Public drug and device companies may want to think twice before eagerly jumping on the COVID-19 bandwagon with announcements overselling their efforts to develop or repurpose products to treat patients infected with the coronavirus.

An April 15 U.S. FDA stakeholder call revisited several themes of interest in connection with diagnostics for the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Tim Stenzel, director of the agency’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, said that while the agency has not yet authorized a home sample collection kit, “we do think it’s going to happen very soon.”

The collection of nasal and throat swab samples to detect the presence or absence of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has proven problematic on a few fronts, particularly in the U.S. The swabs themselves often have become scarce and difficult to obtain, while health care workers are routinely risking their own health commonly in the absence of proper protective equipment. In addition, sampling difficulties have largely been blamed for a very high false negative rate that could be as much as 25%.

Wayne, Pa.-based Intact Vascular Inc. has secured U.S. FDA approval for the first peripheral vascular implant to repair below-the-knee (BTK) post-angioplasty dissections. The company expects to begin shipping units of the Tack endovascular system (4F) in about two weeks.

The age of molecular testing for the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us, but the emphasis in the months ahead will be on serological testing as a quicker, more useful mass testing alternative. However, test developers have a number of hurdles to overcome in devising these serological tests, including that antibodies for the virus’s antigens emerge at different times in the disease cycle, just one of several challenges that have to be met in the effort to bring the SARS-CoV-2 virus to heel.

Since April 10, 2020, the FDA has issued emergency use authorizations (EUAs) to several companies that make blood purification devices that can clear excess cytokines in the blood of patients with COVID-19. Monmouth Junction, N.J.-based Cytosorbents Corp.; Lakewood, Colo.-based Terumo BCT Inc.; and Marker Therapeutics AG, a subsidiary of Marker AG, of Zug, Switzerland, have all recently received EUAs for use of their products in adults with confirmed COVID-19 infections who are admitted to intensive care.

The U.S. FDA’s routine guidance agenda may be badly disrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak, but the agency continues to pump out guidances and emergency use authorizations (EUAs) directed to the pandemic. While the FDA has included only one serological test under the diagnostic EUA paradigm, Rep. Diana DeGette penned a letter inquiring into when the agency intends to move more decisively on serological tests, arguing that the absence of action on this front endangers the nation’s economic health as well as the public’s health.