U.K. startup Tympahealth Technologies Ltd. has received $8 million in seed financing for commercialization of its point-of-care hearing health assessment system. The Tympa system is a CE marked and FDA-registered device for high-resolution ear drum visualization, ear wax removal and hearing screening assessments. Health care entrepreneurs Maurice Ferre and Arjun Desai led the financing round.

Mindmaze SA continued to add significant funds to its coffers with $105 million as part of a series B financing round, following a $125 million debt financing in October. The new money brings total funding to more than $300 million for the company’s virtual reality-based digital neurotherapeutics platform. Its successful fundraising has pushed the company into unicorn status, making it the first Swiss firm to be valued at more than $1 billion.

LONDON – Two years into the pandemic and the number of new drugs approved by the EMA fell from 97 approvals in 2020 to 92 in 2021. But both years are still well up on pre-COVID-19 times in 2019 when 66 products got the nod, according to the EMA’s annual human medicines report.

In the latest chapter in an ongoing contract dispute between AOP Orphan Pharmaceuticals GmbH and Pharmaessentia Corp., the German Federal Court of Justice this week set aside the €143 million (US$162.8 million) in damages awarded to AOP, citing procedural flaws in quantifying the product supply and damages.

Swiss spinal surgery company Neo Medical SA has closed a $20.6 million financing round led by Swisscom Ventures. The funds will be used for U.S. commercialization of the company’s Advise augmented reality (AR) platform for spinal surgery. The platform is due to launch this year and will complement Neo Medical’s existing implant and instrument solutions. “The funds will be used for recruitment of sales direct sales force, training and education activities in the U.S. as well as U.S. scientific and clinical activities,” Neo Medical CEO Vincent Lefauconnier told BioWorld. “In 2022, we will see some key scientific and clinical work being published showing the massive benefit for patient of the use of our unique combination of technologies.”

PARIS – Damae Medical SAS has just raised nearly $6 million to develop new technology to detect skin cancer noninvasively without need for a biopsy. This series A round was led by BNP Paribas Développement SA and supported by original investors Kurma Partners SA and professional private equity fund, Paris Saclay Seed Fund.

A bioelectronic device developed by U.K. startup Ceryx Medical Ltd. has shown potential to restore cardiac performance in preclinical studies. The Cardiff, Wales-based company published data showing its Cysoni technology increased cardiac output by 20% compared to current pacemakers.

LONDON – Orthox Ltd. is primed for an assault on the mountain that is knee cartilage repair after raising $12.5 million in a series A funding round. After more than a decade of translational and preclinical research, these funds will allow the company to start a trial of Fibrofix, a tissue regeneration product derived from silk, in the middle of this year. An initial cohort of six patients in the U.K. will be treated for sports injury-related cartilage damage, with six months follow up to demonstrate safety. Assuming positive results, that will be followed by treating a further 75 patients in the U.K., Hungary and elsewhere in mainland Europe.

Scientists from Healthbiocare GmbH, System Biologie AG and the University of Austria have published data indicating pan-cancer detection could be achieved by combining genetic and epigenetic biomarkers in plasma. The scientists developed a classification model that distinguished between healthy subjects and patients with solid tumors with 95.4% accuracy, 97.9% sensitivity, and 80% specificity.