Insulet Corp. reported positive results from a pivotal trial of its Omnipod 5 automated insulin delivery system for patients with type 1 diabetes. The tubeless, wearable insulin delivery system lowered hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) – a critical diabetes measure – in children, adolescents, and adults, and improved the time that patients were in the target blood glucose range. The data was presented at ENDO 2021, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, which was held virtually this year.

The first day of the annual meeting of the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) included a brief address by two members of Congress, including Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), who chairs the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Guthrie acknowledged that the reset of the Medicare clinical lab fee schedule was not going as intended, but declined to identify any possible fixes pending a report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

KRAS is the most frequently mutated oncogene in solid tumors in general, and in lung tumors in particular. There are more patients whose lung tumors are driven by KRAS mutations than by ALK, Ros, Ret and TRK alterations. Combined. And after 40 years, they look to be getting a targeted therapy, or even two.

What is the outlook for investment in digital health over the coming year? A group of investment experts tackled that question during a session of the Digital Medicine & Medtech Showcase, which is being held virtually this week. Although COVID-19 was disruptive, there was a huge increase in health innovation investment last year, with a jump of roughly 56%, said Logan Plaster, director and editor-in-chief at Startup Health.

HONG KONG – Partnerships are reshaping the pharmaceutical industry across Asia, said speakers during day two of the Phar-East 2020 virtual conference. While industry has “tended to have a go-at-it-alone approach,” doing all its discovery, development and commercialization work in-house, “nothing ever came in or out. I think that’s really changed in recent years,” said Kazia Therapeutics Ltd. CEO James Garner.

Under the right circumstances, a single mouse can be as good as a group of eight or 10 animals in predicting whether a tumor will respond to a drug, researchers reported at the 2020 EORTC-NCI-AACR (ENA) Molecular Targets meeting on Saturday. The single-animal approach “allows incorporation of more tumor models within the same resource constraints,” Peter Houghton told reporters at a press conference previewing ENA highlights.

Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, professor and chair of the department of genetics and genome sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, set a positive tone in his opening talk at the 2020 annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG). "This is guaranteed to be the best-ever virtual ASHG annual meeting," he told the audience. The opening plenary abstract session, for one, did not disappoint. It began with the definition of a new disease, identified through a new approach, and possibly leading to a new way to think about rheumatic diseases.

PARIS – At the recent annual HealthTech Innovations Days in Paris, the European investment Fund (EIF) and the world’s largest life sciences consortium, EIT Health Germany, reported the development of a Venture Centre of Excellence (VCoE) in Europe.

The Chinatrials roundtable went virtual this year and drew clinical trial experts to discuss state-of-the-art clinical trial design strategies, which are increasingly important in a more competitive clinical landscape.