Author: Team

WORLD’S FIRST HEART DEVICE FOR BABIES APPROVED

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]An invention of medical device company Abbott, the pea-sized self-expanding device, called the Amplatzer Piccolo Occluder, now offers hope to premature infants and newborns who need corrective treatment, may be non-responsive to medical management or high-risk to undergo corrective surgery.

The device is inserted through a small incision in the leg and guided through vessels to the heart, where it is placed to seal the opening in the heart. The minimally invasive procedure to insert the device means many of the premature babies who are critically ill in the neonatal intensive care unit are able to be weaned from artificial respirator support soon after the procedure.

Born at 27 weeks, twin babies Irie and Judah Felkner of Columbus, Ohio, were both fighting for their lives in the neonatal intensive care unit when an echocardiogram revealed Irie had a patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) – a potentially life-threatening opening between two blood vessels leading from the heart – that required immediate treatment.

Irie’s mother, Crissa Felkner said “The doctor thought Abbott’s Amplatzer Piccolo device was the best solution for Irie, and after learning more about the procedure we decided to move forward”.

“You have to live it to fully appreciate what that device did for our daughter. Three days after the procedure, she was making great progress and is now a normal toddler with no limitations. The Abbott device was truly lifesaving for our daughter,” Mrs Felkner said.

Vice President of Abbott’s structural heart business, Michael Dale, said “Piccolo is a critical advancement in the standard of care for the most vulnerable of premature babies who may not be able to undergo surgery to repair their hearts.”

“Our mission is to develop life-changing technology to help people live better lives through improved health. This approval is another important step toward achieving our mission for the patients and physicians we serve,” Mr Dale said.

Amplatzer Piccolo Occulder is not yet available for Australian consumers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

HEALTH INSURERS SLASH BENEFITS

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Companies including Medibank, NIB, Bupa and other health insurers have been informing their members that the cuts to their benefits are as a result of the Commonwealth Government’s new private health insurance (PHI) reforms set to roll out from 1 April 2019.

News Corp Australia reports Medibank has already emailed their members with mid-range corporate hospital products to warn they will axe benefits for 70 treatments, including some weight loss and fertility treatments.

Representing the PHI industry, Private Healthcare Australia’s CEO, Dr Rachel David, said “One third to one half of health fund members will be receiving letters indicating some change”.

“There will be inclusions as well as exclusions,” Dr David said.

Speaking to News Corp, Australian Medical Association president, Tony Bartone, said “anything which makes private health insurance more expensive or less value for money will continue the exodus from insurance and build up the stress on the public system to the detriment of patients on long-waiting lists”.

Shadow Minister for Health, Catherine King, has promised that Labor, if elected, would establish a Private Health Insurance Inquiry, as well as imposing a 2 percent cap on private health insurance price rises for two years.

With Australians already cancelling or downgrading their health insurance policies, the health policy challenges facing State and Federal governments will likely be front and centre during this year’s election campaigns.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Aussies Called to MedTech Innovator Competition

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Australian start-ups are being encouraged to apply for the MedTech Innovator’s four-month Showcase and Accelerator competition, which will feature the healthcare industry’s best-in-class medical technologies from around the world, and the opportunity to be awarded up to $500,000 and in-kind prices during the competition.

In 2018, more than 730 companies applied to participate in the competition, which culminated with a plenary session at The MedTech Conference in Philadelphia, attended by over 3,000 leaders in the MedTech industry. From that, five finalists were selected to compete in the grand finale, in which a live audience voted for the competition winner.

MedTech Innovator CEO, Paul Grand, said the competition “fosters an industry-wide global network that provides immense value to participating start-ups and industry partners who share a mission to improve and extent patients’ lives.”

In 2019, there will be several rounds in which companies gain valuable exposure to industry executives and decision makers through online application reviews, in-person pitch sessions, mentoring, conference showcases, and live competitions. The top applicants, selected by leading MedTech companies, will be invited to present at one of MedTech Innovator’s regional pitch events across the US and international in spring 2019.

There is no application fee, and no equity required from participants – so apply now! [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Better Data Demands for Aussies

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A collaboration between the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre, the Capital Markets CRC and Research Australia, the report – Flying Blind 2:  Australian Researchers and Digital Health – found that better access to health data for researchers could save the economy $3 billion and improve health outcomes for all Australians, over 15 years.

In spite of the abundance of digital data that Australia holds, health and medical researchers are continually forced to assemble data-sets for their research themselves – a process which can take months, if not years. These delays can also drain funding and resources, forcing researchers to abandon linked data studies or seek support from other countries’ data-banks.

The report also told of a University of Melbourne researcher having to pay spend $60,000 of her research funding in order to access Victoria’s registry of births, deaths and marriages. This is made even more absurd when it was discovered that the research was government funded, meaning the funds went from the government to the researchers and back to the government.

Fragmentation of Australian health data also proves immensely troublesome, with various State and Federal laws and regulations creating a maze of bureaucracy researchers must navigate.

The Flying Blind report has proposed a series of recommendations for enhanced medical research in Australia, including the creation of Accredited Release Agencies to build data collections suitable for research, and a single national data-rich access point for researchers. The report also suggests creating publicly accessible protocols for all Australians to see how health data is used and how it is making a difference.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2019

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The Federal & NSW Election

The most anticipated event of 2019 will be the Federal Election which will pit Prime Minister Scott Morrison against Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. While the date of the election has still not been officially announced, many political pundits are predicting the Government will go to a May election, giving the Prime Minister time to put forward a Budget in April, with an expected budget surplus.

A May Federal Election would be welcomed news for the NSW Government which is facing an ever-tightening election of its own, due on 23 March. The NSW Coalition Government has experienced a heavy voter backlash recently, attributed to the political instability of their Federal counterparts.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Roll-out of Private Health insurance reforms

The Federal Government’s private health insurance (PHI) reforms, lead by Health Minister Greg Hunt, will be introduced starting from 1 April 2019, with insurers having until 1 April 2020 to fully adopt the changes.

The reforms are aimed at simplifying hospital products for consumers by creating four easily understood tiers – Gold, Silver Bronze and Basic. The Government believes the new tiers will give consumers greater certainty about the services covered by each type of hospital treatment product.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Labor’s Productivity Commission

In February 2018, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Shadow Health Minister Catherine King, announced the Opposition’s policy to cap PHI premium increases at two per cent for two years and task the Productivity Commission with a comprehensive inquiry into the private health sector.

The Opposition believes government has a greater role to play in restoring affordability and value for consumers, and stopping the private health insurance exodus that is putting the system at risk. At the end of 2018, the Opposition released its own issues paper to kick-start their consultation with industry stakeholders , and invited submissions to help inform the design of their pledged Productivity Commission inquiry.

It is expected the promised inquiry would run for approximately a year.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

THE FIVE FACTORS OF PRICE – APPLES & ORANGES

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Like any product or service, the price for medical devices will vary from one country to another. For example, the price of a Toyota Sedan in Australia is going to be different from the price for the same Toyota Sedan in the United States or Europe due to a range of factors.

So why is this so for medical devices? Well let’s look at the top five factors influencing price:

  1. DIFFERENT HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS

The differences between healthcare systems from country to country, including different political, policy and economic drivers, has a significant impact on the price of devices. Countries, such the UK and Canada, that appear to have comparable healthcare systems to Australia are, when analysed in greater depth, actually quite different.

Let’s take Canada for example. Based on the OECD health expenditure statics (including PHI as a percentage of total healthcare expenditure and the proportion of population covered by PHI), Canada appears to have a similar healthcare structure to Australia’s. However, unlike in Australia, Canada does not have a private market for prostheses due to the fact it does not allow private health insurers to cover services provided by Canada’s public healthcare system, including hospital procedures that include prostheses.

In contrast, Australia’s healthcare system does allow for this, meaning there is a private and a public market for prostheses.

 PURCHASING ARRANGEMENTS AND MARKET SEGMENTATION DIFFERENCES

Purchasing arrangements for medical devices also vary from country to country. The greater a country’s level of market integration, the greater the capacity they will have to purchase devices at lower prices through improved economies of scale and market volume guarantees for MedTech companies.

For example, in Sweden, there is negligible PHI coverage of the population due to the fact Sweden’s healthcare system is integrated to a high degree with county councils being responsible for both the financing and organisation of healthcare services. Counties also own and operate most of the country’s hospitals. With a healthcare system that is essentially 100% publicly owned and operated, Sweden is able to centrally purchase prostheses through a small number of entities.

  1. DIFFERENCES IN VOLUME, MEDICAL PRACTICE AND PATIENT NEED

Some countries undertake certain procedures using medical devices more frequently than others. For example, according to the OECD Health at a Glance 2013, Germany conducts almost twice as many coronary angioplasty procedures per 100,000 compared to Australia – not to mention Germany’s population is four times that of Australia’s. This means the significantly greater volume of devices associated with coronary angioplasty procedures being required in Germany, compared to here in Australia, results in lower prices of those prostheses for Germans.

  1. DIFFERENCES IN ECONOMIES & GEOGRAPHY

Local economic costs can also add to the price difference for medical devices from country to country. Local costs in Australia such as wages, transportation costs (petrol, airfares), facility costs (coupled with the higher need for warehousing in Australia), currency fluctuation and exchange rates can all influence the price of devices.

Geographical considerations can also influence the price of medical devices. Australia’s isolated location, its low population density and vast land mass have a significant impact on the cost of importing devices and distributing them across Australia.

  1. LEVEL OF INDUSTRY SUPPORT SERVICES

The level of service required from a MedTech company can vary from country to country, and from one prosthesis category to the next. This can impact on the price attributed to a particular prosthesis.

For example, in some European countries, companies do not provide post-procedure follow-up technical support services for certain device types. Funding for these services is allocated to clinicians in the hospital with support from highly trained staff. Therefore, these services are provided with little support from MedTech companies. This is also the case in the Australian public healthcare system.

In contrast, the private markets in Australia, United States and in Japan for example, have a high demand for MedTech companies to provide support services. In Australia, the cost of this support over the life-time of a device is factored into the prosthesis’ benefit.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

More Than $500 Million Research Boost To Improve Lives

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A total of 682 grants will be funded, totalling more than $526 million, through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

The funding announced today includes:

    • $61 million for cardiovascular disease research
    • $86 million for cancer research, including cancers where treatment options are limited and early detection is critical
    • $41 million for mental health research projects
    • $29 million for diabetes research
    • $28 million for obesity research
    • $25 million for research focused primarily on improving the health of Indigenous Australians

As the highest recipient of funding of any university or institute, Monash University will receive almost $76 million to support excellent medical research.

The funding includes over $5 million to a team lead by Professor Sophia Zoungas of Monash University for her important cardiovascular disease research.

Professor Zoungas and her team will lead a trial to understand whether statins prolong independent living and reduce cardiovascular events in older adults without established vascular disease or diabetes.

This impressive research project is only one of 682 projects that will continue the proud Australian tradition of ground-breaking discovery and translation into better health for all.

This funding will ensure sustained support for our internationally-competitive health and medical research sector.

Projects announced today support cutting edge ideas from researchers at all careers stages and included research on vaccine development and tackling antimicrobial resistance.

These grants will support our health and medical research workforce, providing greater opportunities for more life-changing medical breakthroughs.

Health and medical research is one of the four pillars of the Government’s Long-Term National Health Plan. Our Government is committed to strengthening health and medical research.

The 2018–19 Budget we provided a record total of $6 billion to Australia’s health and medical research sector, including $1.3 billion for a health and medical industry growth plan to drive a new era of better health care and fuel jobs and growth.

A full list of grant recipients is available on NHMRC’s website[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

BACK TO SCHOOL FOR EDWARDS LIFESCIENCES WITH A HELPING HAND

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Wairoa School provides a comprehensive education for children aged 5 to 18 years of age who have moderate to severe disabilities and may also have additional support needs related to autism, physical and sensory disabilities.

The Edwards’ team arrived before school started and once they had hats, sunscreen and gloves in place they got straight into it.

This isn’t the first time Edwards employees have done voluntary work at the school. Last year, over two days, a collective total of 78 hours was volunteered by staff to action the garden vision of the school side entry grounds.

Edwards says it aspires to have 100% of their employees do at least one charitable activity every year.

Employees completed the new garden with a feeling they really contributed and made a positive impact in the lives of the kids and their families.

Managing Director of Edwards Lifesciences ANZ, Pat Williams said “the physically demanding work our volunteers did over Friday and Saturday at Wairoa School for the severely handicapped was truly phenomenal – I’m confident that the staff and students will appreciate the work to improve this area of the school.

“Our commitment to charitable giving is one of the defining elements of our culture. We’re fortunate to be able to support many health- and community-focused programs through grants to non-profit organisations around the world from the Edwards Lifesciences Foundation.”

This year the Wairoa School was successful recipient of $5,000 from the Edwards Lifesciences Foundation.

Edwards believes that through their actions they will become trusted partners with customers, colleagues, and patients – creating a community unified in its mission to improve the quality of life around the world.[/vc_column_text][vc_images_carousel images=”2640,2641,2642,2643″ img_size=”large” speed=”10000″][/vc_column][/vc_row]