In order to redirect health care resources and protect patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, many drug companies have paused enrollment in some or all of their ongoing clinical trials. But patients still in the studies need to be followed for safety and efficacy, creating challenges for the industry.

Stony Brook Medicine has launched an FDA-approved, randomized investigational new drug (IND) trial to determine whether plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 can aid in the recovery of patients currently fighting the disease. Chembio Diagnostics Inc.'s COVID-19 rapid serological point-of-care test will be used to identify potential plasma donors.

The human body constantly assaults medical devices that are implanted within it. The traditional solution to that has been to encase them in titanium. But that’s not the best option in the brain, where it remains difficult to place a high number of electrodes without damaging the brain, while protecting the device from long-term damage.

PARIS – Diabeloop SAS, of Grenoble, France, has launched a real-world study of its automated insulin delivery DBLG1 system, incorporating the Dana-I pump from Sooil Development Co. Ltd., of Seoul, South Korea.

Boston-based Pieris Pharmaceuticals Inc., during its March 12 earnings call, talked up gastric cancer prospect PRS-343, a 4-1BB/HER2 bispecific for HER2-positive solid tumors, which has turned up single-agent and checkpoint-combination antitumor activity.

Novavax Inc., one of the first biopharma companies to reveal its efforts to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in January, has identified a prefusion protein for testing in an Australian phase I trial, slated to start in mid-May.