Hired someone new and exciting? Promoted a rising star? Finally solved that hard-to-fill spot? Share the news with us and we’ll share with it others. That’s right. Send us your announcements and we’ll find a home for them. Don’t be shy. Everyone wants to know who is coming and going, especially with all the layoffs [...]

File this under ‘Say Uncle.’ A dozen drug and device makers have told Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican, that they have plans or are working on plans to publicly disclose grants to outside groups, and the details will be provided on each company’s Web sites, the Associated Press reports. In particular, Grassley is interested in [...]

Jim Tobin and his team have an ingenious idea. Studies have linked their drug-coated stents to blood clots, causing concern among cardiologists and investors. So what better way to deflect attention from the problem than to convince patients to take their blood thinner after surgery?
The idea: spend $40 million on a ‘patient education’ program to [...]

How ironic. The chap who runs the world’s biggest maker of hearing implants says he hasn’t heard a peep about a takeover bid.
Asked whether he knew of any interest in Medtronic buying his company, Cochlear ceo Chris Roberts says he has “no idea” whether a bid is in the offing. An analyst at ABN Amro, [...]

Never you mind all those troubles at Boston Scientific. Sure, the device maker overpaid last year for Guidant. And those recent studies saying stents don’t prevent heart attacks or deaths aren’t likely to inspire cardiologists.
But for Jim Tobin, timing is everything. The ceo, you see, unloaded $50 million in stock between 2002 and 2006, which [...]

A war broke out in New Orleans today over these little devices and, in the process, pulled the curtain back on the extent to which money sometimes dictates patient care.
A doctor, who is a consultant to Boston Scientific, last night angered the American College of Cardiology and the New England Journal of Medicine by disclosing [...]

An experimental stent from Abbott Laboratories may threaten the market-leading positions held by Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson based on positive results from two new studies
A new form of stent made by Abbott that dissolves in arteries after being implanted for about three years delivered a promising finding in its first human trial. Separately, [...]

The targets: Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson’s Cordis, Eli Lilly, Cephalon and AstraZeneca. The products at issue: Seroquel, Zyprexa, Fentora, Actiq and drug-coated stents.
U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, who heads the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent letters last Thursday looking for truckloads of information about clinical trials, industry conferences, correspondence, marketing brochures, and [...]

Nothing like sponsoring a sporting event to bolster your image. Boston Scientific execs are trying this tried-and-true tactic to remind people there’s more to the device maker than stents that need safety warnings, defribillators that are recalled and employees who get laid off.
What’s not widely known is that the company also makes a spinal cord [...]

Five studies were released late today by The New England Journal of Medicine on its web site and find the devices cut the need for repeated procedures by half, and seem safe for healthier patients. The problem: there’s not much known about the way these work in 60 to 70 percent of the patients who [...]