Med-tech happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Alayacare, Avita, Axonics, Biophotas, Irhythm, Lifeward, Medtronic, Rewalk, Smartalpha, Thermo Fisher.
In the first patenting from Chicago-based Novaxs Biotech Corp., its co-founders, Alina Rui Su and Jonathan Tianyi Xing, describe an injection system for needle-free, high-pressure drug delivery.
The U.S. FDA reported Feb. 29 that data on the Hintermann series H3 total ankle system suggest a significantly higher rate of device failure than seen in premarket clinical studies, a problem that has arisen even though only five years have passed since the agency approved the device.
In a sign that Royal Philips NV is not letting the problems in its business in the U.S. stop its innovation, the company has launched the Azurion neuro biplane, a new image guided therapy system for patients suffering from stroke and other neurovascular diseases. It also teamed up with Syntheticmr AB and launched Smart Quant Neuro 3D, an AI imaging tool which will help health care professionals diagnose and assess brain disorders like multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury and dementia.
On March 1, Boston Scientific Corp.’s Agent drug-coated balloon (DCB) became the first DCB to gain U.S. FDA approval for treatment of in-stent restenosis in patients with coronary artery disease. With more than 100,000 patients already treated in Europe, Latin America and Japan, it’s no secret Agent provides significant benefit compared to balloon angioplasty or drug-eluting stents (DES) for the approximately 10% of patients with coronary stents who experience subsequent narrowing of the treated vessel.
Ocular gene therapy specialist Pulsesight Therapeutics SAS has launched with seed funding and is raising a series A to take forward two programs using electroporation to deliver plasmid DNA in the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration and geographic atrophy.
Continuing the spate of regulatory approvals for pulsed field ablation (PFA) devices around the world, Johnson & Johnson’s Biosense Webster Inc. unit secured CE mark for the Varipulse platform for treatment of symptomatic, drug-refractory recurrent paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.
Mainstay Medical Holdings plc raised $125 million in equity financing which it will use to conduct clinical trials and continue the commercial roll out of its Reactiv8 neurostimulation therapy that treats chronic lower back pain.