Digital health has made only limited headway in the orthopedics space, but Zimmer Biome Inc. and Canary Medical Inc. have nudged the cause along with a smart implant that blends a 21st century sensor with a traditional knee replacement device. The marriage of Zimmer’s Persona knee implant and the Canary Medical Canturio TE sensor will give physicians a better way to track the patient’s recovery from knee replacement procedures.

Better Therapeutics Inc. has closed on a $50 million debt facility that advances the company’s push into the market for digital therapeutics for type 2 diabetes, a market that seems poised to expand drastically in the next few years. The $50 million debt facility by Hercules Capital is just one of several important financial benchmarks for Better, which is also planning to go public thanks to a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that may raise well in excess of $100 million, all of which seem to promise a bright future for Better and those with type 2 diabetes.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is hardly alone in its antipathy toward Illumina Inc.'s acquisition of Grail Inc., and FTC attorney Susan Musser said Aug. 24 that Illumina’s dominance of the market for next-generation sequencing (NGS) is perhaps the key aspect of the FTC’s case. Musser invoked the wide number of companies that jumped into the fray to develop a vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic as an illustration of the need to maintain competition in the multicancer testing space.

Lightpoint Medical Ltd. is stepping up commercialization activities and collaborating with Telix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. on radio-guided cancer surgery. The companies plan to initiate prostate cancer clinical trials evaluating Lightpoint’s Sensei with Telix’s investigational prostate cancer single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging agent TLX599-CDx.

PERTH, Australia – Tali Digital Ltd. inked a licensing deal worth A$51 million (US$37.5 million) for its new digital therapeutic that could be the first line in early intervention to treat the underlying conditions of attention deficit disorders. Akili Interactive Labs Inc. will hold an ongoing license to Tali’s technology to become the exclusive commercialization partner for all pediatric cognition products in the U.S.

Illumina Inc.’s acquisition of cancer diagnostic specialist Grail Inc. is on go in a $7.1 billion transaction that is structured so that it can be unwound with limited impact on Illumina. However, a number of regulatory entities are closely scrutinizing the deal for a potential regulatory challenge, a fact of life that shaved nearly 10% off the value of the company’s shares in early Aug. 19 trading, and which could ultimately scuttle the transaction altogether.

Visus Therapeutics Inc. has expanded its ophthalmic drug portfolio, in-licensing investigational therapies for glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration from Cella Therapeutics LLC, which will be developed by Finland’s Delsitech Ltd. using its extended-release depot technology.

Verily Life Sciences LLC, a division of Alphabet Inc., took its first major step to fulfill its goal of transforming clinical trials with the announcement of an agreement to buy Signalpath LLC for an undisclosed sum. The deal is Verily’s first major acquisition since the company spun out of Google Inc. in 2015. It’s likely not the last deal for the company in the short-term, however, as it raised $700 million in December 2020 to fund its aggressive expansion plans.

Memic Innovative Surgery Ltd. agreed to combine with Medtech Acquisition Corp. in a transaction expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021. The deal establishes an eye-popping $1 billion pro forma valuation for the company, which received FDA clearance for its first device just four months ago.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has made no secret of its intent to tighten its oversight of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, an emphasis that has already been felt in the med-tech space. Soliton Inc., of Houston, said in its latest 8-K filing that the FTC wants to see more information about plans for the company to be acquired by Allergan Aesthetics plc, a demand that at the very least will delay – and potentially derail altogether – the acquisition.