The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked some innovation in testing, but not all that innovation has made it to market. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University, said on an Aug. 7 conference call that the U.S. FDA’s “archaic view” of testing is impeding the use of paper strip tests he said would turn the tide in the effort to contain the pandemic.

Bayer AG’s Lampit (nifurtimox) to treat Chagas disease in pediatric patients, approved by the FDA on Friday, is an oral, antiprotozoal medication for newborns to patients under 18, who weigh at least 2.5 kg and are diagnosed with Chagas disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi.

News from Biogen Inc. and partner Eisai Co. Ltd. that U.S. regulators accepted the BLA related to aducanumab for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) – and assigned it priority review, no less – set Wall Street abuzz, especially as the companies noted in their press release that the FDA “if possible, plans to act early” on the anti-amyloid beta (a-beta) monoclonal antibody. Regulators’ decision came about 30 days after they took receipt of the submission; they could have waited 60.

People with diabetes are at risk of developing diabetic retinopathy (DR), an eye condition that can cause vision loss and blindness. However, early detection and treatment can slow its progress. To that end, the Food and Drug Administration has cleared the way for Eyenuk Inc. to market its Eyeart autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) system for DR screening in the U.S.

Real-world evidence (RWE) and clinical trial data might seem to bear little resemblance to each other, but Naomi Aronson, executive director for clinical evaluation at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, said there are problems common to both. The most significant of these is an absence of validated outcomes measures for many conditions, measures Aronson said are “desperately” needed in order to make an appropriate coverage determination.

Developers of tests for the SARS-CoV-2 virus have gained a tremendous amount of experience in a very small amount of time, and of all the media for sampling, saliva offers the easiest route for test administration. The U.S. FDA’s Tim Stenzel said on the Aug. 5 testing town hall, however, that the FDA and developers have discovered that this is an extremely difficult medium to work with.

The matter of how adhesion of its Viaskin Peanut allergy patch relates to efficacy became a major problem for DBV Technologies SA, which drew a complete response letter (CRL) for the once-daily epicutaneous (EPIT) product. Shares of the Montrouge, France-based firm (NASDAQ:DBVT) closed Aug. 4 at $2.34, down $1.76, or 43%, in reaction to the CRL for the patch, designed to protect children ages 4 to 11. The FDA wants DBV to modify the patch, which means a new human-factor study; officials also are requiring clinical data for the modified patch.

A number of entities have sounded off on the FDA’s discussion paper for artificial intelligence (AI), including several medical societies that would like to see autonomously operating algorithms subjected to more stringent review than supervised algorithms. Vibhor Rastogi, general partner at Symphony AI of Los Altos, Calif., told BioWorld that the company is on board with many of these concerns, adding that the FDA discussion paper does a “good job of balancing innovation and patient safety.”