GLG News in Healthcare

In this age of evidence based practice and risk/profit mentality, the idea that a person’s age should be reason to exclude them from tests that could benefit sounds a little too Malthusian. The committee saw little rational to continue testing beyond the age of 75.  Each day we are bombarded with information indicating that life expectancy is increasing and diagnostic testing is becoming more...

Patients, especially so called "boomers" can have unrealistic expectations of appropriate activity levels after joint replacement surgery. Like an mecahnical sytem they are subject to fatigue which could lead to early failure. It is up to surgeons to set realistic expectaions for patients, al;though competitive forces make this difficult.

Despite all the studies and reports touting hundreds of billions of dollars of savings from electronic medical records, the adoption rate especially by physicians in smaller practices remains woefully low.  The biggest barrier still remains costs.   Implementing electronic medical records may run in some practices (depending on the system) as high as $50,000 per physician....

The growth of the big pharma companies in the past 20-30 years has to do with the fact that the medical community was willing to accept large trials (some with surrogate endpoints) as proof that a new treatment is good and that it can replace the old one. Since the problems with Troglitazone, Cerivastatin, Rosiglitazone and Ezetimibe, safety is being emphasized by the medical community and by the...

The data presented by multiple professional societies does not lend clinical support of many Medtronic products in the Medicare population.  The data does not support the use of disc arthroplasty in the Medicare population, and does not find any clinical advantage of kyphoplasty over vertebroplasty.  This may mean reduced sales of the Kyphon line of products as well as reduced sales of the...

From the day that Charnley first developed the artificial hip, there has never been a question that eventually revisions would become a larger market than primary hips and knees.  Joint reconstruction with metal and plastics was never intended, even with today's technology, would be consider capable of restoring a patient's previous lifestyle.  However, our passion for Entitlement...

New electrode will increase the capabilities of the Advance device from Neurometrix, potentially leading to more sales of the disposable electrodes The increased capabilities may also increase the number of practicioners interested in the Advance system, generating more sales for the company

Last week, Cardinal Health (CAH) announced agreements with the Drug Enforcement Adminstration (DEA) regarding its license suspensions for controlled substances. These suspensions had a negative impact on the company's sales and market position. The company even publicly apologized for its actions during the suspensions. (See Cardinal Health Apologizes to Customers - Council Site). With the formal...

No impact, because any legislation involved can be rewritten if the legislators disagree with the Supreme Court decision!

Biodel’s September 8th announcement of the Phase III non-inferiority trial results for VIAject at the 44th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Rome left many investors wary of the legitimacy of the data that was presented. The study, which was originally conducted in the US, Germany, and India, did not include the data from the Type 1 study in India in its...