Med-tech happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Agilent Technologies, Corstrata, Dariohealth, Element Biosciences, Fesarius Therapeutics, Health Recovery Solutions.
Regulatory snapshots, including global submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Pentax Medical, Qiagen.
Three former employees of Bose Corp. are banking on their audio experience and Ozlo Sleepbuds helping the millions of people who struggle to sleep soundly each night. That prospect is music to the ears of investors Lifearc Ventures and Artis Ventures, who led Ozlo Sleep Inc.’s $10 million round to bring the wireless, in-ear headphones to market in the next few weeks.
The debate in the U.S. over the process by which the Medicare program covers new medical technologies has intensified over the past three years and the debate has now spilled onto the pages of the Journal of the American Medical Association. An article in JAMA asserts that only 44% of a group of 64 novel devices had achieved meaningful coverage and reimbursement milestones within a median of 5.7 years after FDA market authorization, adding yet more pressure on the legislative and executive branches to act to deal with what device makers characterize as the med-tech valley of death.
An estimated 10% to 20% of adolescents worldwide struggle with mental health issues. According to the CDC’s most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey, nearly 60% of teen girls in the U.S. reported feeling sad every day for at least two weeks in the previous year and 22% of high school students considered taking their own lives. Yet despite these trends, the majority of mental health conditions in young people go undiagnosed and untreated.
The proposed $875 million acquisition of Cook Medical Inc.’s reproductive health business by the Coopercompanies Inc. has been scotched, a development lauded by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in a statement describing the proposed transaction as anticompetitive. However, the FTC statement also pointed to cooperation from authorities in both the U.K. and Australia as critical in forcing the abandonment of the transaction, a signal that such cooperation is likely to grow in the future.
Med-tech companies raised $955 million from 40 transactions in July 2023, a decrease of 12.39% from the $1.09 billion raised in July 2022. The volume of med-tech financings has increased from 32 in July 2022, though it is less than the previous six months’ average of 43 and seven-month average of 42. Compared to prior years, July 2021 saw $4.78 billion raised in 74 financings, $3.15 billion from 80 transactions in July 2020 and $1.99 billion from 41 financings in July 2019.
Mirxes Holding Company Ltd. raised $50 million in a series D funding round to expand its cancer early detection blood tests, including its lead product stomach cancer blood test Gastroclear, in the Asia Pacific region. Mirxes uses RNA technology to develop diagnostic solutions for the early detection of diseases.
U.S. federal government agency recoveries under the False Claims Act (FCA) are down slightly in the first half of 2023 relative to the first half of 2022, but that doesn’t mean companies in the life sciences can afford to let their guard down. The Senate is examining two pieces of legislation that would significantly amplify the risk for device and drug makers, including a Senate bill that would eviscerate the materiality standard as set by the U.S. Supreme Court in Escobar.
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