These include approvals of new drugs, vaccines, medical devices (such as artificial joints and pacemakers) and food additives.

FORBES: Sequester Or No Sequester, Federal Agencies Could Spend Less

They use different makes of artificial joints, different kinds of anesthesia, different regimens for post-surgical pain control and physical therapy.

NEWYORKER: Big Med

Medical devices are something of an orphan sister to the glamour of drugs, but they include some of the genuine miracles of modern medicine: pacemakers, artificial joints, cardiac stents, scanners, and radiotherapy machines.

FORBES: ObamaCare's Medical Device Tax Will Cost Innovation and Jobs

Wilhelm Meiners and his colleagues at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology in Aachen, Germany, are one group working to extend the technology to print reconstructive facial plates and even load-bearing artificial joints, such as hips, which could be customised for each patient.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

Some 20 million Americans now walk around embedded with high-tech gear: artificial hips and knee joints, pacemakers, heart defibrillators and more.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Its properties are so useful and unusual that it is used not only to create the base layer of skis, but also to make bulletproof jackets and artificial hip and knee joints.

ECONOMIST: Using ski wax can trap dirt, and thus slow down the skier