Outset Medical, a commercial-stage company delivering new technology into the $13 billion global dialysis market, today announced the appointment of Gus Castello as the company’s chief operating officer.

Gus is an experienced med tech veteran with more than 30 years of diverse leadership positions in product operations and quality. From early 2002 until late 2013, he held the positions of Vice President of Manufacturing and later, Senior Vice President of Product Operations worldwide for Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (ISRG). During Gus’ tenure at Intuitive Surgical he was responsible for the leadership, planning and execution of the company’s Product Quality and Operations strategy in support of 20% year-over-year topline revenue growth from $40 million in 2001 to $2.3 billion in 2013. During this time, Gus also led key initiatives around the reliability, cost reduction and high-volume manufacturability of four generations of the da Vinci ® Surgical System and its associated surgical tools and accessories.

“We are thrilled to welcome Gus to the Outset Medical leadership team,” said Leslie Trigg, Outset Medical’s CEO. “In much the same way Intuitive Surgical leveraged technology to transform the way surgeries are performed, Outset sees an opportunity for new technology to reduce the cost of dialysis care and meaningfully improve the patient experience. Gus’ experience helping build Intuitive Surgical into the powerhouse it has become is invaluable as we scale the growth of our technology both domestically and abroad.”

Read More: ​http://finance.yahoo.com/news/outset-medical-announces-appointment-gus-181200197.html

 BY SEAN DUFFY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR

A simple premise: individuals cost the American healthcare system more once they are sick. And today in the United States, the most common illnesses — and the ones that are the primary drivers of rising health costs – are chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called chronic disease “the public health challenge of the 21st century.”

So as Congress continues to debate the balance between access to affordable healthcare, controlling healthcare costs, and encouraging personal responsibility, members should consider the pivotal role played by prevention. No matter what coverage mechanisms Congress chooses to implement, healthcare costs will continue to rise unless we invest in prevention.

Diabetes provides a perfect example. From 1988 to 2014, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes in the U.S rose by 274 percent. According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 30 million Americans have diabetes, with at least another 86 million perched on the tipping point of the disease with pre-diabetes.

Read More: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/323782-prevention-the-key-to-healthcares-fiscal-sustainability

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., March 02, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:OMED) will present new data related to its clinical and preclinical immuno-oncology and anti-cancer stem cell therapeutic candidates in a total of six presentations at the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Meeting to be held April 1-5, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Among the presentations will be three posters detailing preclinical data for OncoMed's novel anti-TIGIT (OMP-313M32) immuno-oncology therapeutic candidate.  These will be the first data that the company has shared publicly for its anti-TIGIT antibody program.  New data will also be presented on biomarker research associated with the Phase 1b portion of OncoMed's tarextumab (anti-Notch2/3, OMP-59R5) clinical trial in small cell lung cancer and OncoMed's preclinical GITRL-Fc trimer (OMP-336B11) program.  In addition, xenograft data will be presented for anti-RSPO3 (OMP-131R10) in combination with taxane chemotherapy in colorectal cancer.

Read More: http://investor.shareholder.com/oncomed/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1015497

An interview with Leslie Trigg, President and CEO of Outset Medical

What spurred your interest in Outset Medical?

Most of my medical device career has been in spent in areas of healthcare that have experienced rapid, technology-driven change. In cardiology, for example, it’s not unusual to see several groundbreaking new devices enter the market in the same year. What hit me right away about dialysis was the inverse. The paucity of new technologies was striking. Being new to it, I thought, “Well, is new technology needed? Maybe there are no unmet needs that can be solved by technology.” Those questions were quickly answered by learning more about the clear need for cost reduction and improvement of the patient experience.

We see an exciting opportunity for technology to help solve important problems within dialysis care provided in clinics, in hospitals, in homes, and in extended care facilities.

Read More: http://www.kidneynews.org/kidney-news/features/in-center-self-care-hemodialysis-idea-whose-time-has-come