Belong.Life has expanded its digital clinical trial matching program to include patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The technology uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) that processes a patient's medical data and determines which trials in its global database are appropriate. The app typically returns results, which are prescreened by a clinical trial coordinator, in less than two days. More than 8,000 cancer patients have used the program so far.

COVID-19 stalled clinical trials, halted elective surgeries, and body slammed many med-tech companies’ revenues. Despite that, an industry report released by Ernst & Young (EY) finds that the pandemic also drove some positive changes in the med-tech industry including long-neglected attention to enterprise-wide business continuity.

There are some U.S. FDA work items that have been hampered primarily by the COVID-19 pandemic, and some that have just proven difficult to push across the finish line. The FDA’s October 2018 draft guidance for premarket considerations for cybersecurity in medical devices might fall into that latter category, but the FDA’s Suzanne Schwartz said the agency will reissue another draft version of that guidance, which will be available sometime in early 2021.

As with many conferences, the Cleveland Clinic’s 2020 Medical Innovation Summit went virtual this year. Still, the event featured the hotly anticipated top 10 list of innovations for 2021 that saw a range of therapies. Ranked in order of expected importance, the list was led by gene therapy for hemoglobinopathies. The top three innovations, including a novel drug for primary-progressive multiple sclerosis and smartphone-connected pacemaker devices, were highlighted in a special presentation.

COVID-19 has prompted dramatic rethinking of supply chains, health care delivery, regulations, and collaboration that are likely to permanently restructure the med-tech industry, according to industry leaders speaking at a panel during the Advanced Medical Technology Association’s (Advamed) Virtual Medtech Conference on Oct. 6. In addition, the significant increase in debt and strong fundamentals position the industry for a burst of M&A activity.

An artificial intelligence machine learning model that mines electronic health record data could help physicians fight the opioid epidemic by targeting non-opioid pain treatments to patients experiencing severe pain after surgery, according to new research presented at the Anesthesiology 2020 annual meeting.

What is the future of med-tech innovation in the wake of COVID-19? That was the question addressed during the Advanced Medical Technology Association’s Virtual Medtech Conference, with members of industry providing some insight. “I think … that this is going to be in many ways a turning point,” changing the way stakeholders look at devices and the evidence supporting them, said Tom O’Brien, of Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) Ethicon unit.