The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is taking aim at the shortage of medical services with a program designed to foster development of micro-robots, or microbots, which will autonomously conduct part or all of a variety of surgical procedures.
Abbott Laboratories made plans to enter the cancer screening market with its reported acquisition of Exact Sciences Corp. The deal will pay Exact Sciences shareholders $105 per share in cash, a nearly 50% premium to Exact’s unaffected share price on Nov. 19. That represents a total equity value of approximately $21 billion and an estimated enterprise value of $23 billion.
Exact Sciences Corp. rolled out its multi-cancer early detection test nationwide to expand screening and identify malignancies when treatment has the greatest chance of being curative. Cancerguard can detect signals for cancers accounting for more than 80% of all cancer diagnoses in the U.S. each year.
Billiontoone Inc.’s Northstar Select comprehensive genomic profiling liquid biopsy assay identified more treatable variants than other tumor profiling platforms in a study published in The Journal of Liquid Biopsy. Notably, the test found clinically actionable alterations substantially below the limit of detection for other tests.
Bring your dog to work day looks a little different at Spotitearly. The Tel Aviv-based company asks its canine workers to bring their whole selves to the job – particularly their finely trained noses – to help suss out cancer in breath samples. The dogs’ unique capabilities are interpreted by AI to capture canine indicators humans might miss and the combo has remarkably high accuracy, 93% or better in three of the four common cancers tested.
Prognomiq Inc. secured $34 million in a series D funding round to advance development of an early detection test for lung cancer based on its multiomics platform. The blood-based test could provide an alternative to the underutilized low-dose CT scans currently recommended for individuals at high-risk of lung cancer.
Early results from REFLECTION, a real-world study, mirrored results for Grail Inc.'s multi-cancer early detection (MCED) assay in clinical trials, according to a presentation at the 2024 Early Detection of Cancer Conference. The study, conducted at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) sites, focuses on the real-world application of the Galleri test, which screens for multiple cancers in asymptomatic individuals.
Less than two months after the June spin-off of Grail Inc. (again), Illumina Inc. revealed a new strategy to cut costs and lift sales growth by focusing on the rapidly evolving multiomics space. Grail, meanwhile, unveiled its own plans to retool, going all in on multi-cancer early detection and cutting headcount 30%.
The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality posted a request for information on the current state of multi-cancer screening tests for a review that poses several questions.
The saga of Illumina Inc.’s attempt to reacquire Grail Inc., seems to have come to an end with a capitulation to market regulatory authorities, but Illumina has chosen to spin off Menlo Park, Calif,-based Grail rather than sell the company outright.
