Here’s this week’s new medical device developments via Medgadget.

Vasogen, Inc.’s, Celacade immune modulation therapy to treat chronic heart failure. This is an interesting name because it combines “cell” with “cascade” which is what this therapy does.

HemCon’s posttraumatic arterial hemorrhage bandage, which was recently praised as one 2004 “Top 10 Greatest Inventions” by the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command. There are probably dozens of blood-related devices and tools out there that start with ‘Hem” so this name does not distinguish the product.

Toshiba Corporation’s ApriAlpha and ApriAttenda robots. These things are a little freaky looking but fun at the same time. Their names are reminiscent of soft and fuzzy apricots, and the Apricot computer of the 1980s. These names are nice and evocative and give you a good feeling about these soon-to-be-deployed everywhere devices. A far cry from the cold-hearted, murderous automatons of “I Robot.” [BTW, stay tunred for our feature on robot naming in the near future.]

Intraop Medical Corporation’s, Mobetron, the world’s first mobile, self-shielded, intraoperative electron linear accelerator. It’s name is a combination of MOBile E-lec-TRON and sounds futuristic in a retro sort of way. Didn’t Tron-type names went out with the movie.

NextMobile’s EyeTest cellphone color blindness test. A brilliant idea. EyeTest is as straightforward and descriptive as a name can be. It’s also boring.

Glucon’s non-invasive blood level glucose reader. The device itself is exciting because not only does it not require needles, it could save a diabetic hundreds of dollars a year. The name, Glucon, however, is straightforward and descriptive and boring.

SaluMedica’s SaluCartilage implant for repairing focal defects in joint cartilage. This is a fascinating device. The name is a combination of salud or salutary and medical. Both of which are overused in the medical/healthcare field.

Overall, it was a very boring week for medical device names. Though the Toshiba robots have pretty cool names that could be winners for these products.