May 3, 2007 — According to a Dow Jones News Service article published by Star Tribune, Minneapolis St. Paul, Boston Scientific Corp. is reviewing its portfolio and will consider selling parts that aren't considered strategic, long-term contributors — so stated the company's chief operating officer Wednesday.

May 3, 2007 — Next Thursday, May 10, in Denver, CO, more than 25 leading heart advocacy groups will announce the formation of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) Coalition, dedicated to advancing increased research, awareness and educational efforts to address the nation’s No. 1 cardiovascular killer.

May 2, 2007 — Responding to AHA data that estimates 79 million American adults (one in three) have one or more types of cardiovascular disease, Siemens Medical Solutions has announced availability of a new cardiology image management and reporting solution, syngo Dynamics version 6.

May 2, 2007 — Reuters Health reports that scientists have proved that smoking during pregnancy can have lasting detrimental effects on the developing heart. In a study conducted at the Center for Perinatal Biology, Loma Linda University, CA, researchers found that adult offspring of laboratory rats who were exposed to nicotine prenatally showed clear signs of heart dysfunction.

"Our study shows that prenatal...nicotine has significant impact on cardiac function of adult offspring," Dr. Lubo Zhang told Reuters Health.


As in most partnerships, rarely are all things equal. Such is the case with hybrid PET/CT systems, where the vast majority of the improvements have benefited the CT side of the scanner, in particular with increased CT imaging speeds, according to Medhat M. Osman, M.D., Ph.D., at the School of Medicine at St. Louis University. This has left the medical community anxiously awaiting more substantial changes to the PET side of the PET/CT scanner.

Accuray Inc., a manufacturer of radiosurgery devices, has announced it has entered into an agreement with CyberHeart Inc. under which CyberHeart will use Accuray’s technology to develop a noninvasive method for performing cardiac ablation, which may eventually have applications in the treatment of atrial fibrillation.

May 1, 2007 — Acusphere Inc. announced today it exceeded the criteria for success for two of the primary endpoints — accuracy and sensitivity — in RAMP-2, the second Phase 3 clinical trial of Imagify, (perflubutane polymer microspheres) injectable suspension. All three of the ultrasound-blinded readers had superior sensitivity and noninferior accuracy to nuclear stress, the most frequently used imaging procedure for the assessment of coronary artery disease.

May 1, 2007 — Cardiome Pharma Corp. says this week it has received exclusive worldwide rights to Eli Lilly & Co.'s protein GED-aPC, which will initially be developed as cardiogenic shock treatment.

The Associated Press reports that Cardiome will pay Eli Lilly $20 million upfront and future development milestones of up to $40 million. Eli Lilly is entitled to royalty payments if the molecule is commercialized. Cardiome said clinical costs for the compound will be about $5 million in 2007.

May 1, 2007 — Hansen Medical Inc., a developer of robotic technology for accurate 3D control of catheter movement during cardiac procedures, has announced it has entered into joint development and co-marketing agreements with St. Jude Medical of St. Paul, MN, a global leader of electrophysiology (EP) technology, to integrate technologies from its Sensei Robotic Catheter System and Artisan Control Catheter with St. Jude Medical's EnSite System.

May 1, 2007 — Ventracor has announced the presentation of summary clinical data of the first 100 patients implanted with the VentrAssist third generation left ventricular assist device (LVAD), an implantable blood pump designed for long term use in patients with advanced heart failure.

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