PharmaMedDevice Industry Blog

Tiny Bubbles….

Tiny bubbles hold giant potential for the fight against cancer. Nanotechnology product advancements continue to appear in several research studies – with amazing possibilities. I recently read about some research taking place at the University of Utah’s Department of Bioengineering that focuses on the potential use of nanobubbles for targeted cancer treatment.  As the researcher explained (and I thank them for making the analogy so easy to understand for the non-scientific community) – if you imagine soap bubbles…then imagine a drug in the soap bubbles…which eventually will pop for the therapeutic effect. 

Ultra-highspeed photographs of microbubbles forming on a microheater show the effect of residual nanobubbles between heating pulses. The first pulse of a two-pulse sequence (a) produces nearly identical microbubbles time after time, but the second pulse (b) produces a random assortment of bubbles of varying sizes. Vertical bar shows a distance of 15 micrometers.

IT Communications for Life

CELL PHONES OPEN NEW OPTIONS FOR FUTURE MEDICAL CARE

…Add information technology to the list of converging industries!  The telecommunications giant QualComm is looking at innovative ways to transform cell phones into medical devices that are capable of acting as glucose meters to wirelessly monitor blood sugar levels for diabetic patients.  CardioNet, a San Diego startup company, is already using QualComm’s technology with its mobile cardiac outpatient telemetry (MCOT) technology and service.  This monitoring device can detect an abnormal heartbeat, and transmit the patient’s ECG to a central monitoring center.  Certified cardiovascular technicians can analyze the data 24/7 and respond appropriately, including alerting Emergency Medial Services, if needed.

QualComm launched a mobile venture network operator (MVNO) company called

Better Than A Poke in the Eye

By Jack Powers, editor, HealthcareNBIC.org

With increased longevity, millions of people are aging into the risk of a new epidemic of Age Related Macular Degeneration (ARMD). In the U.S., an estimated 1.7 million of the 34 million Americans over age 65 have some visual impairment from ARMD,  according to the National Eye Institute, and  on average over 35%  of folks over 80 suffer from some form of the disease.

The good news is that new drug therapies are helping opthamologists fight the effects of macular degeneration. The bad news is that many of these therapies require intravitreal injections, hypodermic needles into the eye as depicted at left by the medical illustrators at Jireh Design . A needle to the eye every month, maybe for the rest of your life,  is a lot to ask of your 85 year-old grandparent.

SurModics is applying its existing knowledge of drug-eluting coatings in the field of ophthalmology to improve the delivery of drugs

Market to watch - Implantable/injectable drug delivery

When it comes to getting a flu vaccine would you rather face a large needle or simply apply a patch to your arm? Alternative drug delivery systems are offering patients new, safer and more effective methods for getting the treatments they need, leading to increased patient compliance. According to a report by Kalorama Information, the growing demand for novel drug delivery technologies generated record revenues of $9.8 billion worldwide in 2006. Further research indicates that this burgeoning market will reach revenues of $12.6 billion by 2010.

These statistics suggest that as innovative drug delivery technologies continue to evolve, the method of administration is becoming

Transdermal Vaccines In Our Future???

Transdermal patches have been around for awhile – but there have been some recent product developments taking things to a new level.  Daytrana – the transdermal patch used for ADHD (and approved for pediatric use) and Emsam – used for treating depression – are two recent examples of prescription patch innovation.




Photo courtesy of Charles Dharapak / AP

Bioabsorbable Stents - like a cast for a broken leg!

Drug coated stents are a miracle of medical engineering and the quintessential example of “combination products.”  It’s incredible to see how far we’ve evolved with this technology within the past 10-15 years. Abbott Laboratories is introducing a new experimental self-absorbing heart stent that didn’t cause major side effects in an initial study.  Their product, Absorb, represents one of the first in a new class of bioabsorbable stents - using a temporary solution for a temporary problem…like a cast for a broken leg.

Bioabsorbable stents, like their drug-coated predecessors, are designed to slowly release medicine to prevent restenosis, or the reclosure of the artery after stent implantation.  The primary difference is that after approximately six months, these new stents are eventually absorbed by the body (turning into carbon dioxide and water!) after they heal the blood vessel and return it to its natural state.

Photo Courtesy of Brown University

Hot areas of innovation in medical device

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to participate in the mini-MEDi 2006 program – organized by BEACON, the not-for-profit Biomedical Engineering Alliance and Consortium, at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, CT. The day consisted of presentations on hot areas of innovation in the medical device industry, including sessions on bionanotechnology and combination products. We heard about the amazing research happening at ...