LONDON – The U.K. is launching a £28 million (US$34.5 million) project to sequence the whole genome of every COVID-19 patient in the country treated in intensive care, with the aim of uncovering host genetic factors that lead some people to be more severely affected by the infection. The study will involve up to 20,000 people currently or previously treated in one of 170 intensive care units (ICUs), whose genomes will be compared to 15,000 people with a confirmed infection who had mild or moderate symptoms.

DUBLIN – The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private research partnership between the European Commission (EC) and Europe’s pharmaceutical industry, has boosted funding for a fast-track response to the COVID-19 pandemic from €45 million (US$48.8 million) to €72 million.

LONDON – A new technique for analyzing solid tumor DNA has been shown to significantly improve scoring of mutation burden, making it possible to identify patients who will respond to immunotherapy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world – and the face of diagnostics. In a matter of weeks, a host of companies has worked to develop tests to find those patients who currently have the disease, as well as those who have developed antibodies.

LONDON – Computational biology specialist Precisionlife Ltd. has used UK Biobank data to find sepsis risk genes that are present specifically in patients who suffer severe COVID-19 infections and shown that 13 of those genes are known druggable targets.

Zoll Medical Corp., of Chelmsford, Mass., received CE mark approval to market its second-generation Supersaturated Oxygen (SSO₂) Therapy in Europe and other countries that accept CE mark. The therapy, which delivers hyperbaric levels of oxygen to the ischemic heart muscle immediately following percutaneous coronary intervention, has been shown to significantly reduce damage to the heart muscle after an acute myocardial infarction.

PARIS – In the wake of the news that Swiss group Roche Holding AG received an emergency use authorization from the U.S. FDA as well as a CE-IVD certification for the Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 serology test to detect antibodies in people previously exposed to SARS-CoV-2 that causes the COVID-19 disease, the company unveiled its plans for the launch of the product.

LONDON – With COVID-19 infection varying in severity from asymptomatic to lethal the search is now underway for biomarkers to predict which patients are most at risk of suffering severe disease. As one possibility, Menarini Silicon Biosystems (MSB) is using its Cellsearch liquid biopsy technology to capture and count circulating endothelial cells. Meanwhile, Oxford Biodynamics plc is applying its Episwitch platform to find prognostic and predictive epigenetic markers.

LONDON – In a potent demonstration of how COVID-19 is transforming the U.K. clinical trial landscape, 47,000 patients have been recruited to studies investigating potential treatments for the infection in a little over two months.

PARIS – April 2020 was a milestone month for the key players in interventional cardiology in France. The reimbursement system in France is finally opening its doors to the drug-eluting balloon (DEB), following years in the wilderness.