Keith Boettiger, Vice President, Neuromodulation, Abbott discusses COVID-19 and the Company’s strategies for growth in an interview with SmartTRAK

Keith Boettiger, Vice President, Neuromodulation, Abbott discusses how COVID-19 has impacted the Company, its growth strategies, the market for neuromodulation and what’s next in terms of innovation in an interview with SmartTRAK.

To find out more about Abbott and the Company’s latest initiatives, including digital health, remote care and remote programming, click on the following video below to listen to the interview recorded live via Uberconference (35:38 min). Specific interview topics by time code are also outlined below. To download a complete transcript of the interview, click here.

J Mocco, MD, MS discusses how an evolving pandemic is affecting stroke care in an interview with SmartTRAK

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically disrupted health care around the world and is wreaking havoc on medical device markets. In the US, social distancing and other mitigation efforts have helped flatten the curve and many states are now working toward reopening their economies.

The pandemic continues to evolve and its impact on healthcare delivery systems is rapidly changing. Elective surgery has re-started again in many states and hard-hit places like New York City have seen COVID-19 cases peak and start to trend downward. So how are these trends affecting stroke care? Why are strokes up in some regions but down in others? When will neurointerventional procedure volumes return to pre-COVID levels? To find out the answers to these questions and more, SmartTRAK talked with J Mocco, MD, MS, Vice Chair, Department of Neurosurgery and Professor of Neurosurgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City.

To listen to the interview recorded via Uberconference on Monday May 11, click on the following video. A transcript of the interview can be downloaded here.

The SCS market saw double-digit declines in Q120 as elective procedures fell off a cliff toward the end of the quarter due to COVID-19

After a disappointing slowdown in 2019, the spinal cord stimulation (SCS) market was positioned for growth in Q120 after a successful North American Neuromodulation Society (NANS) Annual Meeting in January 2020. With new data and products providing an early tailwind for all SCS competitors, companies reported positive momentum until approximately the third week of March when COVID-19 led to shelter-in-place orders and a sharp decline in elective procedures. This effectively put a halt to the vast majority of SCS trials and implants in the US and also impacted companies with SCS sales in China during January and February ...

Among the many topics covered in the comprehensive Q120 Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) Market Recap* are:

Although the Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) Market was down YoY in Q419 and FY19, new data and devices are on deck for 2020

Krishnan Chakravarthy, MD, PhD discusses the state of the pandemic and its impact on pain medicine in an interview with SmartTRAK

Krishnan Chakravarthy, MD, PhD discusses the COVID-19 pandemic, current and evolving methods for containing and treating the virus, how it's changing the practice of pain medicine and its impact on industry in an interview with SmartTRAK. Dr. Chakravarthy is Chairman of the COVID-19 Task Force for the American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN), a virologist, pain management specialist and assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). 

To find out more, including lessons learned from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, click on the following video to listen to the interview conducted by Anne Staylor, SmartTRAK's Managing Editor and Director of Advanced Technologies, recorded live via Uberconference (47:29 minutes).  Specific interview topics by time code are also outlined below, as is a link to download the transcript.

Mike Daly, VP and GM of Medtronic’s Brain Modulation, discusses the Company’s new Percept DBS System with BrainSense Technology in an interview with SmartTRAK

Although Medtronic has lost share in deep brain stimulation (DBS) over the last several years, the Company upped its game recently with the EU launch of its new Percept PC Neurostimulator with BrainSense technology, which received CE Mark in January 2020. Percept is a primary cell DBS device that can send and record brain signals while delivering therapy to patients for the treatment of symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, primary dystonic, epilepsy and obsessive-compulsive disorder.  Although Percept is currently available in the EU for open-loop sensing, the device is closed-loop capable, and Medtronic plans to conduct additional research in closed-loop DBS in hopes of eventually gaining regulatory approval for an Adaptive DBS system. 

To find out more about Percept DBS, BrainSense technology and what’s next for Medtronic’s Brain Modulation Business, click on the following video to listen to SmartTRAK’s interview with Mike Daly, Vice President and General Manager of the Brain Modulation Business within Medtronic. A transcript of the interview is also provided below.

Abbott’s Allen Burton, MD, discusses the Company’s new recharge-free Proclaim XR Neurostimulation System in an interview with SmartTRAK

In the market for Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS), companies have been looking at different ways to extend the battery life of an implantable pulse generator (IPG) and minimize the amount of time patients spend recharging a device. One competitor that’s making advances in battery longevity is Abbott Laboratories.

Armed with its own research that showed patients do not like recharging, Abbott launched the recharge-free Proclaim Elite SCS in 2017 with a patient-centric strategy and an eye for capturing share in the US SCS market. Since then, there have been questions about battery life, and whether or not a recharge-free IPG would have to be replaced more frequently than a rechargeable SCS.

The SCS market is still down YoY, but improved sequentially as companies get back on track

In Q319, US and WW spinal cord stimulation (SCS) revenues continued to be down YoY against tough comps, but the rate of decline slowed sequentially for most companies as they address ongoing commercial execution issues, customer destocking and initiate new product launches. In the US, SCS revenue was down -4.7% in Q318 according to SmartTRAK Financial Dashboard, an improved sequential growth rate vs a -6.3% YoY decline in Q219. On a WW basis, the SCS market followed a similar pattern, with Q319 revenue of...

Among the many topics covered in the complete, comprehensive Q319 SCS Market Recap* are:

Julianne Burns, SmartTRAK's Senior Analyst, Spine, just returned from attending the 2019 Cervical Spine Research Society's (CSRS) 47th Annual Meeting in New York City.

Julianne discusses highlights from the meeting, including what’s on the horizon for the cervical spine market and the trend toward moving cervical spine procedures to an ASC setting in an interview with SmartTRAK Managing Editor Anne Staylor.

Click the video below to hear the interview, and scroll down to read the transcript.

Rapid Medical CEO Ronen Eckhouse discusses the Company’s latest innovations, the plan for bringing its novel neurovascular devices to market, and Rapid’s strategy for competing in the market for neurovascular devices in an interview with SmartTRAK. 

To listen to the interview, click on the following video. A transcript of the interview is also provided below, as is a link to download the transcript.