Tuesday, June 28, 2011

MedTech Innovators Highlight Need for U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement

CHI was joined by the U.S.-Korea Business Council, the Silicon Valley U.S. Export Assistance Center, Sunnyvale Mayor Melinda Hamilton and other key stakeholders at a medical technology industry roundtable held June 24 with Jong hyun Choi, Minister of Economic Affairs, Embassy of South Korea at Accuray in Sunnyvale, Calif. The meeting focused on the support of the California medical technology community for the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the first FTA to include an entire chapter with commitments to openness and transparency in medical technology regulation and payment policies. CHI members Mark Deem, partner of the medical technology incubator, The Foundry, and Tom Loarie, executive chairman of Mercator MedSystems, shared their experiences bringing medical technology innovations to market and highlighted the need for open markets and fair regulatory and payment schemes worldwide to support development of technologies that can improve the lives of patients. Fred Kinder, a former CyberKnife patient, spoke of the need for access to medical technologies for all patients. Korea is one of the world’s largest and fastest growing markets for medical technology, with expected growth of 10-15 percent per year over the next several years. Following the meeting Accuray CEO Euan Thomson, Ph.D., gave a demonstration of the CyberKnife System to highlight how the technology is used to treat tumors in patients with cancer. Watch NBC News coverage of the event.


Bookmark and Share

No comments: