Artificial pancreas could be on the four-year horizon — MedCity Evening Read, Jan. 14, 2010

News and notes from the day in MedCity, Ohio:

Ohio researchers take note: An experimental artificial pancreas soon will be tested in diabetes patients, according to an Associated Press story published by the Columbus Dispatch. A commercial model of the device that is being developed by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and health-care giant Johnson & Johnson could be on the market in four years.

Some 4,500 U.S. nurses, including several Ohio registered nurses, have signed up to volunteer for an earthquake disaster relief mission in Haiti, according to a statement by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee.

When airport security asks you to step into a full-body scanner, you can thank scientists of Battelle in Columbus for making the technology so, um, revealing, reported the Columbus Dispatch.

Bedford Laboratories, a division of German-owned Ben Venue Laboratories Inc. in Bedford, has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to add 100 mg/50 mL Fluconazole injection to its existing Fluconazole line, according to a PRNewswire release.

DATATRAK International Inc., developer of eClinical software for the clinical trials industry in Mayfield Heights, reported a year-end backlog of $9.5 million Thursday, up 7 percent from $8,.9 million at the end of September, according to a release.

Medina Hospital will host a program to inform people who have recently lost their health insurance about their options from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 19, according to the Sun News.

RSB Spine LLC in Cleveland said its sales increased 38 percent in 2009 from 2008, and 42 percent in the fourth 2009 quarter over the third quarter, according to a PRNewswire release. Also in 2009, the company reached the milestone of the 1,000th implantation of its InterPlate vertebra fusion product.

Barbara Kunz, president of the Health and Life Sciences Global Business at Battelle in Columbus, was named one of nine public members to Ohio State University’s James Cancer Hospital Board on Jan. 7, according to a Battelle release.