Medical device companies sign on to a pledge to increase the
interoperability of their products in the interest of patient safety.
Former President
Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker at a special event in Orange County CA, urging attendees to work together to eliminate unnecessary deaths and improve the healthcare system.
Obesity has become #1 cause of preventable death in USA. USA spends over $147 B every year on obesity and related treatments. "We need the investment community and large companies to participate and everybody wins"
Orange County and So Cal has become a hub for medical device and pharma innovations in obesity.
We have Allergan the maker of lap band, Onciomed which is next gen implant in obesity and diabetes, Reshape and obalon which are in gastric balloon space and a drug maker in San Diego.
Number of biomedical companies in California: 2323
Est VC money in the industry: $2.7 B
Total exports: $18.6 B
Despite the total export being $18.6 B approx 8X the VC investment, shame on our investment and innovation infrastructure systems that VCs are not able to invest in early stage companies, because early stage companies are fueling the innovation. VCs are supposed to take some risks. Now they are investing in redundant, useless technologies that are on liquidation, just to show the LPs more deals for less money. LPs are not aware of the crappy deals. They look at the numbers of deals, which looks impressive.
As a result, most of the equity is being taken by international investors. These international investors are taking advantage of the situation and investing in early stage companies, "these guys are going away with upto 10 times their investment" said CEO of from Silicon Valley. This will affect the VC community in the long run. Biomedical industry in California employed a record 267,000 + people. Life Science is booming worldwide, medical device usage in US has increased. FDA has approved more devices and drugs than they did before each year. FDA is doing its job, now if VCs want to realize returns on investment, they need to take the risks and support innovations, otherwise, investors from Asia are going to invade the space, and become the super angel investors supporting innovation that meet the clinical need. "Its a shame VCs are busy saving their jobs and rejecting good technologies, outside US investors will be walking away with pocket full of money" said a leading practicing surgeon from Bay Area attending JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
The dream act for young medical device companies means "nothing" said a medical device CEO at the JP Morgan meeting. "It's a shame that our Governor is not out there stimulating the biomedical industry like the Gov of Massachusetts, Greater Boston has become a hub for device and biotech industry quickly. Southern California has given major boost to California's economy, we lack VCs and investors in So Cal. What is the Governor doing?, what is Obama doing for biomedical innovation?"
Several medical device manufacturers pledged to improve patient safety.
Lenore Alexander
(mother of Leah Coufal)
Ten years ago, Lenore Alexander's healthy, 11-year-old daughter, Leah
Coufal, underwent elective surgery to correct pectus carinatum at a prestigious
Southern California hospital. Though the surgery
went well, Lenore awoke at 2 a.m. on the second post-operative night to find
Leah "dead in bed," a victim of undetected respiratory arrest, caused
by the narcotics that were intended to ease her pain. If Leah had been
monitored continuously after the surgery, staff would have been alerted and
Leah would probably have been rescued. But ten years later, knowing that the
standard of care remains unchanged, Lenore works to make continuous
postoperative monitoring the law (Leah's Law) to help prevent other children
suffering the same fate as Leah.
Nancy Conrad
(wife of astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad)
While motorcycling with friends in Ojai,
California, Pete ran off the road
and crashed. At the emergency room, staff first thought the 69-year-old's
injuries were minor, but he died from internal bleeding about five hours later.
He was buried with full honors at Arlington
National Cemetery.
Following the death of her husband, Nancy
co-founded the Community Emergency Healthcare Initiative, designed to
measurably affect preventable injury and death now occurring in emergency
departments.
Helen Haskell
(mother of Lewis Blackman)
Her healthy 15-year-old son underwent elective surgery at one of South Carolina's most
modern hospitals. Several days after surgery to repair a condition called
pectus excavatum (a structural defect in which the chest wall does not grow
straight), Lewis experienced "the worst pain imaginable." It was the
first indication that Lewis had a perforated ulcer, a side effect of medication
he was being given for pain. It was three days out of surgery and Lewis should
have been getting better. But the pain in his stomach area—not in his chest,
where he had the operation—was not better. In a hospital with modern technology
and vast technical resources, this healthy 15-year-old bled to death over 30
hours while those caring for him missed signs that he was in grave peril.
Experts said that Lewis wasn't properly monitored. A routine blood test
probably would have shown Lewis was bleeding internally, but it was never
ordered.
Kristine Brite McCormick
(mother of Cora McCormick)
After a healthy pregnancy, great prenatal care and being given a clean bill
of health at the hospital, Kristine took her seemingly healthy, pink-toned
newborn, Cora, home in December, 2009. Three days later she was feeding Cora
when she suddenly stopped breathing and died in her arms. She learned from the
coroner Cora had a critical congenital heart defect, and has become an advocate
for newborn heart defect screening. Kristine championed through CCHD screening
legislation in her state and started the organization Pulse Ox Advocacy to help
other advocates across the world, with a goal of saving other mothers the pain
of learning about their child's heart defect from the coroner.
No comments:
Post a Comment