Private Company Edition: FogPharma raised $145m for its clinical-stage drug and earlier programs after bringing on former Johnson & Johnson R&D head Mathai Mammen as CEO last year. Also, BlossomHill closed a $100m series B round and Kenai emerged with $82m in series A cash.

ApolloBio signs on to take Inovio's HPV immunotherapy into China and Senju and Fosun sign China partnerships – all part of a wave of Chinese companies looking to bring innovative new medicines to the Greater China markets. Meanwhile, GSK signs on with Indian CRO Syngene.

The field of women's health is one of the most progressive medical technology sectors in the US, driven by the aging population, diagnostic advances in deadly ovarian and colorectal cancer, and medical device innovations in gynecologic and urogynecologic disease management, including a shift toward minimally invasive surgery (MIS) techniques and robotics and the addition of a new field: bariatric gynecology. At the WH 2.0 Consensus Conference on Women's Health, held recently in Los Angeles, experts agreed that advances in medical technology are promising better detection and treatment of a host of diseases impacting both premenopausal and postmenopausal women. However, challenges remain in managing obesity-related disease and improving screening for often-undetected cancers in women.

EBI’s device team reviews of the top news stories in the medical device industry in 2011. Top stories include: 510(k) reform, user-fees, VC money dries up for medtech, hot clinical spaces of the year, where private investment dollars went in 2011, big changes at J&J, and the new physician/hospital alignments and their impact on the medical device industry.