Many Of WSJ's Technology Innovation Award Winners Focus On Improving Lives.

An article appearing in the Wall Street Journal (10/16, Leger, Subscription Publication) reports on the publication's Technology Innovation Awards. Many of the winners in this year's awards focused on improving and saving lives, including an anti-tuberculosis initiative for India. From a pool of 536 applications, the judges selected 37 winners and runners-up.

        Vidacare Wins Bronze Award. The Wall Street Journal (10/16, Wang, Subscription Publication) reports that Vidacare Corp. Is this year's Bronze winner of the publication's Technology Innovation Awards. The company also won the Medical-Devices category. Vidacare's OnControl Bone Marrow System aims to lessen the pain of bone-marrow biopsy by allowing physicians to more precisely and quickly perform the procedure. In a separate report (10/16), the Journal provides additional coverage of Vidacare and the runner-ups in the medical devices category.

        Operation ASHA Wins Healthcare IT Category. The Wall Street Journal (10/16, Subscription Publication) reports that Operation ASHA emerged the winner in the category of healthcare IT. Operation ASHA, a nonprofit organization, utilizes grass-roots efforts coupled with fingerprint and computer technology, to make sure that disadvantaged people take the full course of tuberculosis medication. The article notes that untreated tuberculosis is one of India's biggest public health problems.

        Cystic Fibrosis Treatment Wins Medicine And Biotech Category. The Wall Street Journal (10/16, Subscription Publication) reports that Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Kalydeco (ivacaftor) was the winner in the Medicine and Biotech category. The medicine is meant to treat cystic fibrosis in people that have a specific type of genetic mutation. In the future, Kalydeco, which restores the functioning of a protein, may help some cystic-fibrosis patients with fertility, nutrition, and bone-disease problems.

 

DIA Daily is a digest of the most important news selected from thousands of sources by the editors of BulletinHealthcare. The presence of content or advertising does not endorse, nor imply endorsement of, any products or services by the Drug Information Association. Neither BulletinHealthcare nor the Drug Information Association is liable for the use of or reliance on any information contained in this briefing.

If you would like more information about, or have a question pertaining to, DIA Membership and its benefits, please email membership@diahome.org. Click here to check your membership status.

Drug Information Association | 800 Enterprise Road, Suite 200 | Horsham, PA 19044

Copyright © 2012 by BulletinHealthcare | 11190 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 130 | Reston, VA 20191

The Wireless Revolution Hits Medicine, from WSJ

Eric Topol talks about the upheaval that's coming as the digitization of health care meets the smartphone

By RON WINSLOW

After 14 years as chief of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, Eric Topol moved to La Jolla, Calif., in 2006 to become director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, which was established to apply genetic discoveries to personalized medicine. Three years later, he helped launch the West Wireless Health Institute, for which he is vice chairman and which is investigating use of wireless technology in the delivery of health care.

More in Innovations in Health Care

• The Simple Idea Transforming Health Care
• Medical Researchers Tune In Online Buzz
• Patients as Partners
• Drug Discovery Gets an Upgrade
• If Only Heart Attacks Were Predictable
• Read the complete report

The convergence of these two fields—genomics, marked by the rapidly plummeting cost of sequencing a person's entire genetic code, and wireless, with its flurry of innovative health-care apps—led Dr. Topol to write "The Creative Destruction of Medicine," a book that offers an illuminating perspective on the coming digitization of health care. It's also a reminder that while medicine is one of the globe's premier drivers of innovation, it is also a conservative culture that now finds itself buffeted by transformational change.

The Wall Street Journal's Ron Winslow discussed the implications with Dr. Topol. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Unnecessary Boundaries

WSJ: Let's start with the title. "Creative Destruction" is a provocative term. What needs to be destroyed?

Enlarge Image

 

Oxford Nanopore TechnologiesLtd., AirStrip Technologies Inc., iRhythm Technologies Inc., Sensimed AG

DIGITAL DOCTOR Eric Topol advocates the transformative power of technology like the MinIon, a disposable device being developed to sequence parts of an individual's DNA; a mobile patient monitor enabled by an iPhone app; the Zio patch, worn above the heart to check for irregular heartbeats; and a contact lens embedded with a chip to measure eye pressure for people with or at risk of glaucoma.

DR. TOPOL: There are two levels. One is that in medicine, everything we do essentially is at the population level. Whether it's mass screening or giving the same medication to all people with a particular diagnosis, this doesn't recognize the individuality of people. I think it's fundamentally flawed. We now have the tools to do much better.

The other is this analog world medicine lives in. The field has resisted a truly remarkable digital infrastructure to the nth degree. It hasn't really embraced genomics, wireless biosensors or advanced imaging that could be used to make medicine more precise. Or social networking.

for full interview:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577311421888663472.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Live Blog: Obama Health Law at the Supreme Court, WSJ

The Supreme Court, starting Monday, is hearing three days of arguments on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health overhaul. A ruling is expected in late June. On Monday, the justices hear arguments on whether to shelve the entire case until 2014, when most of the law takes effect.

The Journal has several reporters at the court, and they will rotate in and out of the courtroom to post updates here. The arguments started shortly after 10 a.m. E.T. and run for 90 minutes.

Check out the details and resources from Wall Street Journal over the next three days...
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/03/26/live-blog-obama-health-law-at-the-supreme-court/?mod=wsj_share_twitter