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March 2009
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First European implants of St Jude
Medical's deep brain stimulation system for Parkinson’s Disease. 27
March 2009
German medical technology sector
withstanding economic crisis
Only 4% of companies in the German medical technology sector have
reduced their workforce as a result of the global financial crisis,
according to a survey conducted by the German Medical Technology
Association, BVMed. 27 March 2009
Smart Cells establishes base in Italy
London-based Smart Cells International, the UK's longest-established
cord blood stem cell processing and storage organisation, has
established a base in Milan, Italy, with a joint venture with Laborest,
one of Italy's leading pharmaceutical businesses. 25 March 2009
Smart Surgical Appliances secures
investment for minimally invasive surgery device
SSA plans to use the investment to make further technical and regulatory
progress on their lead device, the SmartBougie, an oesophageal dilator
that measures the elasticity in the external walls of the oesophagus. 25
March 2009
Social networking site for the scientific
community
LabRoots Inc. has launched its social networking site for the scientific
community, LabRoots.com, where scientists and engineers from around the
world can build relationships with other scientists and increasing their
influence within the scientific community. 25 March 2009
ICW master patient index passes large scale
interoperability test
InterComponentWare (ICW) has successfully demonstrated the
interoperability of it Master Patient Index iat the IHE North American
Connectathon, the only large-scale interoperability testing event for
the healthcare industry. 25 March 2009
Agfa delivers digital imaging systems to
Basque Healthcare Service
Agfa HealthCare has successfully delivered the first phase of of a
contract to supply imaging systems at several of the Basque Healthcare
Service's 28-site Osakidetza facilities in Spain, including a go-live of
its centralised radiology information system (RIS) across the facility's
network. 25 March 2009
Systech to integrate serialisation
expertise with Axway’s track and trace system
Axway and Systech International will partner to offer integrated systems
for pharmaceutical supply chain integrity to ensure customer readiness
for upcoming European and Turkish regulatory compliance. 25 March 2009
Allium's bulbar stent provides option to
treat patients with strictures
Allium Group's urethral bulbar stent enables urologists who are not
experts in urethral reconstructive surgery to treat patients with
recurrent strictures by inserting the urethral bulbar stent as an office
outpatient procedure. 25 March 2009
Domainex in collaboration to develop novel
breast cancer drug targets
Domainex has announced a collaboration on drug-discovery programmes with
the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre and The UK Institute of
Cancer Research to identify and develop inhibitors of two recently
validated breast cancer targets, tankyrase and IKK-epsilon. 23 March
2009
Cranfield's first health conference to
focus on translational and regenerative medicine
Professor Lord Robert Winston is to head a world-class line-up of
science professionals and academic speakers at Cranfield Health’s first
conference for biomedical scientists and health professionals in June
this year. 23 March 2009
German healthcare group selects Varian
linear accelerators for radiotherapy
The HELIOS Kliniken Group is acquiring nine linear accelerators from
Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR), the majority of them equipped with
RapidArc technology. The new machines will replace older models and add
capacity that will give more patients access to the most advanced cancer
care. 23 March 2009
Mixed messages from prostate cancer
screening studies
Early data reported from the US PLCO study found there was no early
mortality benefit from annual prostate cancer screening. Alternatively,
long-term data from the ERSPC study show that screening reduced the rate
of mortality by 20%. 23 March 2009
Prostate cancer screening could cut deaths
by 20%
Screening for prostate cancer can reduce deaths by 20%, according to the
results of the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate
Cancer (ERSPC), the world's largest prostate cancer screening study. 23
March 2009
febit's next-generation DNA sequencing
paves the way for personalised medicine
febit has launched its new DNA sequence-capture technology HybSelect.
Biomedical studies have demonstrated superb enrichment factors and deep
sequencing coverage for a broad range of human genes and genomic
regions. 23 March 2009
Proof-of-concept for breast cancer
diagnostics shown for ExonHit's RNA splicing platform
Paris-based ExonHit Therapeutics has reported the publication in Lancet
Oncology of a study conducted by Institut Gustave Roussy, which
describes the identification of a deregulated cell function in breast
cancer through the analysis of alternative RNA splicing. 23 March 2009.
Francais
Minimally-invasive surgery needs more data
on outcomes
Minimally-invasive oncologic surgery procedures can be beneficial, but
physicians need to be prudent when recommending the option to their
patient. There is little data from randomized controlled clinical trials
to provide any insight into outcomes or survival rates. 23 March 2009
Virtual colonoscopies show value for some
patients, but polyps will be missed
Research findings from meta-analyses performed by the US ECRI Institute
suggest that CT colonography appears most promising for screening
asymptomatic, average-risk patients; however, it will miss some
important polyps and cancer that would have been detected by
colonoscopy. 23 March 2009
23andMe launches Parkinson's disease
community for genetics research
23andMe Inc has launched a Parkinson's disease genetics initiative in
collaboration with The US Parkinson's Institute and Clinical Center (PI)
and The Michael J Fox Foundation (MJFF) and with funding from Google
co-founder Sergey Brin. 23 March 2009
Bioabsorbable coronary stent shows promise
in two-year study
A study published online in The Lancet from the ABSORB clinical
trial demonstrates that Abbott's bioabsorbable drug eluting stent
successfully treated coronary artery disease and was absorbed into the
walls of treated arteries within two years. 21 March 2009
Freezing prostate cancer as effective as
surgery
Male lumpectomy, a minimally invasive interventional radiology treatment
for prostate cancer, is as effective as surgery in destroying diseased
tumours according to studies released at a meeting of the the Society of
Interventional Radiology. 19 March 2009
Généthon produces first batch of
HIV-derived vectors in Europe for gene therapy trial
French laboratory Genethon has produced a batch of lentiviral vectors
derived from the human immunodeficiency (HIV) virus for a gene therapy
trial in humans with the rare immune deficiency Wiskott-Aldrich
syndrome. 19 March 2009
Francais Deutsch
Italiano
Touch Bionics’ founder steps down
Touch Bionics, developer of the world’s first commercially available
bionic hand, has announced that Director of Research and Non Executive
Director, David Gow, was stepping down from the business to concentrate
on his expanding role within NHS Lothian’s SMART Centre in Edinburgh. 17
March 2009
Vertual's
virtual training system cuts radiotherapy training costs
A virtual environment for radiotherapy training produced by Hull,
UK-based Vertual is dramatically cutting training costs and helping
improve cancer survival rates. 17 March 2009
GE develops wireless sensing platform for
neonatal and home health monitoring
GE Global Research, the technology development arm of GE (NYSE: GE), has
announced that it has adapted its sensors for home security into an
innovative, intelligent wireless medical sensing platform. If
successful, this new platform could dramatically improve neonatal and
home patient monitoring. 15 March 2009
More research needed in EU on surgery for
non-transmittable diseases
For most non-transmittable conditions, surgery remains an indispensable
remedy and yet, little recognition has been given in terms of support
for research and development. More needs to be done. This is the main
conclusion of a seminar held at the European Parliament earlier this
month. 15 March 2009
Magnetic resonance imaging shows what
people store in short-term memory
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), can show what information
people are holding in memory based only on patterns of activity in the
brain. By analyzing blood-flow activity researcher were able to identify
the specific colour or orientation of an object that was intentionally
stored by the observer. 15 March 2009
Siemens obtains full rights to the i.s.h.med
hospital information system
Siemens Medical Solutions is taking over all use and exploitation rights to the
software i.s.h.med, a clinical information system integrated with the
SAP healthcare software. The system was jointly developed by the partner
and forerunner companies of Siemens Medical Solutions GSD GmbH and the
Austrian T-Systems. Deutsch
Leading experts in Nanomedicine and
Biomedical Informatics meet on 16 and March 17 in Madrid (Español).
12 March 2009
St Jude Medical receives EU approval for
neurostimulation system for chronic angina
St Jude Medical's Genesis neurostimulation system is for managing a form
of chest pain known as chronic angina pectoris, or chronic angina. It
helps to control angina pain by sending mild pulses of electricity from
a device implanted in the torso to nerves located along the spinal cord.
12 March 2009
Siemens to showcase nuclear medicine
innovations at BNMS 2009
Siemens has announced it will be presenting its latest product
advancements at the British Nuclear Medicine Society’s Annual Meeting
from the 27-29 April 2009 at the Manchester Central Convention Complex.
12 March 2009
Philips introduces digital radiography
system for smaller clinics
Royal Philips Electronics has launched the Essenta DR Compact, a fully
digital x-ray system that delivers high quality on a moderate budget. It
can be used for all general radiography examinations and is aimed at
mid-sized hospitals, imaging centres, private clinics and orthopaedic
clinics. 12 March 2009
Dräger receives double design award for
medical devices
Two Dräger products have received the iF product design award in 2009:
The Ponta beam system and the Infinity C700 for IT workstation. The iF
product design award is one of the most important design competitions
worldwide. 12 March 2009
StemCells to acquire drug discovery
technology of Stem Cell Sciences
StemCells, Inc. is to acquire the operating subsidiaries and certain
related assets of Stem Cell Sciences (SCS), a Cambridge, UK-based
company focused on commercializing applications of stem cell
technologies for drug discovery and regenerative medicine research. 10
March 2009
Lab21 acquires Biotec Laboratories
Lab21 Ltd of Cambridge, UK, has announced that it has purchased the
majority shareholding of another UK company Biotec Laboratories Ltd, a
clinical diagnostic company with particular emphasis on infectious
diseases. 10 March 2009
High-throughput screening finds chloroquine
effective against lethal viruses
Two highly lethal viruses that have emerged in recent outbreaks have
been found using high-throughput screening techniques to be susceptible
to chloroquine. Chloroquine is a long-established drug used to prevent
and treat malaria. 6 March 2009
Common
weak point in flu virus strains could lead to universal flu vaccine
Two recent studies have discovered a common Achilles’ heel in a wide
range of seasonal and pandemic influenza A virus strains. Two teams of
researchers have found a common attachment site for human antibodies
that provides a constant region of the flu virus for scientists to
target in an effort to develop a so-called universal flu vaccine. 6
March 2009
Philips Brilliance Workspace CT
work-station named category leader by KLAS
Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) has announced that its
Brilliance Workspace computed tomography (CT) workstation was recognized
in the 2008 Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Professional Services
report. 6 March 2009
Magnetic nanoparticles navigate therapeutic
genes through body and measure effectiveness
Scientists of the German metrology institute, the
Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in a joint study with the
University of Bonn, have developed a highly sensitive method that uses
magnetic nanoparticles to navigate therapeutic genes to the desired
cells in a body and also measure the efficiency of gene transfer to the
cells. 6 March 2009 Deutsch
Gene therapy shows promise as HIV treatment
Researchers at the UCLA AIDS Institute has found that cell-delivered
gene transfer has the potential to be a once-only treatment that reduces
viral load, preserves the immune system and avoids lifelong
antiretroviral therapy. 5 March 2009
Tunable gel for distributing nanoparticles
wins student $30,000 prize
A PhD student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US has
developed a new method for harnessing the enormous potential of
nanoparticles, which could lead to a new generation of medical devices,
drug-delivery technologies, and other applications of nanomedicine. 5
March 2009
Biotech sector needs to embrace economic
reality, says Amgen
The biopharmaceutical industry must embrace the challenges posed by the
current financial downturn and transform its way of conducting business
in order to survive, says Dr Ran Zheng, Plant Manager of Clinical
Operations at Amgen. 4 March 2009
Michelson Diagnostics raises £350K for
clinical trials and growth
The money will be used to support multi-centre clinical trials of its
new hand-held multi-beam optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging
probe, and also aid international commercial growth. 4 March 2009
Study on role of hormone oxytocin in
causing autism
A research team at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile
Packard Children’s Hospital in the US will test whether impaired social
behaviours in autism are linked to levels of the hormone. Preliminary
research has hinted that autism may be associated with oxytocin deficits
2 March 2009
Yorkshire attracts major investment in
healthcare technologies
The Yorkshire and Humber region in northeast England has accounted for
nearly 10% of first-round investments in healthcare technology in the
UK, according to figures revealed at the launch of a new Access to
Finance programme for local healthcare technology companies. 2 March
2009
GE Healthcare launches Centricity PACS
suite in Asia
GE Healthcare, has launched a suite of Centricity systems targeted for
hospitals and outpatient imaging centres in Asia. The suite offers
web-based portability, instantaneous image reporting and scalable
business processes. 2 March 2009
Abbott completes takeover of Advanced
Medical Optics
Abbott has announced that it has completed its acquisition of Advanced
Medical Optics (AMO), which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Abbott
with the new name Abbott Medical Optics Inc. 2 March 2009
February 2009 >>
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