Cleveland Clinic spinoff Clear Catheter Systems, which recently closed a $1.2 million angel investment round, has received FDA approval to sell its PleuraFlow Active Tube-Clearance System in the United States. PleuraFlow keeps catheters clear while draining blood and other fluids from the chest after heart or lung surgery.

Unequal access to healthcare is hardly a new phenomenon in the United States, but the country is moving toward rationing at an unprecedented pace. The underlying problem is that doctors are reimbursed at different rates, reports the New York Times.

A bipartisan group of 15 senators sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg urging her agency, among other things, to adopt a more deliberate, cautious approach to amending 510(k). And Orthopedics company Stryker Corp. has agreed to sell a product line including the bone growth putty that has caused the company so much legal grief to Olympus Corp. for $60 million.

The long-awaited groundbreaking for Cleveland’s $465 million medical mart project will be… drum roll, please… Jan. 14, 2011. The ceremonial turning of the ground “on the historic Cleveland Malls” will happen at 11 a.m. that Friday, according to MMPI, the Chicago-based property developer that’s leading the project. The event, which also will feature remarks from civic, business and government leaders, is free and open to the public.

The U.S. House gave final approval on Thursday to a bill that would avert a 25 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors by freezing reimbursement rates at current levels until the end of next year, reports the New York Times. President Obama, who hailed the nearly unanimous action by Congress, promised to sign the legislation.

With Aetna picking up health information exchange vendor Medicity for $500 million earlier this week, and Unitedhealth Group’s Ingenix buying Medicity’s top competitor, Axolotl, earlier this year, the HIE market is going through a major upheaval with few (one could even argue no) strong, independent vendors left, according to Chilmark Research.

Health spending continues to be a concern in America, with projections as high as $4.5 trillion by 2019. But a new study in the journal Health Affairs suggests that we should blame Medicare more than private insurance companies for the spending trend, reports FierceHealthcare.

Sagent Holding Co., the Schaumburg, Illinois, company that is developing generic injectable pharmaceuticals, has filed for a $100 million initial public offering just as a host of drug companies tap public capital markets, with many seeking to raise proceeds for research, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Orthopedics company Stryker Corp. (NYSE:SYK) has agreed to sell a product line including the bone growth putty that has caused the company so much legal grief to Olympus Corp. for $60 million. Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Stryker plans to record a loss on the sale of its OP-1 product line of between $75 million and $80 million.

Jeff Kindler, a lawyer tapped as a fresh face to lead drugmaker Pfizer out of its dodrums, is out, after just a little over four years as chairman and chief excutive, reports NPR’s health blog. Kindler’s executive bio already has been erased from Pfizer’s website. Ian C. Read, 57, head of the company’s global biopharmaceuticals operations, is in.