The Chinese government has launched a series of regulations regarding intellectual property (IP) to improve the quality of patent applications. “These new IP rules reflect the Chinese government's continuous effort in fighting the long-existing and more severe ‘abnormal patent filing activities’ and ensuring the quality of patent applications with practical restriction measures,” Binxin Li, an IP partner in Fenxun Partners, Baker McKenzie's joint operation platform partner in China, told BioWorld.
The U.S. FDA has granted Datar Cancer Genetics Ltd. a breakthrough device designation for a blood test to detect early-stage prostate cancer. The circulating tumor cell (CTC) detection blood test can identify early-stage prostate cancer in men of age 55-69 years at around 99% accuracy.
The U.S. Senate narrowly voted 50-46 to confirm Robert Califf as the next commissioner of the FDA, a critical outcome for an agency that has lacked a fully anointed commissioner for a year. Califf, who was previously FDA commissioner under President Barack Obama from February 2016 to January 2017, faces several challenges in the coming year, however, including the agency’s accelerated approval program for prescription drugs, which has added drag to the process of registering him as the new commissioner.
Regulatory snapshots, including global submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Casio, Cloudcath, Tytocare.
Med-tech happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Baylis Medical, Boston Scientific, Elixir Medical, Exactech, Genomenon, Inari Medical, Olympus, Permedica, Probo Medicala.
PERTH, Australia – Impedimed Ltd.’s L-Dex bioimpedance technology could quickly become the standard of care for measuring cancer-related lymphedema following clinical trial results that showed a 59% relative reduction in progression compared to the standard of care, Impedimed CEO Rick Carreon told BioWorld.
The U.K. National Institute of Health and Care Excellence has endorsed the use of stereotactic radiosurgery as a treatment of trigeminal neuralgia (TN) after hearing from a patient group, promising more clinical bandwidth for these systems.
Ethicon Endosurgery Inc. has had its hands full protecting a patent for robotic surgical systems, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal recently delivered some good news. The Federal Circuit affirmed the results of an inter partes review (IPR) of three claims for an endocutter patent, leaving Ethicon with another win in its efforts to sustain a critical patent for the robotic surgical space, and major player Intuitive Surgical Inc. coming out on the short end of the argument.