ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Creating anything like true drug-device convergence has proven elusive for medtech companies. But now oncology start-up RefleXion has entered into a novel collaboration with pharma giant Merck designed to prove that combining drugs and devices as independent agents can bring significant enhancements to each.
Typically, when medical devices and pharmaceuticals address the same clinical problem, they target very different populations: drugs, a front-line therapy seeking to treat all patients but almost always failing some; devices reserved for drug-resistant patients, sometimes of higher acuity.
