Business as usual only three months ago has transformed into health care industry overdrive as biopharma and med-tech companies scramble to test and scale-up treatments, vaccines and diagnostics to address COVID-19.
DUBLIN – For quite some time, cardiometabolic disease has been largely off the map for most small biotechs and for the venture capital investors that support them. Is that situation about to change? Maybe, maybe not was the mixed message arising from a Bio-Europe Spring 2020 virtual panel discussion on cardiometabolic disease.
PARIS – The French government is seeking to curb the growth in spending on medical devices. According to recent work by the parliamentary information commission, led by deputies Julien Borowczyk and Pierre Dharréville, medical technology is the source of $5.8 billion in annual spending in the community and $2.1 billion in hospitals.
LONDON – The extent to which existing DNA databases fail to reflect human genetic diversity is laid bare in the most geographically comprehensive sequencing initiative to date. The study applied the latest sequencing techniques to 929 genomes from 54 diverse populations around the world.
LONDON – As the epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic shifted to Europe and the number of deaths in Italy exceeded the toll in China, the EU stepped up efforts to mount a coordinated response, with a big boost for collaborative R&D funding and a call for clinical research to be pooled in multicenter, multi-arm randomized controlled trials.
As COVID-19 testing remains elusive in the U.S., much of the nation’s focus has started to shift to how to treat the presumed millions of patients who are already or soon to be infected with the novel coronavirus.
LONDON – The European Commission offered up to €80 million (US$89.4 million) of funding to Curevac AG, to scale up development and production of a vaccine against the coronavirus in Europe, following reports that the U.S. administration had made an offer for the German biotech, in order to get exclusive control of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
PERTH, Australia – On the heels of scoring a CE mark for its Novosorb biodegradable temporizing matrix (BTM) in the EU, Melbourne-based Polynovo Ltd. crossed its first AU$2 million (US$1.3 million) month in December sales for its initial commercial product.
PARIS – Quantum Surgical SAS, of Montpellier, France, has been awarded development aid amounting to $2.25 million in grants and repayable loans from Bpifrance bank, as part of the French Deeptech program.
Keystone Heart Ltd., of Caesarea, Israel and Tampa, Fla., scored a win in Europe after obtaining the CE mark for the Triguard 3 cerebral embolic protection (CEP) device. It is designed to minimize the risk of cerebral damage by deflecting embolic debris away from cerebral circulation during transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and other transcatheter heart procedures. According to the company, the device is the only product with a CE mark designed to cover and protect all three major cerebral aortic arch vessels.
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