Two enzymes from the protein disulphide isomerase (PDI) family enable prostate cancer cells to grow, survive, and resist treatment. This discovery, however, could be taken as an advantage to improve therapy for this type of tumor. Blocking the function of PDIA1 and PDIA5 leads to cancer cell death and a reduction in tumor size.

Merit Medical Systems Inc. looks to ingest Pentax Medical’s C2 cryoballoon through a $22 million asset purchase expected to close Nov. 1. The C2 treats Barrett’s esophagus, which can be a precursor to esophageal cancer, as well as gastric antral vascular ectasia syndrome. The deal includes a $19 million cash payment at closing and up to $3 million in contingent milestone payments.

ISS became the third proxy advisory firm to recommend shareholders vote against the proposed sale of Staar Surgical Co. to Alcon AG, joining Glass, Lewis & Co. LLC and Egan-Jones Ratings Co.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has proposed to limit the use of administrative challenges to patents when the patent in dispute is already the subject of litigation in district court, a change that many in the life sciences might see as an improvement over the current hyper-litigious environment.

Genedx LLC partnered with Illumina Inc. to test whether Illumina's constellation map read technology could shed light on hard-to-detect variants that appear in rare diseases. Constellation met or exceeded the ability of other sequencing methods to detect variants implicated in multiple disorders and worked across a range of sample types, a study presented at the American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG) Annual Meeting in Boston on Oct. 15 found.