As the American Urological Association (AUA) annual meeting prepares to kick off on May 12, newly published prostate cancer guidelines recommend two tests to help clinicians and patients determine the best path forward for treatment—or waiting. The latest AUA guidelines incorporated Exact Sciences Corp.’s Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score (GPS) test for risk-stratification of localized prostate cancer, while the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) added Cleveland Diagnostics Inc.’s Isopsa test to help identify high-grade early prostate cancer before a biopsy or after a negative biopsy result.
The FDA has greenlighted Neuronetics Inc.’s Neurostar transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) system as an adjunct treatment for adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The noninvasive treatment, which uses repetitive, focused magnetic pulses to stimulate brain cells, is already cleared and marketed in the U.S., Japan and select other countries for major depressive disorder (MDD).
With its focus on transformative high-risk, high-reward research to drive biomedical breakthroughs, the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) may be a good concept, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of increased investment in basic research at the NIH, according to the bipartisan leadership of U.S. House appropriators.
Regulatory snapshots, including global submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Inex Innovate, Neuronetics.
The in vitro diagnostics industry has turned in an impressive response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but a few problems are bound to surface. The U.S. FDA reported May 10 that the Accula test by San Diego-based Mesa Biotech Inc. has been recalled due to contamination of test materials at the manufacturing site, a problem that could lead to false negative findings with the test.
The Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC) ran a series of 14 test cases to evaluate the value of real-world evidence (RWE) for regulatory decision making, but there were several sources of drag in this first phase of the project, such as a lack of availability of unique device identifiers (UDIs) for some devices.
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