As Royal Philips NV works to rebuild trust after a global device recall, it is investing in new models of access, affordability, and technology to close gaps in sleep apnea diagnosis and therapy across Asia.

The U.S. FDA approved Apple Inc.’s Airpods Pro 2 as an over-the-counter assistive hearing device for adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss, making the ubiquitous devices the first assistive hearing technology to receive this designation.

Researchers from the University of Chicago and Northwestern University have filed for protection of an mobile application to track individualized patient needs, engagement in continuous positive airway pressure machine use, and the correlation of risk behaviors to determine sleep apnea treatment progress.

The U.S. FDA has received a citizen petition to grant over-the-counter status to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines, an oddly timed petition given a recent enforcement action against one of the prime movers in the CPAP space.

The U.S. FDA approved a new feature for detecting obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) on the Samsung Galaxy watch and smartphone, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said on Feb. 10.

Royal Philips NV agreed with the U.S. FDA to the terms of a consent decree focused on its Respironics business, following the recall of millions of its devices over the last few years. Although the details of the decree are being finalized, Philips said it will halt the sales of new continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and bilevel positive airway pressure (BiPAP) sleep therapy machines as well as other respiratory care devices in the U.S. until the conditions of the decree are met.

Dentists at Melbourne, Australia-based 3DSG Pty Ltd. are seeking patent protection for a plug and socket set for use in a mandibular advancement splint set for treating snoring or sleep apnea.

Resmed Inc. has acquired Somnoware Inc., a privately held developer of respiratory care diagnostics software, for an undisclosed price. The deal is Resmed’s third software acquisition in the past year, having snapped up German software-as-a-service (SaaS) maker Medifox Dan GmbH for $1 billion in June 2022 and Mementor GmbH last August.

Wesper Inc., a longitudinal and wireless clinical-grade sleep testing platform, showed ‘exceptional accuracy’ in a head-to-head comparison with polysomnography in a study published in The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. The wireless, longitudinal sleep testing platform had a breathtaking 95% correlation with the cumbersome gold standard test for sleep apnea.