its device consists of a capsule containing a balloon that is swallowed and can be inflated in the stomach to create a feeling of fullness, and thus help users eat less. The company has reported that clinical trials outside the United States have resulted in patients losing 34 percent to 45 percent in excess body weight.
—Independa, a San Diego health IT startup that helps families and caregivers remotely monitor the elderly, said it plans to integrate Del Mar, CA-based GreatCall’s mobile personal emergency response system into its wireless monitoring platform. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
—In a recommended summer reading list for life sciences pros, Luke’s top pick was the “The Emperor of All Maladies” by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee. The book is described as a “biography of cancer” and won a 2011 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. In his BioBeat column, Luke said the book was written with the medical authority of a physician, the long view of a historian, and the kind of deft touch that only comes from treating the terminally ill.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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