Miramar is employing a conventional product development strategy to create the first device therapy in an unconventional clinical space – hyperhidrosis, or excessive sweating. The key: a more rigorous clinical approach than usual in aesthetics. But is the market there?

Acute ischemic stroke used to be a device category that promised a slow but certain death for start-ups. But there's lots of life in the market, as evidenced by a recent wave of consolidation. Meanwhile, hemorrhagic stroke companies have been perfecting the treatment of cerebral aneurysms.

A decade ago, incuabators were seen as the best medicine for what then ailed the medical device industry, most notably a complex regulatory pathway and a difficult venture financing climate. Perhaps not surprisingly, as both the regulatory path and venture financing grew easier in the mid 2000s, incubators began to struggle, victims of their own financing problems. More recently, two huge acquisitions, Abbott's purchase of Evalve and Medtronic's of Ardian, suggest that at least one incubator, The Foundry, is proving that incubation works.