The speculation as to the status of Michelle Tarver, the acting director of the U.S. FDA’s device center, is officially over. The outgoing director, Jeff Shuren, said Tarver “will make a great center director” in remarks during an Oct. 17 public appearance, thus cementing Tarver’s role at FDA despite an agency statement that a candidate search for the position was underway.

Nowdiagnostics partners with Labcorp to distribute at-home syphilis test 

Nowdiagnostics Inc. established an exclusive agreement with Laboratory Holdings Inc. for distribution of its First To Know Syphilis test in the U.S. The test provides results in 15 minutes with as little as a single drop of blood. The test will be available to hospitals and clinicians by the end of 2024 and offered to patients directly through Labcorp Ondemand in 2025.

What immunology can learn from oncology

During an Innovation Ignited webinar sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, experts talked about how precision medicine has helped advance the field of oncology and how those lessons can be applied to immunology. From databases to biomarkers to CAR T cell therapies, there’s quite a bit of overlap in the fields.

Tencent invests $30M in Insighta to progress cancer diagnostics platform   

China’s Tencent Technology Co. Ltd. has invested $30 million in Insighta, a Hong Kong-based early cancer detection company that was set up as a $200 million joint venture by Hong Kong-based Prenetics Global Ltd. and inventor Dennis Lo to revolutionize multi-cancer detection. Following the Tencent investment, Prenetics’ stake in Insighta will be reduced from 50% to 35%. Insighta's co-founders will retain their 50% shareholding. 

Study paves way for therapy, easier diagnosis in endometriosis

According to World Health Organization data, endometriosis affects about 10% of reproductive-age females globally. That already makes endometriosis a wildly underresearched and underfunded disease in relation to its prevalence. Plus, Rama Kommagani thinks even 10% is an underestimation. “Diagnosis is very underreported, particularly in low- and middle-income countries,” Kommagani, who is an associate professor of pathology at Baylor College of Medicine, told BioWorld.

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Avantor, Davita, Glaukos, Helfie AI, Masimo, Moleculight, Optimize Health, Patchrx, Renovaro, Shine Europe, UMCG, Vianautis Bio