Where’s the plan? That was the underlying question Jan. 11 as Biden administration health officials faced frustration and tough questions from both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee about how the U.S. government is responding to the surge of COVID-19 infections caused by the omicron variant.

Owens & Minor Inc. (O&M) sent Apria Inc. shares out of the ballpark with the announcement of its acquisition of the at-home health care company for $1.45 billion in cash early this morning. Apria’s stock (NASDAQ:APR) closed Friday at $29.72, opened today at $37.16 and rose incrementally throughout the day to close at $37.48. O&M’s stock (NYSE:OMI) ended the week at $45.08; it ebbed sharply to $40.19 on the news before recovering to $45.35 at the end of the trading day.

The FDA has posted a draft guidance responding to changes in the law regarding device shortages during public health emergencies. The guidance says that manufacturers should advise the FDA of any impending shortages, but the key qualifier, that of a “meaningful disruption” in production, may be sowing confusion in the industry.

This could be a make-or-break week for Biogen Inc., with the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expected to announce a draft coverage decision for the company’s Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm.

Space travel has known effects on human health and biology. Some, such as loss of bone density, are well understood, while others, like inflammation, are not. Now, organ-on-a-chip maker Emulate Inc. is conducting experiments on the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory (ISS-NL) aimed at revealing clues to how the brain functions in microgravity.

University of California San Diego engineers have developed tiny 2D sensors that pop up to become a 3D assemblage of microscopic sensors for directly measuring the movement and speed of electrical signals inside the heart. According to nanoengineering professor Sheng Xu, the nanotechnology has enormous implications for heart doctors anxious to better diagnose and treat arrhythmia, heart attack and other diseases.

Within hours of a Jan. 5 vote on COVID-19 boosters for adolescents, U.S. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky endorsed the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ (ACIP) recommendation that all adolescents aged 12-17 years should receive a booster dose five months after their primary series. The recommendation applies to the Pfizer Inc.-Biontech SE COVID-19 vaccine, as it’s the only one authorized in the U.S. for use in adolescents.

The epic rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos Inc., will preoccupy the world of business for decades to come, but this story has also left a large footprint in the world of clinical diagnostics. David Stein, CEO of Babson Diagnostics Inc., of Austin, Texas, told BioWorld that investors are a bit more wary than usual because of the Theranos saga, forcing test developers to be more rigorous in test development and more transparent with investors about a test.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has been scrambling to adjust to recent developments in case law for patent subject matter eligibility, and the latest PTO response is a pilot program for new patent applications.