TORONTO – Breath analytics technology developed by Picomole Inc. and University of New Brunswick (UNB) researchers promises to identify lung cancer long before it reaches the most advanced stages of the disease. Machine learning sits at the heart of the system, evaluating raw spectral data from a patient’s breath for early diagnosis of lung cancer, Steve Graham, CEO of Moncton, New Brunswick-based Picomole, told BioWorld.

TORONTO – Perimeter Medical Imaging Inc. has been awarded an FDA breakthrough device designation for a machine learning medical platform it said drives ultra-high-resolution, real-time imaging of breast cancer. Data collected from multiple pathology labs in Texas this past year were fed through the optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging system which now is at the stage where its Imgassist artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithms can be tested.

TORONTO – For Scott Kadwell, president of Markham, Ontario-based RSK Medical Inc., the distributor tagged to sell the Health Canada approved Gammacore Sapphire, the device represents “a shift from a business to business to a direct-to-consumer business model.” For Rockaway, N.J.’s Electrocore Inc. which developed the self-administered technology, it’s one more regulator to have greenlighted the FDA cleared, CE-marked device for treating intractable migraine and cluster headache.

TORONTO – Exact Imaging Inc. has secured C$5.1 million (US$4 million) from the Business Development Bank of Canada and federal Export Development Canada to drive adoption of its Exactvu micro-imaging platform for real-time imaging of the prostate. Company CEO Randy Aucoin said it’s been a slow process getting street cred for his prostate imager, investing “tens of millions of dollars” in a direct sales force that eventually installed 100 systems in the U.S., Europe and Canada.

TORONTO – Robotics researchers at Ontario’s University of Waterloo are stealing a page from makers of autonomous or self-driving vehicles, developing wearable, motor-controlled technology to restore physical mobility in people with disabilities without the need to think about or guide the system. The project, called Exonet, is being led by Brokoslaw Laschowski, who contrasts this approach with engineers ramping up the ability of users to control the exoskeleton.

TORONTO – “There’s no magic pill that helps patients with concussion except physical activity,” Ashleigh Kennedy, CEO of Neurovine Inc. told BioWorld. But how does a patient in rehab know when to put on the brakes if they’re working too hard physically or mentally?

TORONTO – A distinguished Canadian health care policy expert said a report from Canada’s COVID-19 Testing and Screening Expert Advisory Panel recommending testing and screening for school-age children and teachers comes “late in the game” now that the focus has shifted to vaccinating the Canadian population.

TORONTO – Hemocath Ltd. is gearing up for a first-in-human trial of a device that addresses two critical metrics for the treatment of heart failure: pulmonary artery and central venous pressure. Hemocath’s pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) is part of a larger heart failure monitoring platform and is intended to assess fluid status in patients with severe or worsening congestive heart failure. The hope is to replace larger, more invasive catheters inserted into a patient’s neck.

TORONTO – The University of Toronto (U of T) is collaborating with Kawasaki, Japan’s Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. to dramatically streamline radiation treatment plans for Gamma Knife brain tumor radiosurgery. Together, they are leveraging Fujitsu's Digital Annealer described as quantum-inspired computing technology to create treatment plans for complex surgical procedures in minutes, while maintaining accuracy and minimizing dosage to surrounding healthy tissue.