Silicon Valley-based Biomap is setting up a new global biocomputing innovation hub, dubbed Biomap Innohub, in Hong Kong as the local government ramps up investment to build supercomputing prowess, Vicky Qu, senior vice president of Biomap, told BioWorld. The goal is to accelerate novel drug product development and commercialization with biocomputing.

In the first six months of 2024, the med-tech industry raised $13.84 billion, a 29% increase from the $10.75 billion collected during the first half of 2023. While May saw a significant $5.05 billion raised, the monthly total decreased to $1.14 billion in June.

Just as it is for terminally ill cancer patients, time is of the essence for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, the clinical meaningfulness of Eli Lilly and Co.’s donanemab is the time it gives patients before the disease progresses, Reisa Sperling, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the U.S. FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee June 10.

In May, the value of med-tech deals dropped to $85.78 million, marking a 50% decrease from April's $172.37 million but exceeding March's $27 million. The monthly average for deal value in 2024 now stands at $129.7 million, an 84% decline compared to the 2023 monthly average of $886.13 million.

In 2023, med-tech deals culminated in the highest total deal value ever recorded by BioWorld MedTech, totaling $10.63 billion, a 33% increase from the $7.99 billion recorded in 2022.

The U.S. FTC’s campaign against the Orange Book listing of patents claiming device components gained momentum when a federal judge in New Jersey ordered Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. to delist five device patents pertaining to its Proair HFA (albuterol sulfate) inhaler.