Superhuman soldiers. Designer babies. Genetically tailored weapons. Mind-control. A foreign database containing the DNA of every person on the planet. The list reads like the plot of a science fiction horror story, but there’s no fiction involved. These are real threats from China raised by members of the U.S. House Select Committee on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) at a March 7 hearing on the growing stakes of the bioeconomy and American national security.
As geopolitical tensions mount, bipartisan legislation introduced in both the U.S. Senate and the House is calling to prohibit government contracts with certain Chinese biotechs such as BGI (formerly known as Beijing Genomic Institute) and Wuxi Apptec, because they are increasingly seen as national security threats.
The U.S. FDA granted Edap Tms SA breakthrough device designation for its Focal One system to treat deep infiltrating rectal endometriosis. The company believes that the Focal One high intensity focused ultrasound technology can offer relief to the thousands of women suffering from the debilitating condition.
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Abbott, AI Medical Technology, Neuroelectrics, Sensible Medical.
Med-tech happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Bruker, Calyx, Chemspeed, Healthy.io, Invicro, Natera, Neuronetics, QT Imaging, Realm Idx
Regulatory snapshots, including global submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Co-Diagnostics, Cosara, Quidelortho, Surgentec.
In what represents the first patenting in the name of Houston-based Neurastasis Inc., company co-founders Kirt Gill and Joe Upchurch describe a head-worn apparatus for neural stimulation that can be used to treat or augment recovery from medical conditions, particularly ischemic stroke.
The U.S. FDA’s warning letter to Fresenius Kabi AG of Homburg, Germany highlighted several problems with the compliance practices at the company’s plant in North Andover, Mass., but there is more than just a compliance issue at play. Fresenius had acquired the Ivenix infusion pump and the inspected research and development site in its 2022 acquisition of Ivenix Inc., another example of the regulatory and compliance hazards of acquisitions in the med-tech space.