LONDON – Following 3.5 years of uncertainty, the U.K. will be leaving the EU at 11 pm Jan. 31, after the newly elected Conservative government finally got the withdrawal agreement bill voted through Parliament Dec. 20, by a majority of 124.

LONDON – Following 3.5 years of uncertainty, the U.K. will be leaving the EU at 11 pm on Jan. 31, after the newly elected Conservative government finally got the withdrawal agreement bill voted through parliament on Dec. 20, by a majority of 124.

For biopharma, 2019 can be described as a terrific year – with a few asterisks. The financial markets were flourishing, with venture capital dollars, in particular, flowing to the sector, while dealmaking reached historic proportions. Meanwhile, scientific breakthroughs led the way as cell and gene therapies gained ground, the first signs of success emerged with new technologies like CRISPR and the long-awaited promise of genomics found its way to the front lines of health care.

PARIS – Diabnext SAS, of Versailles, France, has launched Clipsulin 3XS, a sensor intended to monitor and manage diabetes that the company says is compatible with all insulin pens on the market. “This is the first sensor that automatically reports insulin doses injected by the pen, in both children and adults,” Laurent Nicolas, co-founder and CEO of Diabnext, told BioWorld MedTech.

HONG KONG – Pentax Medical Co., of Tokyo, has gained CE marking for its artificial intelligence-based polyp detector Discovery. The detector assists endoscopists in finding potential polyps during a colorectal examination. The software has been trained using more than 120,000 files from about 300 clinical cases.

LONDON – While large-scale biobanks that link genomics to longitudinal health records of diagnosis, treatment and outcomes promise to revolutionize the understanding of the genetics of complex disease, the detailed statistical analysis of those high-dimensional data is still very much in its infancy.

PARIS – Biolog-id SAS, specialists in traceability and management of delicate health care products (red blood cells, plasma, platelets and chemotherapy substances), has just raised $33 million from fund managers Xerys Gestion. “Thanks to this new funding, we will be able to roll out our smart traceability solutions worldwide. These are used for managing labile blood products and plasma fractionation,” Jean-Claude Mongrenier, founder and CEO of the Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based company, told BioWorld MedTech.