Is Minn. medical technology industry in decline?

Once a bastion for the medical device industry, Minnesota may be losing its competitive edge.

Wrote Sarah Laskow in Foreign Policy this month:

Recently ... the industry centered in the Land of 10,000 Lakes has hit something of a crisis point, both at home and abroad. Minnesota's biggest medtech companies have long preferred to just make updated versions of the products they already know can sell. ... But new government pressures, including provisions of the Affordable Care Act, have made the path to profitability less clear, and investors that support innovative companies are more risk-averse than ever: Early-stage funding for new technologies has been on the decline.

The Daily Circuit looks at the health of our state's medical technology companies, and how changing industry dynamics may have motivated the proposed Medtronic-Covidien merger.