Innovation, influence and business in America's medical cities.

Boston Scientific Inc. (NYSE: BSX) is no stranger to lawsuits, usually from unhappy consumers. But an entire country?The medical device maker, based in Natick, Massachusetts, continues to face a lawsuit from the Republic of Iraq, whose government alleges BSX and 91 other global companies paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime in exchange for business under the troubled United Nations Oil for Food Program.

Medtronic Inc. (NYSE: MDT) has been under heavy fire in the United States for making consulting payments to doctors — money it says compensates doctors for their help in developing medical devices. But regulators and lawmakers, most notably Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), suspect Medtronic is paying doctors to push its products on patients, whether they [...]

What makes a good doctor in the United States?Certainly one that graduates from a prestigious American medical school. And one that’s also pretty good at the sciences, like physics and chemistry.But two recent studies suggest we should think more broadly — both figuratively and literally.AdvertisementA study published last week in Academic Medicine, the journal of [...]

CVRx Inc. in Plymouth, Minn. said Monday that hypertension patients using its Rheos stimulation device reported a sharp drop in blood pressure after four years.In a study presented to the European Society of Hypertension meeting, the company said patients’ average systolic blood pressure dropped 27 percent to 140 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) from 193 mmHg [...]

If the United States truly wants to boost the economy and narrow its ginormous trade deficit, then medical technology would seem like a good place to start.Minnesota’s bread-and-butter industry generated a $5.4 billion trade surplus last year, one of the few American industries to do so. Which is why Obama administration officials visited Medtronic Inc. [...]

As if venture capital firms didn’t have enough to worry about, Uncle Sam lowers another hammer: The House of Representatives Friday passed a bill that would significantly raise taxes on interest VC firms collect on profits from startups that go public or get bought.Tucked into a bill that extends unemployment benefits is a provision that [...]

Minnesota’s medical device community has enlisted some big guns to lobby the Food and Drug Administration against proposed changes that the industry says will hurt innovation and the state’s economy: United States Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Congressman Erik Paulsen.In a letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on [...]

Suppose you’re a woman suffering from urinary incontinence, a rather unpleasant feeling. A surgeon implants a balloon device, allowing you to pee or to pee less. But the company who makes the device now wants to turn off the device for a week or two and then reactive it to prove to the Food and [...]

Come August 1, Minnesota’s shiny, new $60 million angel tax credit will be open for business. Now if only Wall Street cooperated.Fueled by fears of an European debt meltdown, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Tuesday dropped more than 250 points to below 10,000 before recovering to close at 10,043. The index is down more than [...]

The Heart Rhythm Society annual meeting is arguably the most important conference for big cardiac medical device makers like Medtronic Inc. (NYSE: MDT), based in Fridley, Minn., and Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE: BSX).It’s an ideal forum for companies to release significant clinical data: Medtronic, for example, Thursday demonstrated methods to reduce accidental shocks from implantable [...]