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This time last year, I wrote a blogpost about the priorities MedTech Europe would be working on in 2014. This year, I’ve decided to take a different approach. Based on what I see, hear and read every day, I’ll outline what I believe to be the major medtech trends, topics and evolutions we’ll be talking […]

When it comes to speaking about diseases and their impact on patients, carers and families, we don’t normally jump at the chance to talk about incontinence. Many people are embarrassed to discuss it – whether it be from their own experience, from supporting family members suffering from it, or because it just isn’t as sexy as diabetes and cardiovascular disease (which have similar prevalence rates). But we need to talk about incontinence.

Today is European Antibiotic Awareness Day. Tackling the era of superbugs should be a team sport. Physicians, companies, foundations and the MedTech industry all want to play their part.

Pacemakers help regulate slow or skipping heartbeats through electrical currents that run via leads to the heart. Since the first artificial one was implanted into Arne Larsson in 1958, modern pacemakers have become a bit smaller than the size of a matchbox, weighing around 20-50g. While current pacemakers run to a set pattern, we’re working […]

The WHO has been raising the ‘threat level’ on this issue progressively each year for the last decade, with individual disease reports highlighting the emerging threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This year’s report however highlights this pandemic like never before, demonstrating it’s global nature and its profound impact on health and economics. I’m a cardiologist and the report speaks to me – actually it screams out loud: “We need to get our act together”.

The lure of wearable technology and its application to health is tremendous- so tremendous that even the richest company on the planet-Apple, can’t resist it apparently. And so goes the recent insider news that has captured the attention of people worldwide “Apple is developing software and sensors that can predict heart attacks”. Not so fast Apple, not so fast….

The European Commission released its proposal for the revision of the EU Medical Devices (MDD) and In Vitro Diagnostics Directives (IVDD) in September 2012. The European Parliament weighed in on the file, voting on its final report in a plenary session last October. And in December we heard reps from the 28 EU health ministries voice their views on key issues. The word on the street is that the EU Council is set to reach its final position by June with trialogue discussions (where the Commision, Parliament and Council negotiate a final text) pencilled in for Q4 2014.

As the 2013 World Salt Awareness Week calls for “Less Salt, Please”, it may be time for Europeans to seriously consider the implications of their seasoning habits on their health, notably their heart health. Heart failure (HF) is characterised by the inability of the heart to respond to the blood flow demands of the body, a condition that is becoming increasingly common, with more than 20 million directly affected worldwide.

This week a very interesting group of people met on the last day of the ESC Congress (European Society of Cardiology) in Munich. Representatives of the Eucomed CRM Telemonitoring Working Group, individual member companies and leading representatives of the ESC came together under the chairmanship of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) to officially launch the White Paper “Moving towards good practice in reimbursement of CIED Telemonitoring”.