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The largest cardiovascular companies had plenty of news to crow about in the latter part of February and early March as they jockeyed for position in various key sectors of the cardiovascular device market. Boston Scientific (Natick, Massachusetts) made the biggest news, reporting on March 4 that it had received its much-anticipated FDA approval to market the Taxus Express2 paclitaxel-eluting coronary stent system.
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A Canadian company has created a device that it says can detect a heart attack up to eight minutes before a patient experiences symptoms of the attack, then can alert emergency medical staff and direct them to the patients exact location. The Vital Positioning System (VPS), developed by Medical Intelligence (Quebec City, Quebec), combines a digital wireless ECG, artificial intelligence and telecommunications technology in a single belt worn around the patients thorax.
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OmniSonics Medical Technologies (Wilmington, Massachusetts), a developer of medical devices to treat vascular occlusive disease, last month reported the final close of its Series C round of financing, producing an aggregate total of $43 million for the round.
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Those who suffer from stroke and ultimately those with head trauma, brain injury or in cardiac arrest may in the not-too-distant future have another weapon in the physician arsenal to fight brain swelling, the result of disease or injury that often causes more damage than the original trauma.
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New developments in medical technology are often commercialized in the European market prior to their introduction in the U.S., due to the more rapid regulatory approval process and receptivity of physicians in Europe to new technologies, particularly in the interventional device segment.
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St. Jude Medical (St. Paul, Minnesota) finally received its invitation from the FDA in late June to the cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) party. While the late arrival joined the festivities nearly two years after competitors Guidant (Indianapolis, Indiana) and Medtronic (Minneapolis, Minnesota), it said it doesn't plan to enter the scene quietly and already has begun an aggressive rollout of the product in the U.S.
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After drug-eluting stents, the cardiovascular device that has attracted the most headlines and interest over the past two years is probably the ventricular assist device (VAD), a small pump seeing growing use for bridge to heart transplant or even as a destination application.
