Growing collaborations between pharma and technology companies in digital health are beginning to create a new ecosystem in Taiwan that it hopes will increase its value in the global supply chain, speakers said during the BIO Asia-Taiwan conference in Taipei, running July 27-31.
3M Co. reported a planned spinoff of its health care business by 2023, during the company’s second quarter earnings. The health care company will operate as a separate public company focused on wound care, health care IT, oral care and biopharma filtration. 3M said the health care business is expected to be spun off with net leverage of approximately 3.0x to 3.5x EBITDA and the ‘New 3M’ company will retain a stake of 19.9% in health care, which will be monetized over time.
The U.S. FDA handed good news to Healthy IO Ltd. (Healthy.io) with 510(k) clearance for its smartphone-based Minuteful Kidney test, making kidney function testing – from sample to result – possible at home. The app calculates the albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR), a key indicator of kidney disease. By enabling people to complete the test using their phones, the company says it has increased the rate of testing in high-risk patients by 50%.
Notal Vision Inc. released two clinical reports it said prove the feasibility and efficacy of its patient-operated, home-based optical coherence tomography (OCT) device for monitoring wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This comes in the wake of a 2021 report that concluded patient operation of the Notal Vision Home OCT (NVHO) and its machine learning algorithm were generally on par with human experts evaluating retinal fluid and fluid volume in patients with AMD.
The U.S. FDA’s two-day meeting of the patient engagement advisory committee (PEAC) covered a range of issues surrounding augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) products, but patient information and education was one of the key considerations. Naiem Nassiri of Yale Medicine cautioned, however, that a 15-minute briefing between doctor and patient during a face-to-face encounter would likely create more confusion than clarity, a conclusion that would suggest that other patient education methods will likely be needed.
Medtronic plc has entered a strategic collaboration with Cathworks Ltd. to expand the reach of Cathworks’ artificial intelligence (AI) guidance system for coronary artery disease management. Medtronic will invest up to $75 million and immediately begin co-promotion of the Ffrangio system on the U.S., European and Japanese market. As part of a separate agreement, Dublin-headquartered Medtronic will have the option to acquire Cathworks once certain undisclosed milestones are met.
Sonio SAS raised just over $5 million in its seed round to develop artificial intelligence (AI) software allowing health care professionals to determine the most appropriate pregnancy care. Its Sonio Diagnostic software delivers decision support for fetal ultrasound used in antenatal diagnostics.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been moving aggressively on privacy issues in connection with health data in the past two years, but the agency has issued an advisory of sorts to collectors of these data points. The FTC said July 11 that it intends to crack down on violators in an effort to protect data privacy.
Clinical analytics company Medial Earlysign Ltd. is expanding an existing partnership with Roche Holding AG to commercialize an artificial intelligence (AI) solution for the early detection of lung cancer. The companies originally signed an agreement in September to develop a personalized health solution for early detection of gastric cancer. The goal of the new collaboration is to develop Earlysign’s Lungflag software, which uses machine learning to identify patients at risk of developing lung cancer.
Kranus Health GmbH has raised $6.5 million in series A funding to ramp commercialization of its digital therapy for treating erectile dysfunction (ED). Eleven European investors participated in this fundraising. The round was led by early-stage health care venture capitalists Karista SAS, while Peak Pride Management GmbH also joined the funding round.