Fractional flow reserve (FFR) processing of computed tomography (CT) images has gained a substantial body of momentum over the past few years, but a recent study posed the question of whether it can save health care systems from excess spending for stable angina.

Medtronic plc management put an emphasis on being nimble and commercializing novel technology at its investor day this week, and analysts appeared to approve of the message. As Wells Fargo’s Larry Biegelsen noted, Dublin-based Medtronic is moving away from a centralized company that is focused on economic value and margin expansion to one that is more decentralized, emphasizing innovation and topline growth.

LONDON – Oncimmune Holdings plc has won government funding to apply its autoantibody biomarker technology to develop a COVID-19 immune profiling tool for triaging patients and predicting response to therapies and vaccines in development against the virus. The company will cross reference serum samples from 3,000 COVID-19 patients against its library of 800 SARS-CoV-2 related antigens and peptides to identify autoantibodies that characterize the range of immune responses to the infection.

PARIS – A consortium that includes Therapanacea SAS, GE Healthcare France SAS, Orange Healthcare SA, the AP-HP group of 39 hospitals in the Paris region and the French academic society for thoracic imaging has created a database for COVID-19.

PARIS – Bonetag SAS, of Perpignan, France, is developing a universal medical device designed to ensure in vivo traceability for orthopedic knee replacements.

San Carlos, Calif.-based Galaxy Medical Inc., which has developed pulsed electric field (PEF) technology for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, revealed the first treatments in the ECLIPSE-AF study, which is evaluating the Centauri system. The trial will assess the safety and efficacy of the Centauri as the company looks forward to obtaining a CE mark.

LONDON – Industry is calling on the government to set out a plan for the safe and sustainable restart of non-COVID-19 clinical studies that were put on hold when the pandemic struck.

LONDON – French venture capital firm Kurma Partners has announced the first closing at €50 million (US$58.6 million) of its second fund to be wholly devoted to seed and early stage investment in diagnostics. Kurma Diagnostics 2 (KDx2) will be invested in molecular and digital diagnostics technologies being spun out of universities and research centers across Europe, backing a total of 15 companies.

PARIS – Gleamer SAS has secured $8.75 million in series A financing for its CE-marked artificial intelligence (AI) application that automatically detects all types of fracture in radiography. “This funding will allow us to move forward with launching Boneview around the world,” Christian Allouche, CEO and co-founder of Gleamer, told BioWorld.

DUBLIN – The ongoing legal uncertainty surrounding the transfer of data from European research institutions or companies to international partners shows little sign of resolution, despite the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has engendered an extraordinary collaborative response from the global scientific community.