As far as trends go, the dot-corn boom has been traded in for more lucrative investments. Or at least that's what the venture capitalist market would suggest, given its recent propensity for pouring ever-increasing money into the medical device industry.

Whereas computer and pharmaceutical

According to the National Venture Capital Association, seed investors allocated $1.1 billion to medical device companies in the first quarter of this year, a 60% increase over the same period in 2006.

Various technologies have benefited from the investment in recent years, such as cardiovascular products, patient monitoring devices, pain management technology, orthopedic products and even technologies that treat problems stemming from sleep disorders, gastrointestinal disease and diabetes, the trade association found.

"The venture-capital-backed boom in medical devices has delivered extraordinary new technologies," David Cassak, an editor at the monthly publication In Vivo, was quoted as saying in an article in the New York Times. "There's virtually no sector of medical devices that hasn't been given a tremendous boost."

The shift in what's grabbing investors' attention may be explained, in part, by the knowledge that devices tend to be developed and released to market much more quickly than pharmaceutical products, which can take as many as 10 years and cost several hundred million dollars to reach market, analysts told the times. In addition, the rise of the baby boomer market has offered companies a demographic with money to spend--and the willingness to put their dollars from the most advanced medical technology available.

Paul S. Kedrosky, executive director of the William J. von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement at the University of California, San Diego, explained to the times that "Devices are much easier to understand for a repurposed venture guy," such as a person who used to focus investments on the computer industry

Cassak of In Vivo magazine concluded, "It's hard to see the current interest as anything but good news."