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Tue, 21 May 2013 17:43:05 +0000
Peter Blair Henry, dean of the NYU Stern School of Business, recently published a book titled, Turnaround: Third World Lessons for First World Growth, that got a fair amount of media attention. His thesis is that emerging economies are applying economic policies nurtured in the developed economies and prospering in the process. Meanwhile, western economies [...]
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Fri, 17 May 2013 12:00:08 +0000
Google made several health-related announcements at the Google I/O conference this week in San Francisco, but the most interesting development related to medical technology happened a few days earlier. Computer programmer Lance Nanek announced on his blog that he and a team of programmers had developed a Google Glass hack for physicians. The open source [...]
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Fri, 17 May 2013 08:58:46 +0000
The use of animal experiments is the elephant in the room in medical research. Among the many questions asked on the floor of a medical trade show, one is usually whispered: “Do you do animal research?” But people avoid the conversation not only because it’s an uncomfortable topic. Researchers conducting animal experiments at companies and [...]
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Thu, 16 May 2013 17:39:05 +0000
The timing could not have been better for MEDTEC Japan 2013. Just one month before the show, which was held on 24 and 25 April 2013, Japan?s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed that he would aggressively promote the medical device industry, which he characterised as one of the few sectors that can shore up the [...]
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Thu, 16 May 2013 17:05:57 +0000
A device that monitors air quality in operating rooms in real time was named the winner of the first Innovation Awards at MEDTEC France in Lyon. Developed by STS Industrie (Besanon, France) in collaboration with the University Hospital of Besanon (Hospitalier Rgional et Universitaire de Besanon; CHRU) and its associated clinical research centre, the Screenair [...]
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Wed, 15 May 2013 16:25:50 +0000
Last month, we reported on progress in setting the foundations of a harmonised unique device identification (UDI) system. US FDA seems to be on track to present its final draft of a UDI system to the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) in November 2013, and a consensus has formed on the value of a [...]
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Wed, 15 May 2013 07:48:46 +0000
The medical device industry maintains a good reputation among patient groups, a global survey by PatientView has found. Despite a few high-profile scandals last year, such as the Pip implant and hip implant controversies, 40% of respondents said the industry’s reputation improved in 2012, according to a press release from PatientView (pdf). 68% of the [...]
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Mon, 13 May 2013 15:39:26 +0000
Haughton Design (Stafford, UK) has teamed up with the University Hospital of North Staffordshire and two other businesses to found the Medical Devices Alliance, an initiative designed to accelerate medical device development for customer companies. University Hospital staff and patients will benefit by being able to offer input on the look, feel and function of [...]
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Mon, 13 May 2013 14:46:07 +0000
Prostate cancer accounts for approximately 10% of all cancer-related deaths. Percutaneous radiotherapy is an external treatment that subjects cancer cells to ionising radiation over a specified period of time, and does not have any major side effects. Using CAT scans, 3-D radiation areas can be generated to minimise damage to proximal healthy tissue. Nevertheless, healthy [...]
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Fri, 10 May 2013 09:10:16 +0000
Recently, 3-D printing has been used to produce guns, skulls, cars and ears, but the most significant impact of 3-D printing may come when the technology is used to print functional human organs. 3-D printing plays a central role in Organovo?s tissue engineering technology, said Mike Renard, Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations of Organovo, [...]