Hong Kong – China’s Kangji Medical Holdings Ltd. has made a memorable debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX), with shares jumping 98.84% from their opening price of HK$13.88 (US$1.79) to close at HK$27.60 (US$3.56) on the first day of trading on June 29.
Chinese scientists at Peking University (PKU) in Beijing have developed a new in vitro patient-derived tumor-like cluster (PTC) model, which predicted the outcomes of neoadjuvant and conventional chemotherapies in colon, gastric and breast cancer patients, with a clinical consistency of >93%.
Makers of devices for ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) have struggled at times to overcome clinician skepticism, but a new report in a respected medical journal might persuade some of those cardiologists. A study of nearly 28,000 AF patients in South Korea demonstrated that device therapy yielded lower rates of death and admission for heart failure compared to medical therapy, suggesting that ablation is a valid alternative to medical therapy, at least for patients in Asia.
China-based precision oncology company Genetron Holdings Ltd. and prenatal molecular testing company Progenity Inc. each successfully priced an IPO. This is just the latest demonstration that molecular diagnostics is gaining real traction when it comes to investment.
HONG KONG – China and U.S.-based Lisen Imprinting Diagnostics Inc. has unveiled its Quantitative Chromogenic Imprinted Gene In-Situ Hybridization (QCIGISH) technology, a novel approach for identifying, visualizing and quantifying the biallelic and multiallelic expressions of an imprinted gene panel associated with cancer status.
Policymakers in the U.S. are grappling with a disastrous pandemic as well as long-standing political tensions, but one aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic that might unify them is the need to ensure that patients in the U.S. are not at the mercy of other nations for needed diagnostics and therapies.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has reached into quarters that are not historically problematic for makers of diagnostics, including China’s import and export practices for test kits. According to one caller on an FDA diagnostic town hall, export officials in China have a blacklist and a whitelist for test kits, but there is some dispute as to whether kits that are eligible for distribution in the U.S. can get off the blacklist unless that kit is specifically called out via the emergency use authorization (EUA) program.
BEIJING – Suzhou, China-based Peijia Medical Co. Ltd. became the second prerevenue med-tech company to go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) after Venus Medtech (Hangzhou) Inc., pocketing HK$2.3 billion (US$302 million) with an aim to develop and commercialize its transcatheter valve therapeutic medical device called Taurusone.
HONG KONG –Shanghai-based Zai Lab Ltd. has won an approval for the first innovative treatment for glioblastoma approved by China in more than 15 years, with the National Medical Products Administration’s (NMPA) nod for Optune in combination with temozolomide for use in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma (GBM), and also as a monotherapy for the treatment of patients with recurrent GBM.
HONG KONG – Blockchain technology usually is associated with digital currencies. However, it’s now emerging as an important platform for COVID-19 management. It’s been a focus in China, where a top-down approach is key to driving sectors and technology.