Sometimes being a brain surgeon isn’t enough. To accomplish what Dr. Hrayr Shahinian has in mind, he needs rocket scientists, too.

So he turned to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena to help design high-tech tools that could shape the future of minimally invasive brain surgery.

Working with Shahinian, JPL scientists are preparing to create an instrument that will capture and display 3-D images of brain surgery during an operation, even as the device peeks around corners inside the brain.

For JPL, the project is important because the same technology could improve future versions of the Mars Rover planetary explorer. (more…)

Previous reports had suggested that cost-conscious consumers had backed away from plastic surgery but were continuing to get Botox injections to combat wrinkles.

In reporting its first-quarter financial results, the Irvine-based company said worldwide 12-month sales growth of Botox slowed to 18 percent, down from 24 percent in the fourth quarter. Excluding the effects of the falling dollar, that first-month increase was 13.5 percent worldwide, the company said.

“All of the slowdown in growth rate is attributable to the United States,” Pyott said in a conference call about the financial report. “It appears that the U.S. slowdown is a reflection of weak consumer spending behavior.”

The economy has had the greatest effect on sales of breast implants, Pyott said. Other products affected, he said, are “secondly, probably fillers and thirdly Botox.”

Analyst Larry Biegelsen of Wachovia Capital Markets estimated that Botox revenues in the United States grew 10 percent in the 12 months leading up to the first quarter, compared to more than 20 percent a year earlier.

These are Allergan’s figures for 12-month sales growth worldwide, excluding currency adjustments:

• Lap-Band obesity intervention, up 31.9 percent.
• Dermal fillers and other facial aesthetics, up 16.3 percent.
• Breast implants, up 8.5 percent.
• Botox, up 13.5 percent

Related news

• Allergan’s sales, earnings jump — overseas
• Economy hits plastic surgery from San Diego to Los Angeles
• Economy nips at O.C. plastic surgery

The money will help Spectrum launch its Levoleucovorin therapy for bone cancer patients, said Dr. Rajesh C. Shrotriya, the company’s chief executive.

The payment came from Par Pharmaceutical of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., a generic drug company that is Spectrum’s partner in marketing sumatriptan injections. In return for its $20 million, Par increased its share of sumatriptan profits to 95 percent from 38 percent, Par said.

Sumatriptan is a generic form of GlaxoSmithKline’s Imitrex.

Levoleucovorin, which the Food and Drug Administration approved for sale in March, eases side effects that osteosarcoma patients suffer during high-dose methotrexate therapy. Spectrum expects to begin selling it next month.

Spectrum’s main focus is on cancer and urology drugs, but it seized the opportunity for profit that sumatriptan represented and so far has been paid $27 million from that venture, Shrotriya said

“Not only does this cash infusion obviate the need to raise cash anytime soon, it enhances our ability to successfully launch Levoleucovorin and carry out our business plan without having to worry about the financial markets at this time,” he said.

Spectrum posted a loss of $34 million last year and, as of Dec. 31, had $56 million in short-term investments and cash on hand.

Related news:

• Experimental lung-cancer drug shows promise, Spectrum says
• Spectrum stock soars on FDA approval of cancer drug
• Cancer drug company Spectrum names new medical officer
• New cancer drug –- Spectrum announces test in first patient

But medical-device maker USGI of San Clemente is working hard to change that.

In recent weeks, surgeons at UC San Diego Medical Center removed the appendix from two patients without major incisions into the abdomen – once through the vagina, once through the mouth using an endoscopic surgical tool from USGI. These operations are the latest examples of Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery, or NOTES, an experimental procedure aimed at reducing pain and decreasing patients’ recovery time.

Dr. Santiago Horgan, a NOTES surgeon and director of UC San Diego’s Center for the Future of Surgery, says his group plans further operations if the latest patients continue to do well.

But the OpNotes blog reports:

Dr. Horgan warns, however, that NOTES is not yet ready for wide adoption, and that years of technical development are still needed. “The problem is that eighty percent of the endoscope still goes to the light and the camera, while only twenty percent goes to the working channels,” he said. “It needs to be the other way around. Although companies like USGI have been working on better platforms, we still don’t have an ideal NOTES scope.”

Medical blogger Dr. Rob Oliver is harsher in his evaluation of how NOTES appendectomies compare to the current standard for laparoscopic appendectomies. He calls it a “really, really stupid idea”:

Take an operation that is typically performed safely in less then 30 minutes with minimal pain or morbidity and turn it into one that lasts 3 hours, introduces unnecessary risk, and has no conceivable advantage. What do they call that at the University of California San Diego? They call it progress (!!!!!) …

The absence of three nearly invisible 3-5mm scars, with no advantage in length of stay, with the addition of a hole in your rectum, vagina, or stomach (which all can leak), with significantly prolonged surgery adding cost, increased nausea, and increased risks of deep vein thrombosis is somehow supposed to be an improvement? This is a technique that needs to be put back in a holding pattern indefinitely where safe procedures exist until you can come up with some compelling rationale for doing them.

Not surprisingly, USGI’s approach is more upbeat:

Operating through the body’s natural orifices offers promise for less pain, shorter hospital stays, reduced risk of wound infection and no external scars – and is rapidly becoming an option demanded by patients and healthcare providers. USGI offers surgeons and gastroenterologists the tools they need to offer millions of potential patients a less invasive surgical option.

Related links:

• All a-Twitter at 21st Century Surgery conference
• Surgeons remove diseased appendix through mouth, vagina

Valeant had 3,001 employees as of the end of last year.

The drug maker, which has been losing money for years, will focus its efforts on neurology and dermatology drugs. It is also seeking partners to help it develop two promising new drugs – retigabine, a treatment for epilepsy, and taribavirin, for Hepatitis C.

Valeant has already trimmed its work force by 130 employees in the United States and Mexico. It said it plans a further 1,250 cutbacks within the next 12 months as it sells its European subsidiaries and other units.

Related stories:

• Valeant Pharmaceuticals gets overhaul
• Valeant loses CEO, finds a prestigious replacement
• Valeant’s $91 million deal meshes with research cutback plan

This post includes information from the Associated Press.

For a fourth week, the post “11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft” was the No. 1 best-read post on the blog.

No. 2 was the list of AeA award winners.

No. 3 was the perpetually popular “Technology and the stars.”

No. 4 was another returnee: “Botox can reach the brain, researchers say.”

No. 5 was “For D-Link, booth babes are this week’s networking technique.”

The same phenomenon has already been reported in Orange County and Los Angeles County.

“When people have choices to make about where they are going to spend their money and they are worried about jobs and house payments, elective surgery goes lower on the list,” said Steve Green, executive director of the Scripps Mercy Surgery Pavilion outpatient center in San Diego.

Related links:

• Economy nips at O.C. plastic surgery
• Cosmetic surgery business sags as purse strings tighten (Los Angeles)

In her “Brazen Careerist” blog, she writes:

All else being equal, a good-looking woman will negotiate better for a company than anyone else — even a good-looking man, according to research by Sara Solnick of the University of Miami and Maurice Schweitzer from Wharton. Good-looking women drive harder bargains than everyone else, and good-looking women get more concessions than anyone else.

She cites Chelsea Clinton as an example of the potential benefits of plastic surgery:

She did a few changes just as she hit the adult world as a consultant at McKinsey. She’s not an idiot, and she certainly does not seem obsessed by her appearance. But she realized that she was not great looking, and the plastic surgery seems to have made some improvements.

And just ten years ago, I remember talking with my friends about how gross Botox is. But my friend Sharon, who is a hairstylist in Los Angeles, says that the majority of her clients — who range from normal housewives to corporate lawyers — have had some sort of Botox injection. She says it’s so mainstream in Los Angeles that it’s almost a statement if you don’t have it.

Not so for Fountain Valley wireless networking company D-Link, as is evident in this photo a reader submitted after visiting the D-Link booth at this week’s Interop 2008 networking conference in Las Vegas.

The latest wireless routers from D-Link apparently aren’t sexy enough to attract the crowd that D-Link wants. But will the men who visit the D-Link booth be able to concentrate on the company’s networking technology?

Other local companies at the show include:

• 8e6 Technologies
• High Tower
• Multi-Factor Authentication
• QLogic
• Zyxel

He replaces Dr. Jacques Séguin, inventor of CoreValve’s ReValving system, who will remain as chairman of the board.

CoreValve competes against Edwards Lifesciences of Irvine, which makes a similar valve. Both companies’ devices are implanted through minimally invasive surgery using a catheter.

Both companies’ valve replacement systems are on sale in Europe, and Edwards has begun clinical trials in the United States in a quest for approval to sell its valve and catheter here.

At medical-device giant Medtronic, Lemaitre has led the company’s corporate strategic planning and corporate development efforts since 2006, CoreValve said.

Rob Michiels remains as chief operating officer of CoreValve.

For more information about the CoreValve-Edwards rivalry, see previous posts. See also videos of the CoreValve system and the competing Edwards systems.