Even as the Biden administration pushes for drug imports from Canada as a way to help curb U.S. prescription drug prices, Canada is doubling down on its efforts to protect its supply of drugs and medical devices.

TORONTO – Fluid Biotech Inc. has raised $4.7 million in oversubscribed seed funding to further develop and commercialize the world's first hybrid polymer-metal flow-diverting brain stent for curing brain aneurysms that can lead to stroke. Following successful preclinical studies of the stent, attention now turns to applying this fresh capital to hiring contract manufacturers to prepare for first-in-human implantation and production of the mostly polymer-constructed stent.

TORONTO – Western New York Imaging Group, a one-hour drive across the U.S.-Canadian border, will soon be the site for a hard launch of Champ, a system developed by Voxneuro Inc. that evaluates suspected cognitive brain disorder or symptoms such as fatigue, memory loss or brain fog. This comes after Voxneuro won FDA registration of the cognitive platform as a class II exempt medical license, followed last month by Health Canada approval of the system for help diagnosing concussion, traumatic brain injury and dementia.

TORONTO – Health Canada has green-lighted an all-in-one virtual reality (VR) platform for use in diagnostic radiology. Software developer Luxsonic Technologies Inc. said the award of a class II medical device license to its mobile Sievrt suite of diagnostic tools is the first time a VR system of this kind has been approved by a national regulatory agency.

TORONTO – A “silent epidemic” all but “ignored” by medical technology developers. That’s how Carlo Perez, founder and CEO of Swift Medical Inc., described the hesitancy of the industry to directly tackle chronic wound care through development of more advanced medical imaging and diagnostic systems. Undaunted, U.S. and Canadian investors have raised $35 million in series B funding to advance development and uptake of Swift Medical’s own AI-powered, digital wound care platform.

TORONTO – What do ER doctors want most for their patients? Never to return to the ER, said Giovanni Ferrara, a professor at Edmonton’s University of Alberta Hospital's Division of Pulmonary Medicine. Ferrara is heading a feasibility project to see if a wearable device developed by Rochester, N.Y.-based Heath Care Originals Inc. can predict with scientific certainty when the condition of a patient with lung disease is worsening and requires another visit to the hospital.

Responding to the growing number of state-sponsored cyber threats to health care and other key sectors and to the compromise of the Microsoft Exchange Server, which was disclosed in March, Canada, the EU, U.K., U.S. and other NATO allies issued statements July 19 laying out expectations and markers for how responsible nations behave in cyberspace and specifically calling out China’s “malicious cyber activity.”

TORONTO – Spino Modulation Inc., a subsidiary of Montreal-based med-tech company Spinologics Inc., has received breakthrough device designation for a vertebral body tethering (VBT) device to treat adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, one of three types of scoliosis that cause the spine to develop an abnormal curve.