‘Tis the Ides of March, and time for another Grand Rounds (Volume 7, No. 25), the weekly roundup of the best in medical and health blogging —
The Ides of March is the first day of the Roman New Year. It also marks the first day of spring in the Roman calendar.
On this day in history, Julius Caesar was warned by soothsayers to “beware of the Ides of March”. Apparently, he did not heed…
Recently I stumbled upon a firm based in Fort Lauderdale, FL, that calls itself Pancreum, “The Wearable Artificial Pancreas Company.” Wow. Really? There is such a thing already? I just had to investigate.
The company’s website describes a four-part system including a controller (PDA), a CGM sensor called the “GlucoWedge,” a small wireless insulin pump called the “BetaWedge,” a small wireless glucagon pump called the “AlphaWedge,” and a set of “iPancreum” software apps that manage…
This week, J&J’s Animas is recalling a batch of 45,000 faulty insulin cartridges shipped between Nov. 30, 2010, and Jan. 4, 2011, that reportedly can leak insulin, resulting in the delivery of less insulin than intended. Note that the pump most likely will not alarm if there is an internal leak. If you are affected by this, you should be receiving an email and a letter from the company shortly, in addition to a set…
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Dr. Josh Makower is Co-founder of Stanford’s Biodesign Innovation Program, and a Consulting Associate Professor of Medicine at the Stanford University Medical School. He’s also Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ExploraMed, a medical device incubator. And he’s a Venture Partner with New Enterprise Associates, where he supports the investing activity in new medical devices.
In short, Dr. Makower is a world authority on med-tech innovation. I bumped into him while beginning preparations for the…
Many of us patient advocates who make the rounds at e-patient and health 2.0 conferences hear an awful lot of talk about “what the patient wants” and how Pharma and device companies should reach out to our communities online. Meanwhile, they’ve been slow to embrace Social Media, and given the controversy over FDA regulations for this, who knows what’s happening internally at these companies as they struggle to form a viable strategy for getting involved?…
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