At the IATI Biomed conference held in Tel Aviv in May, Medtronic executives hint at an increasing focus on diagnostics, personalized medicine, and patient outcomes.

Delivering compounds across the blood-brain barrier remains the rate limiting step in brain-drug development, yet the problem generally gets ignored until it's too late. Several biotechs are bringing novel strategies to finding a solution, focusing especially on brain cancers. Success may open the floodgates of CNS drug development.

The International Stroke Conference, held in San Diego in February 2009, presented several device-based therapies and approaches that could offer improved outcomes for patients that suffer an acute ischemic stroke. The technologies discussed included mechanical thrombectomy devices, laser treatments, and combined therapy using ultrasound, microspheres, and thrombolytic drugs.

The field of stroke moves slowly; 17 years elapsed between the introduction of the thrombolytic drug tPA, the first FDA-approved intervention for acute ischemic stroke, and the clot retrieving device from Concentric Medical. The goal of these rdr rmost therapies is to quickly and safely achieve revascularization of the source of the blockage that caused the stroke. The problem has been, and continues to be, the very narrow therapeutic window of opportunity for stroke victims; that is the short time during which recovery is possible. Concentric Medical and Penumbra have both succeeded in widening the treatment window, from the three hour cut-off for tPA to eight hours. Others will follow. According to US Markets for Stroke Management Products, a report just issued by the FDC-Windhover division of Elsevier, this market will rapidly over the next few years because clinicians trained on first-generation devices are now prepared for improved neurointerventional technologies. The report estimates that cerebral revascularization and reperfusion device sales will grow at a compound annual rate of 33.4% through the year 2012.