The European Commission opened a public consultation to help it develop the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, a new initiative to better prepare Europe for cross-border health threats.

PARIS – Holistick Medical SAS reported a $5 million round for development of the first generation of a light-activated implant for a patent foramen ovale (PFO). Truffle Capital provided the startup with $4.6 million, while Bpifrance provided $470,000 in non-dilutive funding. “This robust financing provides us with the resources needed to catapult our strategy forward and reinvent the treatment of heart defects such as PFO, which can be associated with occurrence of stroke in young people,” Boris Warnack, CEO of Paris-based Holistick Medical, told BioWorld.

BERLIN – Lindis Blood Care GmbH launched a multicenter clinical EU certification study for Catuvab, which is used to eliminate tumor cells from surgical blood. The experiment, dubbed Remove, aims to confirm that Catuvab can reliably remove epithelial cell adhesion molecules (EPCAM)-positive tumor cells from patient blood during cancer surgery.

PARIS – Barely one year after its formation, startup company Quantiq SAS has just closed an $825,000 seed round, to develop its contactless medical diagnostics technology. French business angels from the medical, artificial intelligence and fintech worlds participated in this initial fundraising.

LONDON – Inbrain Neuroelectronics Ltd. has raised €14.35 million (US$16.9 million) in a series A round to take nanoscale graphene implants it says have the potential to interface one-on-one with neurons, into clinical development later this year. The technology promises significant improvements on current implants used for deep brain stimulation to treat conditions including Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, obsessive compulsive disorder and neuropathic pain.

LONDON – Getting a handle on the specificity and sensitivity of rapid COVID-19 antibody tests, how they compare to each other and how they should be applied in population screening to understand who has had the virus and how it has spread, has been a source of difficulty and dispute between manufacturers, clinicians and public health experts.

Debx Medical BV has advanced to the pre-launch phase for its new topical desiccant gel for the treatment of chronic infected and necrotic wounds. Two months after obtaining CE mark approval for Debrichem, the Rotterdam, Netherlands-based company is starting distribution of its class IIb medical device in Europe – in the Netherlands, Italy and Spain – as well as in Hong Kong, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Vetex Medical Ltd.'s Revene thrombectomy catheter reduced symptoms and improved quality of life in all patients with iliofemoral vein thrombus in a European clinical study. The results were presented at Venous 2021, the annual meeting of the American Venous Forum.

Fluxergy Inc. said Thursday that it has won CE-IVD marking for its one-hour COVID-19 real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. The automated, sample-to-action Fluxergy diagnostic testing system can run multiple assay types – such as molecular, immunochemistry, chemistry and cytometry – simultaneously on the same cartridge. The SARS-CoV2 RT-PCR test is the first CE-marked product for the Fluxergy diagnostic platform.

PARIS – Implanet SA won approval from its founding shareholders to acquire a majority stake in spinal implant manufacturer Orthopaedic & Spine Development SAS (OSD). Implanet’s bid is aimed at acquiring majority control, and potentially the entire share capital, of Avignon, France-based OSD, valued at $5 million. OSD’s founding shareholders, representing 71.5% of the capital, have already committed to respond favorably to the bid, thus confirming the principles behind this merger.