The COVID-19 pandemic completely rewrote the script for government responses to communicable diseases, and thus the Biden administration is wasting no time reacting to the emergence of the monkeypox virus. The administration announced June 28 that it has developed a plan to allocate the distribution of large volumes of vaccines, but the CDC has shipped tests to five major commercial lab companies, thus putting the U.S. on a strong footing to respond to the outbreak.

Axbio Inc. raised nearly $100 million in a series B round for the development of its sequencing technology.

Varian Medical Systems Inc. received an investigational device exemption (IDE) from the U.S. FDA to start a clinical trial evaluating its new radiation therapy. The experimental treatment, named Flash, delivers radiation at ultra-high dose rates, typically in less than one second. The Siemens Healthineers AG company said the therapy is capable of being over 100 times faster than conventional radiation therapy.

Peijia Medical Ltd. has received two marketing approvals from China’s NMPA for its catheters to be used in neurointerventional surgery. They are the balloon guide catheter (BGC) Fluxcap and delivery balloon dilation catheter Fastunnel. Both were developed by Peijia’s wholly owned subsidiary Achieva Medical Ltd.

Corvia Medical Inc. has closed $54 million in equity financing to support a confirmatory trial for its Interatrial Shunt Device, designed to reverse diastolic heart failure (HF), otherwise known as “preserved ejection fraction” (HFpEF), and which affects millions of Americans. This follows results of the largest randomized controlled trial of a device-based therapy published in February 2022, with a 45% reduction in HF events and a 55% greater improvement in patient quality of life.