by Jill Hoffman | Sep 4, 2013 | Medical Devices
With nearly 1.4 billion people, China is the most populous nation on earth. And the number of middle class Chinese now stands at 474 million—more than the entire population of the United States. Naturally, this makes China one of the world’s fastest growing markets...
by Jill Hoffman | Aug 21, 2013 | Medical Devices
In 1650, a German Jesuit named Athanasius Kircher invented the ear trumpet, a funnel-shaped device to collect sound waves and direct them into the ears of nearly deaf patients. Medical technology has come a long way since then, and today medtech devices include robots...
by Jill Hoffman | Aug 7, 2013 | Medical Devices
When Medtronic manufactured the first pacemakers more than 50 years ago, physicians did not know what they were. The idea of implanting a man-made device in a patient’s chest sounded crazy. It was up to sales reps to teach doctors how pacemakers worked and how they...
by Jill Hoffman | Jul 2, 2013 | Medical Devices
In 2011, an IBM supercomputer named Watson defeated two reigning champions on the TV quiz show Jeopardy, winning the first prize of $1 million. Watson has a 15-terabyte data bank of human knowledge—more than 15 times Wikipedia—and can process the equivalent of a...
by Jill Hoffman | Jun 26, 2013 | Medical Devices
When the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was signed into law in 2010, it contained a 2.3% excise tax on gross sales of medical devices. The tax applies to a wide range of products, from bedpans to the most advanced heart devices, as well as companies, from emerging...