Smart Reporting GmbH raised €23 million (US$24.5 million) in a series C funding round for its medical reporting software which automates and streamlines physicians’ workload. The funding is a “significant accelerator” for the company, “catalyzing business growth, product development, and expansion into international markets,” Wieland Sommer, founder and co-CEO of Smart Reporting told BioWorld.

Quest Diagnostics Inc. expanded its Alzheimer’s disease (AD) portfolio with a blood-based biomarker test for phosphorylated tau 217 (pTau217). The test joins the company’s plasma tests for p-tau181, beta-amyloid 42/40 ratio and ApoE genetic risk as well as several cerebrospinal fluid tests for Alzheimer’s.

Brain Trust Bio Inc. (BTB) will soon begin phase I trials in Australia of its IT-Riluzole delivered to the brain via a continuous intrathecal drug delivery method in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The company’s concept is to take known drugs that work and make them better by delivering them exclusively to where patients need them most, BTB co-founder and CEO Chen Benkler told BioWorld.

The Netherlands-based research company Stichting imec Nederland filed for protection of a smart toilet seat for the non-invasive measurement of physiological parameters, and especially for detecting a bowel movement and/or urination, and for characterizing excrement or feces in terms of a firmness level.

Cross-talk between macrophages and tumor cells could modulate cachexia in pancreatic cancer patients. A group of scientists from the University of Oklahoma has discovered a new pathway that promoted muscle wasting after the recruitment of this immune cell in the tumor microenvironment, activating cachexia-inducing factors.

Researchers from the U.K. reported seeking protection for a device and method that combines electromyography (EMG) and Raman spectroscopy to improve the diagnostic pathway for patients with neuromuscular disorders, and that may be used as a minimally invasive bedside test of muscle health.