The first patenting from 4M Biotech Inc. describes a wound dressing with incorporated color-changing pH sensors that are continuously responsive to the pH of wounds or wound exudate.
Med-tech financings exceeded $1 billion for the third consecutive month, reaching a total of $1.07 billion in transactions in December. In November, med-techs raised $1.02 billion, with $1.23 billion raised in October. The overall average for financings in 2023 stands at $1.47 billion per month, down from a monthly average of $3.19 billion the previous year.
Cardiomech AS raised $13 million in fresh capital via a convertible loan agreement that will go towards developing its transcatheter mitral valve chordal repair technology. The round was heavily oversubscribed, indicating investors' expectations that the company’s technology may be a first-line therapy for patients suffering from degenerative mitral regurgitation.
The U.S. FDA might still be seen as the premier med tech regulatory entity in the world, but the agency is badly outnumbered by companies in the life sciences, which are pumping out artificial intelligence algorithms at a breathtaking pace. Further, the FDA must also avoid being lapped by industry in connection with the regulatory novelty known as the predetermined change control plan, a challenge that put the agency’s device center in scramble mode for essentially the entirety of calendar year 2023.
Eisai Co. Ltd. and Oita University in Oita Prefecture, Japan, developed a first-of-its-kind machine learning model to predict amyloid beta accumulation in the brain using a wristband sensor. The model, which collects biological and lifestyle data from daily life, is expected to enable screening for brain amyloid beta accumulation to identify those at risk for Alzheimer's disease, particularly because amyloid beta begins to accumulate in the brain about 20 years before the onset of the disease.
Are there other guidances the U.S. FDA should release as final without going through the draft and public comment process first? That’s one of the questions the FDA wants stakeholders to comment on as it updates its best practices for guidance.
An FDA culture that discourages scientific disagreement with U.S. administration policies may be a perennial problem regardless of the party in power. That’s one of the between-the-lines takeaways from a Jan. 3 letter the Republican leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf – along with a stern warning that the agency had better respond in a timely manner.
The U.S. FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health is no stranger to controversy, but the final guidance for clinical decision support (CDS) systems seems to have broken new ground in this regard.
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