TORONTO – Vancouver, British Columbia-based Izotropic Corp. has inked a deal with Victoria, British Columbia-based based Starfish Medical Inc. to commercialize a CT scanner Izotropic CEO Robert Thast said will be a major disruptor of the breast imaging industry. Izotropic has spent approximately $20 million over the past 15 years to develop the system and is counting on Starfish to help translate this into a market-ready 3D breast CT imager by the end of 2020.

Fidget spinners are hand-held toys based on a roller bearing and three weighted lobes, which can spin freely, creating centrifugal force when activated manually. Generating centrifugal force with a fidget spinner takes neither electricity nor trained staff. And that has suggested to several researchers that such spinners, under the right circumstances, could be used for centrifugation under circumstances where reliably operating a centrifuge, for  whatever reason, is a challenge.

Widespread testing is going to be key to safely reopening businesses and global economies in the current pandemic. To that end, Kahala Biosciences LLC, an Irvine, Calif.-based testing and tracking startup, and its technology partner, Rymedi Inc., of Greenville, S.C., have launched the Adiona COVID-19 antibody testing platform, combining antibody testing with a blockchain-enabled smartphone app to increase predictability and traceability of potential outbreaks.

The number of tests of various types for the SARS-CoV-2 virus are still growing, but the emergency use authorization (EUA) program is not the only option for developers. Timothy Stenzel, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiology, said on the agency’s May 27 town hall that the agency would like to see test developers file for a 510(k) for their tests when the data are sufficient to support an application, adding that any such clearances will not affect the U.S. FDA’s interest in keeping plenty of similar tests on the market via the EUA mechanism.

Within a month of disclosing a CA$175.6 million (US$124.7 million) award from the Canadian government to use its antibody discovery platform for the analysis of patients who have recovered from COVID-19, Abcellera Biologics Inc. closed a $105 million series B financing aimed at expanding its capacity and investing in new technologies that complement its antibody discovery engine.

Pharma and diagnostics giant Roche Holding AG, of Basel, Switzerland, has acquired Seattle-based Stratos Genomics Inc., an early-stage sequencing technology company, in a move aimed at advancing development of Roche’s nanopore sequencer. Financial terms of the deal, which was first reported on Friday, were not disclosed.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has posted a national COVID-19 testing strategy in response to legislation passed in April, and the plan suggests that 300,000 tests per day should suffice to corral the pandemic. That calculation drew immediate fire from House and Senate Democrats, who characterized the plan as an attempt “to paint a rosy picture about testing,” but they also pushed the Senate to pass House legislation that would provide another $75 billion in funding for testing and contact tracing.