Innovative healthcare systems on their way to the market: how to cope with commercialization barriers

Healthcare markets and healthcare systems worldwide will be undergoing tremendous changes in the upcoming 5-10 years. We will experience a paradigm shift in the personal awareness and responsibility of disease prevention and health management. Skyrocketing costs, an ageing population and a variety of technical innovations that enhance the quality of life of patients with chronic diseases or suffering from geriatric ailments will open up new horizons for a variety of partly textile based preventative, therapeutic & diagnostic systems, devices & technologies. Mainly these innovations are geared to optimize the patients comfort and concedes more freedom of mobility. However all partners in the healthcare value distribution chain need to cooperate in vue of the patients empowerment to bring innovations quicker to the market and find viable and cost efficient solutions.

Biotechnology SMEs, start-ups, spin-offs or microenterprises are they molecules coming from the research results? If so, what place do they hold in the global industrial tissue?

In recent years, the number of biotech enterprises in Europe has grown spectacularly, largely fueled by the increasing number of entrepreneurial initiatives from Europe's leading research institutes. The place held on the economic market by these enterprises, is a question that market analysts have been asking themselves since their rapid growth and, more particularly, their over valuation which, at times, has led to the crash of their shares on the stock markets. To be sure, this article does not claim to go into an in-depth financial analysis to explain the details of certain "shipwrecks". Rather, it just would like to provide some useful indications for all those having embarked, or desirous of doing so, in the creation of biomedical enterprises.

Specialty-Service Lines: Salvos In The New Medical Arms Race

Hospitals and physicians are developing and marketing discrete and profitable specialty-service lines. Although closely affiliated specialist physicians are central to hospitals' service-line products, other physicians compete directly with hospitals via physician-owned specialty facilities. Specialty-service lines may be provided in a variety of settings, both inside and outside traditional hospital walls. Thus far, the escalating battle between hospitals and physicians for control over specialty services has not affected hospital profitability. However, as the scope of care that can be safely performed in the outpatient arena expands, physician competition for control over specialty services may threaten hospitals' financial health.

Trends in biopharmaceutical IPOS: 1996-2005

This study examines the stock market reaction and other financial aspects of all biopharmaceutical firms that had an initial public offering (IPO) between 1996 and 2005. Overall, increases in stock price at the close of the first day averaged 20.9 percent while the stock price of those firms that went public and survived until the end of 2005 stock price increased by only 7.7 percent on average. Sixty-nine percent of the firms that went public during this period were still trading at the end of 2005, with the majority of those de-listed being acquired or merged. Three-fourths of all biopharmaceutical IPOs had venture capital investors. Venture capitalists owned 47.4 percent of all common stock outstanding prior to the IPO on average.

The industry in Europe: more together than apart

How different is the United Kingdom from the rest of Europe? This, the second of a three-part report on the findings of Medical Device Technology's annual market survey, looks at a country whose health-care delivery is going through considerable change.

The innovation process centre stage

London's Olympia 2 was the venue for the first Medical Device Technology Innovation Forum. The event was characterised by dialogue and discussion that explored the key issues involved in delivering clinical need through innovative products to the end user. Highlights of the event are reported here.