Eko Devices Inc. said Tuesday that it is collaborating with British pharma giant Astrazeneca plc to speed the development of digital health tools to improve early detection of cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure. The partnership could lead to more personalized care for heart failure patients, improving long-term outcomes.

A medical device company has partnered with a couple of investment firms to tap new technologies and help bring them back to China. Venus Medtech (Hangzhou) Inc. formed a health care investment platform, Ascendum Capital Partners, to invest in new medical devices and technologies around the world, particularly in the cardiovascular and lung disease spaces.

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) kills millions of people worldwide each year, triggered by an electrical malfunction in the heart that causes it to unexpectedly stop beating, often without warning. Health care startup Transformative AI Ltd. wants to reduce those deaths. To that end, the company has secured $1.7 million in seed funding for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven software that predicts a patient’s risk of suffering SCA based on subtle physiological changes.

The results of Reducer 1, an international, three-arm observational study of an initial 241 patients with refractory angina were remarkable, Neovasc COO Bill Little told BioWorld.

Edwards Lifesciences Corp. reported better-than-expected results when it released its second quarter earnings late July 23, with revenue down 15% to $924 million, from $1.1 billion in the same period of 2019. The results beat Wall Street consensus of $797.5 million, and reflected an uptick in surgical procedures that had been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Irvine, Calif.-based company sustained a net loss of $121.9 million, or $0.20 per share, based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), a sharp drop from $242.3 million, or $0.38 per share, in the same quarter last year. However, adjusted earnings looked brighter at $0.34 per share.

PARIS – Inheart SAS completed its first funding round of $4.2 million to improve cardiac arrhythmia treatment using medical imaging, artificial intelligence and digital simulation. This fund round was led by Elvia Partners SAS, a Parisian investment fund managed by Xavier Lazarus specializing in deep tech, and Aquitaine Science Transfer, a company accelerating technology transfer, from the University of Bordeaux.

Edwards Lifesciences Corp. has scored an approval from the U.S. FDA for the Konect Resilia aortic valved conduit, a ready-to-implant solution for bio-Bentall procedures.