Device Area

As it celebrates 75 years shaping the medtech industry, Medtronic invited Medtech Insight to its Minneapolis headquarters to get a closer look at the company’s past, what it’s working on now, and what’s on the horizon.

“We believe [the SAPIEN M3] launch alongside PASCAL and EVOQUE will help support the company’s target of $2bn in transcatheter mitral and tricuspid therapies sales by 2030,” noted analysts from Leerink Partners.

Egg Medical is ramping up efforts to expand international sales of its EggNest scatter radiation protection system to shield X-ray procedure room staff without disrupting workflow. Medtech Insight sat down with Bob Wilson, Egg Medical’s CEO, to discuss the various EggNest systems, marketing opportunities and the competitive landscape.

A concealed blunt-tip needle that can be inserted into the heart's pericardial space to treat cardiac arrhythmias has received FDA clearance, providing an alternative to catheter-based methods.

The Doctor Patient Forum says the US FDA should regulate a scoring platform from Bamboo Health intended to help clinicians calculate risk for opioid abuse as a medical device to ensure patient safety.

The US FDA has announced seven device safety actions in recent days. The most serious, which relates to a manufacturing defect in Boston Scientific’s Accolade pacemaker, has been linked to 832 injuries and two deaths.

EU regulators have approved a strategy to streamline the submission and approval of studies that involve the simultaneous investigation of a medicinal product, an IVD, and/or a medical device. The strategy involves rolling out seven cross-sector projects over the next few years.

This week, a medical group sued the FDA to block a lab-developed test rule; the FDA published guidance on device classifications; Defibtec issued a recall of its chest compression device and ICU Medical updated instructions for its infusion pump batteries; Maui Imaging raised a $4m DOD grant to put imaging tech into military-based trauma units.

Only 14% of people with type 2 diabetes use continuous glucose monitors, although 93% of users report a positive impact on their health. Dexcom is ramping up efforts to close this adoption gap.

Dexcom announced it received US clearance for its 15-day CGM, which has a MARD of 8.0% and is expected to launch in the second half of 2025 to allow for integration with insulin pumps.

After switching production of coatings for its continuous glucose monitors in-house to improve supply, Dexcom ran afoul of US FDA for failing to submit a premarket notification. Firm says launch of 15-day sensor will not be delayed by the problems.

People living with diabetes who receive continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) through medical supply firms show higher compliance, lower costs of care, and fewer hospitalizations after one year than those who use pharmacies, a new study shows.

ChestView, Gleamer’s newly FDA-cleared solution, is designed for chest X-ray interpretation and is the latest addition to its Gleamer Copilot suite. ChestView, which operates as a computer-aided detection system that can simultaneously detect multiple pathologies on images to support radiologists, is being rolled out in the US.

“Infectious disease should be treated in the community, not in hospitals,” Alex Batchelor, Pictura Bio CEO, told Medtech Insight at the Anglonordic Life Science Conference on 3 April in London.

AI systems used in healthcare are vulnerable to adversarial cyberattacks, which are a growing concern, said Atif Azad, a professor of AI at Birmingham City University. Azad’s research group has developed a method that trains AI to become more resilient to cyber threats through the use of random image adjustments.

Biotech and pharma are increasingly clear about one thing: They need diagnostics. But with prices suppressed, how have diagnostics companies proven their utility without going under?

Freenome plans to file for US FDA approval of its blood-based screening test for colorectal cancer mid-year. If cleared, the test would rival Guardant Health’s Shield, the first FDA-cleared blood test for primary screening of colorectal cancer. Exact Sciences is also in the race to bring a blood-based colorectal screening test to market.

For the fourth time in as many years the FDA has issued a communication concerning a key accessory from Olympus used in several types of urological procedures. This time, however, the agency has added a class I recall confirmation to its original early alert on the device issued in December 2024. A device safety specialist provided Medtech Insight with a deeper understanding of the problem as well as overall scope safety.

The director of the US FDA’s device center is sounding the alarm on the scarcity of critical devices for pediatric patients and says the agency is focused on solutions to this “unique” challenge.

The US FDA has issued its first communication as part of a new pilot program the agency initiated to increase transparency in recalls of high-risk medical devices. The early alerts are meant to minimize the time between the FDA finding out about a potential issue and informing stakeholders.

Precision’s recent FDA clearance for a core part of its next-generation wireless brain-computer interface system opens the pathway to a safer, more humane BCI for researchers to use compared to higher-risk intracortical arrays, according to BCI expert Naveen Rao.

Only 16% of venture capital general partners in Europe are women, and only 9% of those have actual investment power. Thena Capital is aiming to "redefine the image of a venture capitalist."

Early diagnosis can be “detrimental” to patients, Suzanne O'Sullivan, neurologist and author of “The Age of Diagnosis,” argued at the Wired Health conference on 18 March. "You save one life from screening 2,000 women for breast cancer, but you also treat 10 women unnecessarily," she said.

Barcelona-based accelerator S2 Xpeed is driving the rapid growth of medtech and hardware start-ups in Europe. Operating under a "sweat equity" model, the program helps early-stage companies move from prototype to manufacturing readiness in exchange for equity. This month, the accelerator will add a fourth cohort of 10 more start-ups, five of which are in the medtech space.