Amyloid and tau proteins are both involved in the disease pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. The diagnostic and treatment research focus has long been on amyloid, which has proven almost entirely fruitless after decades of effort. But tau is becoming better understood, as investigational tau imaging agents offer the ability to visualize its presence in the brain.
The draft rules for the Stark and Anti-Kickback statutes (AKS) seem to have excluded makers of devices, but Meena Datta of Sidley Austin told BioWorld MedTech that while these agencies have plenty of reasons to rethink that notion, the final rules are unlikely to emerge in 2020 simply because of the complexity of the undertaking. While the final rules may reverse the drafts’ exclusion of makers of devices and diagnostics, device makers were upbeat at the prospect that they could engage in value-based payment arrangements with providers.
The controversy over paclitaxel (PCT)-associated mortality in devices for the peripheral arteries is far from over, but another medical journal article has punched a hole in the credibility of the paclitaxel theory with the conclusion that the evidence is unequivocal and may be unpersuasive to physicians.
With many on Wall Street transfixed by the three injectable calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) therapies cleared in the prophylactic migraine market, Satsuma Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s prospects with STS-101 may have gone overlooked, at least until lately.
Check-Cap Ltd., of Isfiya, Israel, reported positive results from a U.S. pilot study of its C-Scan System, a preparation-free, ingestible scanning capsule-based technology aimed at preventing colorectal cancer (CRC) through early detection of precancerous polyps. The company is currently preparing an IDE submission with the U.S. FDA and plans to launch a pivotal clinical trial in late 2020.
Genome sequencing is enabling new insights into the genetic aspects of health and disease that have touched just about every aspect in biomedicine. It is also, like the “skin”-colored crayons of yore, disproportionately focused on the Caucasian segment of the population. And that is a loss for everyone.
In the Dec. 20, 2019, issue of Science, Stefan Kaufmann, who is the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, and his colleagues report that the immune system could calibrate its response to Pseudomonas aeruginosa by monitoring the bacterial quorum sensing chatter.
Will the digital transformation in health care start to benefit consumers in 2020? That was one of the challenges addressed in a recent report from PwC Health Research Institute titled “Top health industry issues of 2020: Will digital start to show an ROI?” The report predicts that in the next year, health system leaders will tout their investments in technology and transformation.
The screening of at-risk patients for Barrett’s esophagus, a precursor to esophageal cancer, has long been a goal for health systems. Currently, most patients with the condition remain undiagnosed, and more than 90% of individuals are identified after it has progressed into esophageal cancer via endoscopy, according to a 2018 paper in Digestive Diseases and Sciences.
The U.S. FDA’s attempt to use objective performance criteria for class II devices offers several advantages for device makers. However, the Advanced Medical Technology Association (Advamed) said in comments to the docket for two such sub-guidances that the documents are too narrowly scoped to be of much use in many instances.
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