TORONTO – Most doctors recognize the symptoms instantly: hand tremors, slurred speech, impaired posture and balance. What they don’t always associate with people suffering from Parkinson’s disease are hallucinations and delusions.

The BioWorld Artificial Intelligence price-weighted index, which includes biopharmaceutical companies, medical devices and health care services companies, has climbed in value and is currently up almost 37% year-to-date.

Visible Genomics has launched a set of noninvasive genetic tests aimed at assessing the overall risk of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD) or progressing with the disease. AMD is a common condition that affects the part of the eye called the macula. It typically blurs the central vision used in tasks like reading and driving and develops around age 50.

RapidAI, which focuses on imaging for stroke, has launched the Rapid Web App to help stroke teams stay updated on imaging results and communicate securely. Using the app, team members can receive real-time browser notifications of new cases, preview Rapid results and source files and engage in workflow communications via a desktop or laptop computer.

The rescission order directing the U.S. FDA to abandon regulation of lab-developed tests is scarcely three weeks in the past, but two senior managers at the FDA are pushing back in an editorial appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine. The FDA’s Jeff Shuren and Tim Stenzel wrote that there is “a need for a common legislative framework” to ensure clinical tests are accurate and reliable, which implicitly concedes that the statute does not authorize the agency to regulate lab-developed tests.

Mednax Inc. has inked a definitive agreement through which Radiology Partners will acquire the former's radiology solutions group for $885 million, with an eye toward creating a provider of comprehensive radiology and teleradiology services. El Segundo, Calif.-based Radiology Partners is a physician-owned, on-site radiology practice that partners with about 1,600 radiologists providing services to nearly 1,300 hospitals, clinics and imaging centers across 26 states. When the transaction wraps up, the combined organization, operated under the Radiology Partners name, will include more than 2,400 radiology physicians who provide services in every state plus Washington.

PERTH, Australia – Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said industry stakeholders supported making in vitro diagnostic (IVD) self-tests available for infectious diseases like influenza but self-tests for cancer and genetic testing for health-related purposes should continue to be prohibited from supply.

A new type of SARS-CoV-2 antigen test that relies on single molecule array technology may be able to help clinicians identify which patients are most likely to experience severe disease.