1.   FemRX INC., which is developing surgical products for women had its first stock offering last week.

2.   As Genzyme contemplated whether to stay in the surgical products business, Collier said, it began to see its earlier missteps as strengths.

3.   Baxter International Inc. said it plans to split into two publicly traded companies, separating its medical technology business and its surgical products distribution business.

4.   Besides Genzyme, several other companies including Focal Interventional Therapeutics Inc. of Lexington and Lifecore Biomedical Inc. of Chaska, Minn., are developing surgical coating products.

5.   Learning to use a new surgical product is much trickier than prescribing a new pharmaceutical product.

6.   Michigan stocks finished higher Thursday for the third straight day, led by retailer Kmart Corp. and surgical products maker Stryker Corp.

7.   Shareholders will be issued stock in the surgical products business, which Baxter calls its health-care cost-management division.

8.   Surgical products sales reps, on the other hand, are expected to go into the operating room to talk to surgeons and answer highly technical questions.

9.   The increase was primarily due to third-quarter sales from Deknatel Snowden Pencer, the Fall River-based surgical products company that Genzyme acquired this spring.