DeviceTalkers assemble for the final Newsmakers of 2022

In this episode, your diligent team of DeviceTalkers assembled to review our Top 10 events, trends and newsmakers of 2022.

Executive Editor Chris Newmarker, Pharma Editor Brian Buntz, Managing Editor Jim Hammerand, Senior Editor Danielle Kirsh and Associate Editor Sean Whooley joined me, DeviceTalks Editorial Director Tom Salemi, for the latest DeviceTalks podcast.

We’ve got some highs — robots, diabetes — and some lows — supply chain, recalls — and a whole lot of interesting things in between. All-in-all, we’re bullish on what’s to come in 2023! And we only mentioned COVID-19 once.

Companies mentioned in our wide-ranging discussion include Abbott, Abiomed, Ambu, Becton Dickinson, Boston Scientific, CMR Surgical, Dexcom, embecta, Intuitive, Johnson & Johnson Medtech, Medtronic, Neuralink, Philips, Senseonics, Stryker, Synchron, Vicarious Surgical, Zimmer Biomet, ZimVie and many more.

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States band together to purchase BD, Quidel antigen tests for COVID-19

Seven U.S. states have formed an interstate compact with the Rockefeller Foundation to expand the use of rapid point-of-care antigen tests to better manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

The compact — announced yesterday by a bipartisan group of governors leading the states — includes Louisiana, Ohio, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia.

The idea is that by working together, the states are demonstrating to private manufacturers that there is significant demand to scale up the production of antigen tests. Now that the compact is in place, the states are in discussions with  Becton Dickinson (NYSE:BDX) and  Quidel to purchase 500,000 tests per state, for a total of 3.5 million tests.

“With severe shortages and delays in testing and the federal administration attempting to cut funding for testing, the states are banding together to acquire millions of faster tests to help save lives and slow the spread of COVID-19,” said Maryland Gov. Lar…

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Dems seek to force EPA action on ethylene oxide monitoring

(Image from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration)

Democrats in both houses of Congress have introduced legislation that would force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to better monitor emissions of ethylene oxide (EtO) from plants that manufacture the toxic gas or use it to sterilize medical devices.

The Public Health Air Quality Act of 2020, sponsored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.), would require immediate EPA action to monitor emissions at “facilities contributing to high local cancer rates and other health threats from dangerous pollutants.” The list includes eight medtech sterilization plants included among 25 EPA-designated, EtO-using or -producing facilities:

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

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The top 5 medtech stories of the week — July 24, 2020

COVID-19 is surging back in the U.S., new jobless claims are up, but MassDevice’s most-read stories this week were mostly optimistic.

That’s the takeaway from our inaugural MassDevice Top Five — a weekly recap of the most-read stories on MassDevice, the online business journal of the medical device industry. Want to hear more about the week’s top news? Executive editor Chris Newmarker and Tom Salemi will discuss during our DeviceTalks Weekly podcast.

Without further ado, here’s this week’s MassDevice Top Five:

5. Better than expected results from Edwards Lifesciences

Officials at Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) had warned that it was going to be a tough Q2 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Sure enough, it was. But the Irvine, Calif.–based artificial heart valves and hemodynamic monitoring company results still beat Wall Street expectations — with the company even upping its earnings guidance for the year. “Irrespective of the unpre…

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U.S. investing $42m to boost BD syringe and needle production

HHS’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is helping BD expand operations and manufacturing capacity in Nebraska to boost syringe and needle supplies for an eventual COVID-19 vaccine.

Becton Dickinson (NYSE:BDX) said today that the total project will cost $70 million, with BARDA providing $42 million. The company expects the new capacity to be online within 12 months.

Get the full story on our sister site Drug Delivery Business News. 

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BD launches COVID-19 antigen test that can produce results in 15 minutes

Becton Dickinson (NYSE:BDX) announced today that it’s received an FDA emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 antigen test, which the company will start shipping this week.

BD plans to ramp-up manufacturing capacity to 2 million tests per week by the end of September, with 10 million tests produced by the end of September. The tests run on BD’s highly portable Veritor instruments; the company already has about 25,000 Veritor instruments installed at healthcare providers and pharmacies across the U.S.

The assay can produce results in 15 minutes, with 84% sensitivity (ability to exclude false negatives) and 100% specificity (ability to exclude false positives).

Get the full story on our sister site Drug Discovery & Development. 

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