Sunbird Bio Inc.’s Neural EV-tau aggregate assay demonstrated 92% correlation with PET scans in identifying individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, a study presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia, on July 30 found.

C2N Diagnostics LLC’s two-factor blood test, Precivity AD2, showed 90% accuracy in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease in a study presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia on July 28 and simultaneously published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The following day, Quanterix Corp. presented results from its study that showed a multi-marker approach could maintain the 90% accuracy of its Lucentad test, while reducing the percentage of uncertain results from more than 30% to 10%, in line with the intermediate results demonstrated by Precivity.

It’s a quad-pack for Edwards Lifescience Corp. as it reported its third and fourth deals this month – agreements to buy Jenavalve Technology Inc. and Endotronix Inc. for a combined up-front cost of about $1.2 billion plus up to $445 million in contingent milestone payments.

Owens & Minor Inc. plans to acquire Rotech Healthcare Holdings Inc. in a $1.36 billion cash transaction expected to close by year end. The deal shows serious commitment to a strategy outlined in December to build out its home health business.

Paige AI Inc.’s partnership with Microsoft Corp., announced last September, appears to have paid off quickly, with a study published in Nature Medicine demonstrating that their jointly developed image-based artificial intelligence model, Virchow, detects 16 cancer types as well or better than tissue-specific clinical-grade models.

Exthera Medical Corp.’s Oncobind procedure hemoperfusion filter reduced circulating tumor cells in blood samples of patients with pancreatic cancer in a study published in Nature’s BJC Reports. "Researchers observed on average a 94% reduction in circulating tumor cells with a single use of our technology,” Exthera CEO Eric Borger said.

Novocuff Inc. closed an oversubscribed $26 million series A funding round to support further development of the Novocuff cervical control system, which is designed to reduce preterm births by closing the cervix in high-risk pregnancies. The funds will enable the company to undertake a U.S. multi-center pivotal clinical trial, pursue marketing authorization, expand its team and begin early-stage commercialization of the device.

Edwards Lifesciences Inc. struck three deals totaling €15 million (US$16.3 million) with Affluent Medical SAS to gain access to its mitral valve technology. Edwards secured an exclusive option to acquire Affluent subsidiary Kephalios, which makes the Kalios adjustable mitral ring, for €5 million (US$5.44 million); paid €5 million more for global, non-exclusive licensing of Affluent’s intellectual property related to its biomimetic cardiac mitral valve replacement technology; and invested a further €5 million to acquire 9.21% of Affluent.

Know Labs Inc.’s radiofrequency sensor accurately classified blood glucose levels more than 93% of the time, a study published in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics found. That’s good news for people with diabetes, who may be able to use the non-invasive technology to avoid not just the needle sticks that used to be the hallmark of diabetes management, but even the microneedles used in current continuous glucose systems.

Illumina Inc. wasted no time in returning to the M&A front, closing the acquisition of Fluent Biosciences Inc. on July 9 with cash on hand, just a fortnight after freeing itself of Grail Inc. Fluent’s single-cell analysis technology expands Illumina’s presence in the life sciences, possibly marking a turn away from the diagnostics focus that led to the Grail debacle. The acquisition price was not disclosed.