Cytovale Inc., a San Francisco-based medical technology company, has picked up $15 million in financing to advance its technology that enables the early detection of sepsis in the emergency department. Specifically, the company raised $7.4 million in an extension of series B equity financing, co-led by existing investors Breakout Ventures and Blackhorn Ventures. Western Technology Investment also participated, providing a venture debt facility to the company.
Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc. disclosed positive results from the first interim analysis of its ongoing NAV3-31 phase IIb study. Analysis shows the data support Navidea's hypothesis that Tc 99m tilmanocept imaging can provide robust, quantitative imaging in healthy controls and in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has posted a draft rewrite of the coverage memo for next-generation sequencing (NGS), and while the draft rewrite fails to address a number of concerns, the agency eliminated references to advance-stage cancer, opening the door to considerably greater utilization.
A JAMA Open Network study found that RNA testing determined whether 88% of variants of uncertain significance found in DNA testing for hereditary cancer genes were pathogenic or benign.
LONDON – Pfizer Inc. is taking further steps to distinguish its third-generation anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor, Lorbrena, from the rest of the field, funding a pan-European trial that will use liquid biopsies to track the resistance profile of non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLC).
Genomic testing firm Veracyte Inc. is eyeing 2021 for the launch of its noninvasive nasal swab classifier for early lung cancer detection and diagnosis, following preliminary clinical data demonstrating high sensitivity in low-risk patients and high specificity in high-risk patients with known lung nodules. The South San Francisco-based company is developing the nasal swab test in collaboration with Johnson & Johnson Inc.'s Lung Cancer Initiative, part of a long-term strategic collaboration that also aims to speed commercialization of Veracyte's Percepta genomic sequencing classifier.
Diagnosis and treatment of infections typically occurs after people exhibit obvious signs of illness, such as fever or a cough. By then, they may already have exposed others and are well on the way to developing more serious symptoms themselves. In the military, such delays can hamper medical countermeasures to contain potential outbreaks and reduce downtime among active duty personnel. Now, Amsterdam-based Royal Philips NV and the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction Agency and Defense Innovations Unit have built an early warning algorithm – using artificial intelligence – to detect infection before a person shows any signs or symptoms of infection.
LONDON – A U.K. national plan to upgrade population cancer screening will see greater adoption of genomics and biomarker-based testing, and the use of artificial intelligence to help interpret results. There will be moves to make it easier to pilot and adopt novel diagnostics and to do more targeted screening to identify and follow people who are shown to be at greater risk of developing specific types of cancer.
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