Lung cancer claims more lives each year than any other cancer, making early and accurate diagnosis crucial to improving survival rates. To that end, the U.S. FDA has cleared the integration of Intuitive Surgical Inc.’s Ion endoluminal system and Siemens Healthineers AG’s Cios Spin mobile imaging cone-beam CT imaging technology to enhance robotic lung biopsies.
Sophia Genetics SA shared preliminary findings from its multimodal Deep-Lung-IV clinical study at the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting. The study is utilizing Sophia’s cloud-based, artificial intelligence diagnostic platform to identify multimodal predictive signatures of response to immunotherapy for patients with advanced lung cancer.
Roche Holding AG’s attempt to find a next-generation cancer immunotherapy has suffered a setback after the first phase III readout for an anti-TIGIT drug, tiragolumab, turned out negative. With big pharma investing heavily in TIGIT (T-cell immunoreceptor with immunoglobulin and ITIM domains), results from the company’s Skyscraper-02 trial were closely watched.
Broncus Holding Corp.’s thermal vapor treatment system Intervapor has won approval from China’s NMPA. The system is used for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer and other pulmonary diseases.
Reflecting enthusiasm for a radiotherapy that can target multiple tumors simultaneously, Reflexion Medical Inc. closed an $80 million series E fundraising round to support development of its biology-guided radiotherapy (BgRT) technology for metastatic cancer. New investors included Ascension Ventures, Catalio Capital Management LP, Sixty Degree Capital Inc. and Hillenbrand Capital Partners LLC.
Hutchmed Ltd. has received a $15 million milestone payment from Astrazeneca plc for initiating a phase III trial testing the Hutchmed c-Met inhibitor Orpathys (savolitinib) in combination with Astrazeneca’s Tagrisso (osimertinib) in EGFR-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer.
Hutchmed Ltd. has received a $15 million milestone payment from Astrazeneca plc for initiating a phase III trial testing the Hutchmed c-Met inhibitor Orpathys (savolitinib) in combination with Astrazeneca’s Tagrisso (osimertinib) in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) for patients with mesenchymal epithelial transition receptor (MET) driven tumors.
The U.S. CMS has expanded the population of Medicare beneficiaries who are eligible for lung cancer screening via low-dose CT (LDCT) imaging. The news drew raves from stakeholders who also lauded the expansion of the facilities that can conduct the procedure, constituting a set of changes that advocates say will save thousands of additional lives.
LONDON – Brainomix Ltd. has raised £16 million (US$ 21.2 million) in a series B, enabling the company to extend its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven diagnostic platform beyond the initial deployment in stroke, to the assessment of disease progression in lung fibrosis, and response to therapy in lung cancer.
Mythic Therapeutics Inc. officially launched with an oversubscribed series B round that garnered $103 million to design smarter, safer antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) by way of a technology originated by the company and dubbed Fatecontrol. Co-founder and CEO Alex Nichols said that, after about 40 years’ worth of development – and despite fairly recent wins – ADCs have been hampered by “toxicity and poor therapeutic index [that] have stopped them from reaching what we would consider to be their full potential.”
