Industry news

2014's most memorable med tech patent battles

Emily Wasserman, FierceMedicalDevices

In the world of medical devices, holding on to proprietary technology often means going to the trenches. The industry's top companies sue one another for patent infringement, hoping to stymie their competition and win damages that pad their bottom line. Sometimes, battles are easily won without extensive legal proceedings. But in most cases, the courtroom drama spans countless hours as devicemakers appeal to obtain a favorable verdict.

Harvard, MIT teams identify a 'pre-malignant' phase for blood cancers

John Carroll, FierceBiothech

In cancer treatment, diagnosing and drugging the disease at an early stage has become a key survival strategy. Now two different groups of investigators from Harvard and MIT say they've found a way to identify a large group of patients that are characterized by a very high risk of developing blood cancers--and their discovery could pave the way to a new treatment approach in oncology.

Lyophilization market forecast to double in size by 2020

Joseph Keenan, FeirceMedicalDevices

The global market for lyophilization equipment, used to freeze-dry drug compounds so they are dehydrated for easier transportation, is expected to double in value to $4.8 billion from $2.7 billion by 2020, according to a new report.

The top 10 FierceMedicalDevices news stories in 2014

Stacy Lawrence, FierceMedicalDevices

Transformational scientific leaps forward that fulfill fundamental patient needs have fueled the appetite for biotech in recent years. But this year, perhaps for the first time, visions for major med tech leaps forward with the integration of information and wireless technologies seemed to be everywhere. This offers a lot of tantalizing possibilities and readers were eager to explore them.

The top 10 FierceBiotech stories of 2014

John Carroll, FierceBiothech

Last year at this time, the daily reports we produce in the life sciences group were opened about 93,000 times per day, on average. Now, that opener number has swelled to 125,000 with a group of subscribers that exceeds 270,000, and web traffic is reliably more than one million visits per month. In October, we hit 1.3 million.

Russian government predicts bright prospects to national pharma industry

ThePharmaLetter

The Russian pharmaceutical industry is booming, despite the economic recession in the country and devaluation of national currency, caused by sanctions, according to Sergey Tsyb, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade.

Top 10 Drugmakers in Emerging Markets

FeircePharma

It seemed like a match made in heaven. A few years ago, as the patent cliff neared and drugmakers were looking for new sources of revenue, market researchers were toting up growth prospects around the world. The answer, for both, was emerging markets. Drug spending would more or less stagnate in mature markets such as the United States and the European Union. But in the developing world, drug spending was just taking off.

Researchers develop 'Wi-Fi'-triggered dissolvable, implantable device for drug delivery

Joseph Keenan, FeirceMedicalDevices

Researchers at Tufts University have come up with a resorbable electronic implant that when used in mice was able to be triggered remotely by wireless signal and deliver heat to infected tissue.

FDA to stop regulating some medical device software

Varun Saxena, Feirce Medical Devices

FDA will exercise "enforcement discretion" in its regulation (or lack thereof) of medical device data systems by opting not to enforce the general controls, such as product registration and Quality System Regulation, that normally apply to Class I devices, the agency said in a June 20 draft guidance.

NIH scientists determine how environment contributes to several human diseases

USA - National Institutes of Health

Using a new imaging technique, National Institutes of Health researchers have found that the biological machinery that builds DNA can insert molecules into the DNA strand that are damaged as a result of environmental exposures. These damaged molecules trigger cell death that produces some human diseases, according to the researchers.