While NASA gets the glory for exploration of the vast unknown of space, Bionaut Labs Ltd. hopes to reap similar fame by transforming travel through the brain with Bionauts, microrobots designed to deliver therapeutic payloads across the blood-brain barrier. To help achieve that mission, the company raised $43.2 million in a series B financing round led by Khosla Ventures.

In an interview with BioWorld, Ceros Financial Services CEO Mark Goldwasser predicted significant changes in the financing market for med-tech companies in the coming year. While special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deals are not anticipated to return to 2022 levels, Goldwasser expects “we’re going to see a lot of transactions out of big strategics” and a rally in the equity market in the first half of 2023.

Medtronic plc guided investors’ expectations lower for the balance of its fiscal year, citing pummeling from foreign exchange rates, continued delays in elective procedures and ongoing supply chain issues. In response, the stock (NYSE:MDT) dropped from its close at $82.43 on Monday to open at $76.91 Tuesday. The company reported $7.59 billion in revenue for the first half of its fiscal 2023. That represented a 3% drop on a year-over-year basis, missing consensus expectations of $7.7 billion, in part because of a $457 million foreign currency hit.

Vitadx SA is preparing to close a new $8.3 million funding round, to ramp European distribution of its automated software platform for early detection of bladder cancer. The system is based on morphology analysis of cells in a urine sample on a digital cytology slide. “Our Visiocyt technology allows urologists to adjust patient pathways and thereby limit the number of invasive procedures necessary to confirm their diagnosis with people already presenting symptoms,” Allan Rodriguez, CEO and co-founder of Vitadx, told BioWorld.