Aiming to provide additional utility and information to its continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), Dexcom Inc. is tying in the nutrition information provided by Rxfood Corp.’s app for customers in Canada. Clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, health plans, employers and others can make the app available to the beneficiaries and patients who use the Dexcom G6 or G7 systems, once the program is rolled out.
Researchers at Singapore’s Agency for Science Technology & Research Bioprocessing Technology Institute (also known as A*STAR BTI) saw publication of their patent application for a wearable electronic system for solid-state epidermal biomarkers (SEB) that enables in situ, continuous, multiplexed, wireless, and skin-integrated sensing of analytes such as cholesterol, lactate, and glucose.
Day Zero Diagnostics Inc. added more of the right kind of zeros to its coffers as it closed a $16 million financing round supported by existing investors. Venture capital investment in the diagnostics company to date totals $49 million, with more than $18 million in additional non-dilutive funding. The company is developing a diagnostic that provides same-day identification of an infectious pathogen and its antimicrobial susceptibility profile.
An international team of researchers have developed a new blood test that could detect Parkinson’s disease earlier than current methods. The test, a real-time PCR-based assay, called Mito Dnadx, uses blood to identify damage to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) caused by the neurodegenerative condition. Based on the findings published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the test could allow rapid, noninvasive and accurate identification of Parkinson’s disease (PD) before it causes much damage to the nervous system.
Arizona State University (ASU) reported the receipt of a patent for a device with colorimetric sensors for measuring excreted ketones in a body fluid. Additional sensors may be incorporated to measure flow rate of the body fluid, barometric pressure, humidity, and chemicals such as oxygen and carbon dioxide present in the fluid, and a system to measure metabolic rate and respiratory quotient via oxygen consumption rate and carbon dioxide production rate.
University of California researchers saw publication of their patent application for a multimodal cryptographic bio-human machine interface (CB-HMI), which seamlessly translates the user's touch-based entries into encrypted biochemical, biophysica, and biometric indices.
Springboarding off the success of its AI-based imaging software for cancer detection, the deep learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) company Lunit Inc. has another AI software, called the Lunit Scope, up its sleeve for which it hopes to gain U.S. FDA approval by 2025.
The U.S. FDA is keen on developing policies to guide testing regimes for future pandemics based on the experience with COVID-19, and the FDA’s Tim Stenzel said on a Sept. 8 advisory hearing that automated reporting of at-home tests would clarify questions such as the spread of the pathogen and how well the tests are performing. Stenzel, who is the director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health at the FDA, said the U.S. government agencies have made a number of grants for development of automated reporting mechanisms for at-home tests, signaling an interest on the FDA’s part that automated reporting capabilities will be a priority when the next pandemic strikes.
In a potential breakthrough for diagnosis and treatment development of liver disease, the Biomarkers Consortium’s Noninvasive Biomarkers of Metabolic Liver Disease (NIMBLE) project demonstrated that a blood test could diagnose nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), an increasingly common liver disease in the U.S. The study, published in Nature Medicine, identified four biomarkers that outperform current liquid biopsies for NASH.
China’s recovery from its zero-COVID policy has failed to gain the momentum expected, with many experts predicting a slow or even negative growth rate. A slower economy, combined with a push toward self-reliance, bodes poorly for diagnostics manufacturers in the U.S. who may find themselves not just shut out of the huge market but facing stiffer competition around the globe. Further, policies designed to build a domestic next-generation sequencing industry have created headwinds for San Diego-based Illumina Inc. and others, noted Kyle Mikson and Alex Vukasin of Canaccord Genuity in an in-depth report.
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