When I was in Seattle on business a couple months ago I met Jonathan Rickert, CEO of an interesting company called Array Health. They are a start-up operation with aspirations to provide health plans with private exchanges that will give small businesses and individuals access to several health plan and ancillary benefit designs rather than [...]

Current medical news from today, including: pharma industry victories in two Supreme Court cases; Microsoft eyes ways to bring business software to healthcare; Johns Hopkins University researchers make a Huntington’s disease discovery; and McKesson makes a $90 million acquisition.

Among today’s current medical news: DC Hospital bracing for nurses strike, Eli Lilly outsources bioanalytics drug-discovery operations, FDA approves drug for severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and Novartis may gain from Merck KGaA’s FDA loss.

GlaxoSmithKline’s President of North American Pharmaceuticals Deirdre Connelly says that although the pharma industry once wooed doctors with pads, pens and even more expensive gifts such as trips, it’s now time to change how drug companies market and promote their products.

Imagine being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.This incurable illness of the brain first manifests itself as low-level weakness and muscle atrophy. Soon you’re unable to stand, get in and out of bed, speak, or swallow food. You depend on loved ones and professional caregivers for basic tasks like eating, bathing, and going to the bathroom. [...]

Cardiac Science Corp. (NSDQ:CSCX) will replace 24,000 automated external defibrillators implicated in a November 2009 recall.The Bothell, Wash.-based company’s Powerheart, CardioVive, Nihon Kohden and GE Responder AEDs have electrical component flaws that may cause device failures. The flaws could not be remedied through software patches, according to the Food & Drug Administration.The company will replace [...]

The U.S. healthcare industry added 20,000 jobs in April even though the nation’s unemployment rate edged higher for the first time in three months, according to MedZilla.com.Hospitals added 6,000 of those jobs, said MedZilla.com, the jobs Web site that serves professionals and employers in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science and healthcare. Although the Bureau of Labor [...]

After clearing up concerns about its quality control procedures, Medtronic subsidiary Physio-Control Inc. has been approved by the FDA to resume worldwide shipments of its automated external defibrillators. The move ends three years of headaches for Physio-Control, which voluntarily suspended shipments in January 2007.

The FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health outlines an aggressive, four-part plan for 2010 and beyond, including substantial changes to the 510(k) and PMA approval processes, and a possible re-organization of the entire agency this year.

Some governers fear coverage cutbacks — produced by a recession that eroded state budgets and swelled Medicaid ranks — will be worsened by health care reform being crafted in Washington, D.C. “We can’t afford to have Congress raise the eligibility for Medicaid coverage without paying for it,” said Christine Gregoire, Washington State’s Democratic governer.