LONDON – The EU is to set up an equivalent to the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), after coming under criticism from pharma companies about Europe’s inability to swiftly seal advance purchase agreements for COVID-19 vaccines. The plan was announced on Sept. 16 by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in her first state of the union address since coming into office at the start of 2020. The new agency will support capacity and readiness to respond to cross-border health threats and emergencies, “whether of natural or deliberate origin,” she said.
Siemens Healthineers AG snagged a key role in the mystery playing out across the world's pandemic stage – what do antibody test results mean in terms of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and how do different tests assessing different proteins compare? The U.S. CDC and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission tapped the Erlanger, Germany-based company to take the lead in developing a process to standardize antibody assays.
LONDON – The U.K. government has signed a €1.4 billion (US$1.7 billion) advance purchase agreement with French biotech Valneva SE, for the supply of up to 190 million doses of its attenuated COVID-19 vaccine, VLA-2001.
LONDON – With just four months to go until Brexit is activated, the start of September finally saw the med-tech industry get official guidance on the licensing regime for medical devices in the U.K. once the Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency (MHRA) becomes the standalone regulator Jan. 1, 2021.
PARIS – For the past three years, French health care establishments, hospitals, radiotherapy centers and medical biology laboratories have had to report any security incidents affecting their IT systems. The French national agency for digital health care (ANS) has just released its latest annual report.
Oncomfort SA finalized a €10 million (US$11.8 million) series A fundraising round to further develop its Digital Sedation product and pursue international expansion. Debiopharm and Crédit Mutuel Innovation led the round with participation from Wallonia Innovation and Growth and previous investors.
The Lifetime Initiative released a roadmap to revolutionize health care in Europe by implementing cell-based interceptive medicine in a perspective article published Sept. 7 in Nature.
Spanish researchers developed a new artificial pancreas system that maintained blood glucose levels in individuals with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D) during and following heavy physical exercise. Results of the small study were published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Endocrinology & Metabolism.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues into the fall, Roche Group is planning to launch its latest tool later this month. And while its SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Test will be available in markets accepting the CE mark, the company is expecting the filing for emergency use authorization (EUA) from the U.S. FDA. Roche’s test is a rapid chromatographic immunoassay intended for the qualitative detection of a specific antigen of SARS-CoV-2 present in human nasopharynx.
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