Device Prom Song: Looks Like We Made It

Eighteen months ago, after the world's economic house of cards collapsed, many in the device industry shifted into damage-control mode. For venture capital investors, triaging was the practice of the day as partners picked through their portfolios, with an eye toward identifying which companies lived and which would be shut off from any further help, aka capital. Chief executives, meanwhile, down-shifted operations, preparing to get by with very little new capital, if any at all. The medical device industry, in short, was preparing for the worst: the onset of another dreary period in which capital and exiting opportunities would be scarce.

Each of these measures was done with the idea of surviving. ( See "A New Chapter for Device VCs?," START-UP,...