15 percent to a record-setting $78.4 million.
Muve was Minnesota's "breakthrough business idea" of 2007. The obesity-fighting fitness device concept was the unanimous winner of that year's Minnesota Cup contest, earning it prize money and piles of positive press. Not only that, the startup had a big-name partner behind it in the Mayo Clinic. So why did the company fail?
The litigation was filed by LightLab Imaging, which St. Jude acquired last year, against one of its suppliers, Axson Technology, as well as Volcano Corp., a San Diego company that bought Axson in 2008. Axson and LightLab are both based in Massachusetts.
Are spinal fusion procedures on the way out? Health plans and a growing number of doctors think too many patients are getting lumbar fusions without first exhausting less expensive non-surgical options such as exercise, physical therapy and epidural steroid injections.
Uroplasty‘s performance finally “began to reflect the potential of the company” in the third quarter, CEO David Kaysen said Thursday during the company’s earnings call. The Minnetonka, Minnesota, device company ramped up its sales force, won over five new regional Medicare carriers, and boosted global sales by 14 percent to $3.5 million during the quarter, […]
SurModics hosted its first earnings call since naming a new CEO in December and resolving a brief standoff with activist shareholder, Ramius LLC. The loss was expected, and the earnings call instead centered on the newly appointed CEO Gary Maharaj, who spoke about a need to identify and refocus on the company's efforts on a "well-defined core." What exactly that core is, however, is yet to be defined.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Minneapolis District Office generated just a single device-related warning letter in 2010 after more than 140 inspections in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas.
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Mayo Clinic's Center for Social Media named 17 members Wednesday to its advisory board, which will help draft industry guidelines and best practices for using social media to improve health care. Mayo launched the social media center last summer with the goal of helping the health care community improve care through the use of social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
The Plymouth-based company develops devices for treating enlarged prostate, or benign prostatic hyperplasia. Its Targis System uses microwave energy to heat and destroy enlarged prostate tissue as an alternative to pharmaceutical treatment. "The second quarter's results are disappointing and inconsistent with the efforts towards sustained, sequential revenue growth," CEO Stryker Warren Jr. said during the company's conference call.
The Mayo Clinic wants a lead role in helping the nation improve health care quality while lowering costs, and it continued to signal that ambition on Tuesday by announcing the launch of a new Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery.
Minnesota's angel tax credit has helped loosen investors' checkbooks to the tune of $30 million so far, including more than $10 million for medical-related startups.
St. Jude Medical says it's won approval to begin selling its Athena deep brain stimulation programming device Down Under.
