August 30, 2005 -- Vinson & Elkins is hosting the September Meeting of the Dallas Forum for BioMedical Technology featuring Richard D. Gillespie III, President, Founder & Director, Pharma-Pen, Inc., on Wednesday, September 7, 2005. The forum will run from 7:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. at their Dallas office, 2001 Ross Avenue, Suite 3800. Registration and continental breakfast starts at 7:00 a.m. and the program begins at 7:30 a.m.

Gillespie will address the non-technical challenges and decision-making processes involved in creating a medical product start-up company in ”War Stories of a Serial Entrepreneur.” Connie L. Luthy, Ph.D., MBA, product architect of Medical Product Innovation and co-founder of the DFBT, will serve as moderator.

Pharma-Pen Inc. (www.pharma-pen.com) is a privately held medical device development company dedicated to improving the science of injectable drug delivery. Their flagship Confi·Dose™ auto-injector, has recently received FDA clearance. With its automatic retractable needle, this product is designed to automate all three steps of the injection process--needle insertion, drug injection, and needle withdrawal--all with the simple push of a button. Cannon Communications awarded Confi·Dose the 2005 Medical Design Excellence Award at the Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) East Conference and Exposition, June 14, 2005, at New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

William Hyman, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, serves as one of the MDEA Jurors. According to Hyman, “This device addresses the particularly challenging area of patient-used devices, and provides a highly usable aid to those who inject their prescription drugs at home.”

The Medical Design Excellence Awards competition is the only awards program that exclusively recognizes contributions and advances in the design of medical products. Entries are evaluated on the basis of their design and engineering features, user-related functions that improve healthcare delivery and change traditional medical attitudes or practices, features that provide enhanced benefits to the patient, and the ability of product development to overcome design and engineering challenges so that the product meets its clinical objectives.
Register online.

Vinson & Elkins (www.velaw.com) was established in 1917 and is one of the world's largest international law firms. The firm has about 700 lawyers practicing in Austin, Beijing, Dallas, Dubai, Houston, London, Moscow, New York, Shanghai, Tokyo and Washington D.C. Vinson & Elkins offers a wide range of legal services. Clients include public and private companies, financial institutions, municipalities, governments of sovereign nations, entrepreneurs, families and individuals.

The Dallas Forum for BioMedical Technology (www.dfbt.org) is an industry association for entrepreneurs and medical product development professionals located in North Texas. DFBT was founded in October 1998 with a mission to conduct regional forums to provide education and to facilitate communication, networking and support in the professional and technical aspects of medical product development.

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