Percutaneous Mitral Valve Therapy:
The Next Decade After more than a decade, the field of transcatheter mitral valve therapy is still in its infancy, yet it is surprisingly crowded. The first percutaneous mitral valve company was founded in 1999, the same year that the first transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) company was founded, but while TAVI is now on the market in Europe and in the US, the leading transcatheter mitral valve therapy has only just completed clinical trials. The anatomy of the mitral valve is much more complex than its aortic counterpart, patients with mitral valve disease make up a heterogeneous group, and the anatomical environment for mitral valve implants is much more challenging. Nevertheless, the potential market for transcatheter mitral valve treatments is at least four times that of TAVI, is wide open, and offers a substantial growth opportunity for strategic companies working in the cardiovascular space.
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How to facilitate open innovation in the medical device spaceAn interview with Peter von Dyck, Chairman and CEO of e-Zassi, a first-of-its-kind online community that enables the medical device industry to quickly and efficiently identify acquisition, licensing, and collaboration opportunities. we learn how e-Zassi is transforming the way medical device companies, innovators, researchers, and investors connect and collaborate in an effort to generate powerful new efficiencies in the development and commercialization of life-saving medical technologies.
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Top 10 medical device deals of 2011There was a frenzy of medical device deals in 2011, with some big names entering the fray, including pharmaceutical and device titan Johnson & Johnson. In fact, J&J took the top spot on the list with its $21.3 billion buyout of Synthes. The buy, which is undergoing review by EU authorities, is the largest in the healthcare giant's history and will make it a leader in the orthopedics market
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For Some, Crisis Is Good Medicine lack of funding in the biotech industry, brought about by the financial crisis, is proving a boon for cash-rich drug firms.
Since the outbreak of the crisis in 2008, big drug companies such as Roche Holding AG have been able to strike deals early and for less money with small biotech developers, which are struggling to fund themselves because traditional investors such as private equity, hedge funds and venture capitalists are shunning the sector. The trend has helped the big drug firms outperform the Stoxx Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology index. |
Turn The Tables On Patent TrollsThe patent system has received a lot of attention recently, and not the good kind. Recent pieces have called patent enforcers “modern-day robber barons” and their investors “suckers.” They vilify those who don’t make anything and use patents to sue those that do – patent “trolls” – and leave the reader wondering: how can this be, and what can be done?
Updates to the law to address current issues in high-tech industries should not create new issues for the industries for which the patent system functions well, namely drugs and biotechnology. |
Lessons From The Google Patent Acquisition For Pharma and Biotech Companies
The term “patent thicket” relates to a patent portfolio that extensively covers a particular technological niche, effectively blocking any competitor’s entry into the market. As the name suggests, the competitor becomes entangled in the “thicket” of patents and is unable to locate any clear path to avoid them. Effectively, the competitor loses “freedom to operate” or the ability to make, use, or sell inventions in that niche.
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Advances in Imaging Biomarkers: Innovative Technologies, Applications in R&D and Clinical Practice, and Informatics and Regulatory RequirementsImaging biomarkers, those quantified using imaging modalities including Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Positron Emission Tomography, are attractive for a variety of reasons: the methods of measurement used are non-invasive, and can provide information that cannot be obtained in other ways including a drug's pharmacology and side effect profile, interaction of a drug and its target, delivery of a drug to its target, and the drug's pharmacokinetic profile. In the clinical setting, imaging biomarkers can be used as a screening, diagnostic or prognostic tool as well as for monitoring treatment response.
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