The MedTech Conference is coming to Boston in 2022

[Boston image from Unsplash]Trade group AdvaMed plans to return to an entirely in-person event for The MedTech Conference, with the annual event slated for Boston on October 24–26, 2022.

AdvaMed in September 2021 held a hybrid event that included virtual sessions as well as live sessions in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. (The year before — in pre-COVID vaccine times — the event was entirely virtual.)

“We recognized the strong desire to gather in-person at our 2021 hybrid conference, and will continue to plan for a live event while closely monitoring the status of COVID-19 in the coming months. Rest assured, the safety of our staff and attendees remains our top priority,” AdvaMed EVP Ray Briscuso and SVP Wendy Siminski said in an announcement yesterday.

MassDevice and Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s DeviceTalks is also returning in 2022 with live events: Boston May 10–11, Minneapolis June 6–7, and Santa Clara, California October 19–20.

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The MedTech Conference is coming to Boston in 2022

[Boston image from Unsplash]

Trade group AdvaMed plans to return to an entirely in-person event for The MedTech Conference, with the annual event slated for Boston on October 24–26, 2022.

AdvaMed in September 2021 held a hybrid event that included virtual sessions as well as live sessions in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. (The year before — in pre-COVID vaccine times — the event was entirely virtual.)

“We recognized the strong desire to gather in-person at our 2021 hybrid conference, and will continue to plan for a live event while closely monitoring the status of COVID-19 in the coming months. Rest assured, the safety of our staff and attendees remains our top priority,” AdvaMed EVP Ray Briscuso and SVP Wendy Siminski said in an announcement yesterday.

MassDevice and Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s DeviceTalks is also returning in 2022 with live events: Boston May 10–11, M…

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An even larger medtech supply chain shock looms beyond the pandemic

[Image via Pixabay] Superstorms, fires, droughts and other extreme events driven by climate change are already straining the industry’s supply chain — and it could get a lot worse.

Drifting wildfire smoke made for blazing sunrises and sunsets this summer in Minnesota, where electronics manufacturer Nortech Systems has been replacing air handling equipment to ensure particle filtration and the ability to operate in more extreme temperatures.

“I had days where I jumped in the car, and I drove up to Bemidji and [the smoke] got steadily worse,” CEO Jay Miller said. “I’m thinking about not only small particles of particulate matter in very sensitive boards that we’re manufacturing, I’m also thinking about my employees that have asthma. … I can put them in a good environment for eight hours a day, but how are they going to be the rest of the time? That’s worrisome.”

Medical device companies are increasingly focusing on the risk climate change poses to their businesse…

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October 2021 Issue: Women in Medtech



 

How Hologic made a major pandemic pivot: CFO Karleen Oberton reflects on key decisions and turning points of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Insulet CEO Shacey Petrovic is pumped up to launch Omnipod 5

Boston Scientific’s Meghan Scanlon forecasts the future of urology

There is still a long way to go to close the gender leadership gap in the medical device industry, but hope is on the horizon.

Women still account for less than a quarter of all executive leadership roles within the biggest medical device companies in the world, according to our annual analysis in this Women in Medtech edition of Medical Design & Outsourcing.

Just 21% of the executives in the top 100 medical device companies are women — up one percentage point from last year — and the number of those companies with a female CEO remains unchanged at four.

For comparison, about 40% of the 660,000 employees in the medical equipment and supplies manufacturing industry a…

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Four questions with AdvaMed’s Jen Brearey

Jen Brearey is AdvaMed’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer. [Photo courtesy of AdvaMed]

Jen Brearey is AdvaMed’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, as well as executive director for the association’s inclusion diversity programs, which includes the industry initiative AdvaMed Advance and AdvaMed’s Women’s Executive Network.

Ahead of our annual Women in Medtech edition of Medical Design & Outsourcing, we asked Brearey to share her expertise on gender diversity to explain why it’s important that medical device companies have more women in their executive ranks and what companies can do to make that happen.

Why does it matter that women are underrepresented as leaders in the industry? Brearey: “Based on our data, women in MedTech represent 43% of the entry-level workforce but only 27% of the C-Suite leadership. The biggest attrition we se…

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AdvaMed supports effort to overturn J&J pelvic mesh ruling in California

Medical device trade group AdvaMed announced today that it has filed an amicus curiae brief supporting an appeal to overturn a $344 million pelvic mesh ruling against Johnson & Johnson in California.

Lawyers for AdvaMed tell the California Court of Appeal that the San Diego Superior Court judgment violated safe harbor protections because the case involved J&J communications about pelvic mesh that were FDA-approved.

“We believe the trial court misapplied California’s Unfair Competition Law and Fair Advertising Law by failing to judge the communications from the perspective of the target audience — trained physicians who treat pelvic floor conditions — over 80 of whom confirmed that the marketing materials were not likely to mislead them,” said Pat Fogarty, AdvaMed’s SVP, deputy general counsel and director of litigation.

“The decision undermines a manufacturer’s ability to rely on FDA input when it comes to the adequacy of …

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Alva Health stroke monitor wins MedTech Innovator startup prize

Alva Health’s stroke monitor [Photo courtesy of Alva Health]

MedTech Innovator has awarded its $350,000 global startup competition grand prize to Alva Health.

Alva Health has developed a wearable, real-time stroke monitor. The New Haven, Connecticut-based startup won the medical device accelerator competition after a Wednesday vote by attendees of The MedTech Conference, organized by AdvaMed.

“Alva Health’s mission is to develop, commercialize and make accessible a first-in-class medical device that accurately detects strokes using patient-worn wearables,” Alva Health co-founder and CEO Sandra Saldana said in a news release. “This award represents a recognition of the tremendous clinical unmet need for patients, and an important milestone in Alva Health’s journey. We are grateful to the MedTech Innovator community for their support and for the opportunity to receive mentorship fro…

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AdvaMed honors former BD CEO Ludwig with its Lifetime Achievement Award

Former BD CEO Edward Ludwig

AdvaMed this week honored former BD CEO Edward Ludwig with its 2021 AdvaMed Lifetime Achievement Award.

Ludwig received the award on September 27 during an in-person and live-streamed event as part of The MedTech Conference.

Ludwig joined BD in 1979 and rose through the ranks to eventually become chair and CEO, retiring from the company in 2012.

AdvaMed in a news release praised the leadership that Ludwig demonstrated at BD:

He was instrumental in bringing the BD BACTEC 9000 system to market, a family of continuous blood monitoring and blood culturing instruments, revolutionizing the way blood culturing was performed, ultimately improving patient care and safety for health care workers.

With the goal of developing current and future leaders in the company, Ludwig established BD University, a management-driven leadership development program within the company. At BD, everyone who worked with him could tell you abo…

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CDRH’s Shuren says they’re ‘starting to turn the corner’ from COVID-19

CDRH director Dr. Jeff Shuren [Image courtesy of FDA]Medical device industry insiders will have to wait until the new year to get a better idea of the post-pandemic priorities at the FDA’s CDRH.

That was one of the big takeaways from Dr. Jeff Shuren’s remarks at the virtual CDRH Town Hall held yesterday at AdvaMed’s The MedTech Conference, which takes place this week as a combination of virtual presentations and live presentations events in Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis.

Shuren, the director of FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said the center is “starting to turn the corner” on catching up on submissions. Additional funding from Congress, he said, allowed CDRH to bring on more people, leverage contractors and make changes in policy and process.

Get the full story on our sister site Medical Design & Outsourcing. 

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CDRH’s Shuren says they’re ‘starting to turn the corner’ from COVID-19

CDRH director Dr. Jeff Shuren [Image courtesy of FDA]

Medical device industry insiders will have to wait until the new year to get a better idea of the post-pandemic priorities at the FDA’s CDRH.

That was one of the big takeaways from Dr. Jeff Shuren’s remarks at the virtual CDRH Town Hall held yesterday at AdvaMed’s The MedTech Conference, which takes place this week as a combination of virtual presentations and live presentations events in Washington, D.C. and Minneapolis.

Shuren, the director of FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said the center is “starting to turn the corner” on catching up on submissions. Additional dollars from Congress, he said, allowed CDRH to bring on more people, leverage contractors and make changes in policy and process.

FDA is even coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic with dedicated resources to establish a supply cha…

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Medtronic CFO offers supply chain update as medical device industry concerns mount

Medtronic CFO Karen Parkhill [Photo courtesy of Medtronic]

Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) was among the participants in a White House semiconductor summit last week to address the continuing global shortage of electronic chips, but CFO Karen Parkhill says the world’s largest medical device manufacturer is not in same dire straits as chip buyers in other industries.

Medtronic’s supply chain is “holding up OK, but we’re seeing pressures like everybody else,” Parkhill said Friday in an interview with Medical Design & Outsourcing.

“Semi-conductors are an issue. Resins are an issue,” she said. “I think it helps that we’re a medical device manufacturer that’s producing life-saving technology … because when push comes to shove, I think we’re more important than new cars coming off the line, for example. We haven’t necessarily pulled that card, but I do think that that could help if…

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The MedTech Conference by AdvaMed to be a mixture of in-person and virtual

To hold an event or not to hold a live event. Medtech trade association AdvaMed chose both for The Medtech Conference, which takes place next week.

The September 27–30 conference includes a mixture of virtual presentations and in-person events in Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis. AdvaMed CEO Scott Whitaker mentioned several conference agenda highlights during a news conference today:

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will deliver an afternoon keynote on Monday, September 27, in Washington, D.C. CMS’s chief medical officer Dr. Lee Fleisher will discuss his work during a late morning talk on September 27. FDA’s Virtual CDRH Town Hall — a perennial favorite at the conference — will take place virtually on the evening of September 27. The in-person Minneapolis events September 29–30 include a who’s who of medtech CEOs, including Abiomed’s Michael R. Minogue (also the present AdvaMed board chair), Edwards Lifesciences’ Michael…
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