Neuronetics Inc., of Malvern, Pa., has won U.S. FDA breakthrough device designation for its Neurostar transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) device for the treatment of patients with drug-resistant bipolar depression. The news comes as the company reported a strong fourth quarter for 2019, with revenue up 11% year-over-year to $17.4 million.

Aerin Medical Inc., an Austin, Texas-based company focused on minimally invasive solutions for chronic nasal conditions, has won U.S. FDA clearance for the Rhinaer Stylus to treat chronic rhinitis. The Rhinaer procedure can be performed under a local anesthetic in an ear, nose and throat (ENT) physician’s office, with no incisions and minimal discomfort.

With an eye toward helping those with early stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), Basel, Switzerland-based Roche Group has won a breakthrough device designation from the U.S. FDA for the Elecsys GALAD score. When combined with ultrasound, the Elecsys GALAD score aims to help provide more accurate information for clinicians to treat patients at an earlier stage.

With trauma patients and those suffering from bleeding disorders, being able to quickly assess a person’s bleeding risk can be lifesaving, but most current tests to measure clotting ability are laboratory-based and don’t provide immediate results. To that end, the U.S. FDA has granted Cleveland-based Xatek Inc. breakthrough device designation for its Clotchip portable blood clotting sensor.

COVID-19 is bringing more pressure to bear on Congress to pass S. 2723, the Mitigating Emergency Drug Shortages (MEDS) Act, which has been sitting in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee since Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced it in October 2019 – a few months before the novel coronavirus emerged.

The U.S. FDA is well known for encouraging industry to meet with the agency “early and often” for complex premarket filings, but the Combination Products Coalition (CPC) says a recent draft guidance seems to offer the exception. The group said the December 2019 FDA guidance for feedback on combination product applications “seems to generally discourage” the use of the combination product agreement meeting (CPAM). It added that the complexity of some combination products suggests that such a meeting may well be crucial to an efficient application process.

The U.S. FDA has finalized two guidances dealing with class II tests that are subject to Medicare regulations, including the so-called dual CLIA waiver guidance. The agency said it will hold an April 14, 2020, webinar to go over both guidances, allocating 90 minutes to deal with questions about the two documents.

The second day of the FDA workshop on artificial intelligence (AI) in health care featured several interesting proposals, including that AI will be used in health care without the aid of a health care professional. John Martin, chief medical officer at Butterfly Network Inc., of Guildford, Conn., said the time is ripe for AI-assisted ultrasound in the home, which he claimed could reduce rehospitalizations in heart failure, one of the holy grails in U.S. government efforts to restrain health care spending growth.

While the staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is currently all hands-on-deck in responding to the COVID-19 outbreak, some of the agencies in the department may have to divert resources to get sponsors of drug and device clinical trials to fill in nearly a decade-long data gap on Clinicaltrials.gov. That’s if a judge’s decision handed down this week stands.