Insulin pump user and hacker Jay Radcliffe will face off with Michael McNeil, chief privacy and security officer for Medtronic, as they share the stage today on a panel at the Amphion Forum, a computer security conference, according to Bloomberg.

Although the United States accounts for approximately 40% of the global medical device market, a variety of factors, including U.S. healthcare reform, European austerity measures, stringent FDA regulation, and a variety of cost issues, have significantly slowed growth in traditional, established medtech markets to a rate of only 5 to 7%.

Compared with the recent activity surrounding the medical device tax repeal bill's journey through Congress and St. Jude Medical's PR woes, for example, this week was relatively quiet on the news front. Frost & Sullivan looked at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for the medical device industry while orthopedic companies in Warsaw, IN, a.k.a. The Orthopedics Capital of the World, saw come cash come their way despite this fickle economy. Read about these and more in our weekly roundup below.

By Venkat Rajan, Frost & Sullivan

St. Jude Medical has kept a comparatively low profile in the past couple of months since raising eyebrows with its 'scorched-earth' attack on Medtronic and aggressive defense strategy in relation to its defibrillator leads. But the medical device manufacturer may be unwittingly thrust back in the spotlight in response, thanks to a recently surfaced anonymous report in FDA's MAUDE database detailing an instance of externalized wire in a Durata product.

Stuart Karten, founder and principal at Karten Design (Marina del Rey, CA) as well as a juror for this year's Medical Design Excellence Awards, recently spoke with MPMN about the changing landscape of medical device design, emerging trends, the meanin

U.S. healthcare reform, European austerity measures, the rise of emerging markets, and a host of other factors are spurring a significant shift in the medical device landscape.

Medical device tax talk from both sides of the issue continued to grow louder this week as the House passed a bill in favor of repeal. Rhetoric ran wild, however, as seemingly everyone felt the need to weigh in on the issue before it hits the Democrat-dominated Senate, where it is expected to face much heavier opposition.

Medtronic isn't trying to sugarcoat the situation: Development of an effective and optimal artificial pancreas system to treat patients with type 1 diabetes requires a lengthy, iterative process and improvement of multiple technologies.

By Thor Rollins, Nelson Laboratories