Brief summaries of recent product and company developments in the device industry, including: developments in cardiac stenting, DES competition heats up as the market stabilizes, and headaches for neuro device companies.

The first article in a two-part series, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) explores the financial rationale driving the steady trend of M&A activity in the medical technology sector-as well as the business implications that result. Here, the authors examine the phenomenon of external players-industrial companies, conglomerates and others-acquiring companies and entering the medtech sector. The series draws on the valuation techniques, used by BCG's ValueScience Center, which combine proprietary discounted cash flow and relative valuation multiple models.

Higher-field MRI is beginning to arrive in clinical practice, where 3 Tesla systems are often used as a second look, after conventional MRI or other diagnostic methods reveal suspicious findings, for diseases like epilepsy, or to pre-operatively image the extent and location of breast cancer. MR Instruments offers specialized radiofrequency (RF) coils especially suited to high field systems, to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of MR for clearer pictures and to also help researchers obtain other information, like the spectral characteristics of chemicals in the tissue for the study of metabolic processes.

In terms of medical applications magnetic resonance imaging could serve, the modality is still underused, and that means a large, untapped growth opportunity for the entrenched large manufacturers that dominate the industry with an installed base of capital equipment. Small companies have a role to play as well, with adjunctive technologies that serve the large players, or in niches too small for the multi-billion dollar players to notice.