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Medtronic layoffs, cancer FDA approvals (Weekend Rounds)

Among the life science current events from last week: 2011 Medtronic layoffs, ViewRay FDA approval, Medtronic will try to divest Physio-Control, Pozen's new recruit from Biogen Idec, and a top GSK executive goes on video to talk about the company's future plans.

By Chris Seper on February 26, 2011 7:35 am

A review of life science current events reported by MedCity News this week:

Medtronic layoffs imminent; between 1,500 and 2,000 cuts possible. The layoffs, scheduled sometime in the next three months, would affect between 4 percent to 5 percent of the company’s workforce, but it’s not clear where the cuts will be made – either geographically or in which specific business segment. In the U.S., Medtronic employs 24,200, including 8,000 in Minnesota. Globally, the medical device company has 41,000 workers.

ViewRay gets FDA clearance for MRI-guided radiotherapy device. ViewRay says its technology helps doctors see exactly where radiation is being delivered to a cancer patient’s body, unlike existing technology, which doesn’t account for the movement of internal organs. That movement can cause radiation to be delivered to healthy issue, leading to harmful side effects. The company’s technology aims to solve that problem by providing continuous soft-tissue imaging for more accurate delivery of radiation therapy.

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Medtronic ready to divest Physio-Control, again. Roughly four years ago — in December 2006 — the Fridley, Minnesota-based medical device company signaled its intent to spin off the emergency response systems business unit.

Biogen Idec executive tapped to lead Pozen’s drug launch Former Biogen Idec executive Mark Matthews has been appointed to a top sales and marketing post of drug development company Pozen as the company prepares for an expected late 2013 launch of its lead drug.

GSK seeking more pharma partners to fill early stage pipeline (Video). GlaxoSmithKline’s late stage drug pipeline has many candidates that originally came from the laboratories of other drug companies. But London-based GSK (NYSE:GSK) also aims to more aggressively externalize to its early stage pipeline as well.