Merge Healthcare will acquire Amicas, another imaging-oriented IT firm, for $248 million. The new entity aims to be a powerhouse in both the health care integration market and the clinical trial research landscape. Separately, Merge recently launched software that allows radiologists to view medical images on Apple iPhones and iPod Touch devices. Here's a link.

NewCardio has not received much news coverage of its automated QT interval evaluation tool. But the firm has now inked a major deal with an unidentified large contract research organization (CRO). Here's a ClinPage article and a news release.

Palm, the manufacturer of most hand-held patient diaries used in clinical trials, will probably be sold or declare bankruptcy during 2010. Late last week, it announced sales have been crushed by competitors like Research In Motion and Apple. Palm's $600 million in cash could last 3-6 months, depending on how fast revenues continue to drop. The company shipped fragile or defective personal organizers and phones for years; it had a relaxed attitude about the urgency of updating its software. By the time Palm repurchased some of its own assets back from a Japanese firm—and investor-predators from Silicon Valley had arrived to help—a great company had run itself into the ground.

Boston Scientific has stopped the sale of all implantable defibrillators. As best we can tell, the company failed to file the right paperwork to tell the FDA of a small manufacturing change. The regulatory filing mistake is expected to cost $5 million per day in lost sales as cardiologists use other devices.

The FCC is exploring wireless broadband, perhaps subsidized by taxpayers, as a tool to spur the usage of electronic health records. Here's an article.

ReGen Biologics, a medical device manufacturer, has had a fresh setback at the FDA. On Friday the agency leaked word that the company didn't follow its own protocols and has not proved that its knee implant is safe. Tomorrow, at an advisory board hearing, the agency will reconsider ReGen's approved product, a C-shaped piece of plastic that has had an unusually tumultuous history at the FDA. In March, 2009, the Wall Street Journal disclosed that New Jersey politicians and lobbyists persuaded urologist Andrew von Eschenbach, head of the agency during the Bush administration, to approve the device against the advice of lower-level FDA scientists. The agency then began a second, non-urological review of the implant, which has been given to more than 3,000 patients in the U.S. and Europe. The FDA now appears more concerned about its own good name than the wrath of orthopedic thought leaders in New Jersey's congressional delegation. For its part, ReGen spent a mere $28,000 on its lobbying push, according to the Open Secrets website. If the firm had just bought a little more democracy, we suspect, none of this would ever have seen the light of day. Here is one newspaper article, and another. We also recommend the FDA's own mea culpa on the topic.

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