Noticeably lacking in the G7 communique following its recent U.K. summit is support for a proposed World Trade Organization waiver on intellectual property related to drugs and other medical products used to prevent, contain or treat COVID-19 infections.

Hemex Health Inc.’s newborn screening for sickle cell disease substantially reduces the labor involved for parents and providers in testing for the potentially fatal condition. The test had previously been able to test infants 6 weeks and older on the company’s Gazelle platform.

Neovasc Inc. has hit pause on its Tiara transfemoral mitral valve replacement (TF) program and is cutting its workforce by more than 40%, citing the additional time and substantial investment required to develop the program and the associated costs. The changes are expected to extend its cash runway from about 18 months to more than three years. The changes were implemented with about 18 months to remain solvent as part of a series of actions to focus on enhancing current shareholder value and focusing investments on near-term value drivers, namely the Reducer stent and the Tiara transapical mitral valve replacement (TA) system.

The FDA’s multiyear effort to rewrite the Quality System Regulation (QSR) to align with ISO 13485 could significantly ease the regulatory burden for device makers in multiple markets, but that effort has floundered over the past couple of years. The associated rulemaking is back on the FDA’s agenda, signaling that device makers might soon be able to deploy a single and relatively inexpensive quality management system, which in principle would significantly reduce their compliance costs.

Veracyte Inc. reported new data showing its Decipher Prostate genomic classifier can help to identify patients with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (nmCRPC) who are more likely to benefit from treatment with Erleada (apalutamide) in addition to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT). The study is the first to demonstrate Decipher Prostate’s prognostic utility in men with locally advanced prostate cancer.

LONDON – Controversy over the quality of the data supporting approval of Biogen Inc.’s Aduhelm (aducanumab), and FDA’s requirement for a phase IV study to demonstrate real-world evidence of the effectiveness of the drug, has put the spotlight on the need for better dementia diagnostics, both to stratify trials and to track any reduction in clinical decline.