PARIS – Spartha Medical SAS reported an award of $2.7 million in grants with further, undisclosed equity financing from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, a body run by the European Commission established to make direct equity investment in European Union companies. This fund will be used to initiate clinical evaluation of its multifunctional coating technique.
Molecular diagnostics could dramatically improve care for one of the most common infections women face, vaginitis. A study by Becton, Dickinson and Co. (BD) found that clinicians miss more than 45% of positive cases and misidentify an additional 12% of negative cases as positives when compared to diagnostic findings.
A team led by researchers from the ETH Zürich and the University of Basel has used a combination of mass spectrometry data and machine learning to predict antibiotic resistance of clinical bacterial samples. The results, which were published in the Jan. 10, 2022, issue of Nature Medicine, could speed the identification of optimal antibiotic regimens for patients.
Researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, the University of Queensland, Griffith University, the University of Adelaide and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have unlocked a key to making existing front-line antibiotics work again against Streptococcuspneumoniae, the bacteria that cause pneumonia.
An international study led by scientists at the University of Exeter in the U.K. suggests how to combine antibiotic and bacteriophage therapy optimally, in order to reduce antibiotic use and potentially prevent multidrug resistance in bacteria.
Xandar Kardian Inc. closed a $10 million series A funding round to support the rollout of the company’s contactless health monitoring solution. Phoenix Venture Partners led the round with participation from Portfolia Active Aging & Longevity Fund, Taronga Ventures and others. “With the new financing round, Xandar Kardian looks forward to expanding its core team in Toronto and in the United States, in addition to placing increased emphasis on R&D and mass production for its technologies,” Xandar Kardian co-founder and CEO Sam Yang told BioWorld.
Memed Diagnostics Ltd. has published new data from an EU Commission funded clinical trial evaluating its blood test for differentiating bacterial and viral infections. The prospective, multicenter cohort study, titled “AutoPilot-Dx,” was carried out in emergency wards in Italy and Germany. The goals of the study were to validate the performance of Memed’s BV test in a broad pediatric population with respiratory tract infections or fever without source and estimate its potential to impact antibiotic use.
Color Health Inc. followed its rainbow to another pot of gold, collecting $100 million in a series E financing round led by Kindred Ventures and funds advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Returning funding round participants also included General Catalyst, the company’s long-time lead investor, Viking Global Investors and Emerson Collective. With the latest cash infusion, the company’s total funds raised to date reached $378 million and its valuation of $4.6 billion propelled it into the top dozen health care unicorns. Founded in 2017 as Color Genomics, the Burlingame, Calif.-based company has raised more than two-thirds of its total funding this year with today’s series E following the close of a $167 million series D round in January.
As a counterpoint to the raft of wellness-promoting smartwatches, Purdue University and Physiq Inc. have developed a smartwatch algorithm that flags illness. A year after launching their co-development program, the two organizations reported they have created an algorithm designed for smartwatches that enables detection of early signs of infection. The algorithm is already in use in a number of Physiq’s customers’ applications, Physiq Chief Scientific Officer Stephan Wegerich told BioWorld.
Selux Diagnostics Inc. has received breakthrough device designation from the FDA for its Next Generation Phenotyping (NGP) platform for positive blood culture and sterile body fluid samples. The NGP technology is a diagnostic platform designed to help with the delivery of personalized antimicrobial therapies within 24 hours. The Boston-based company is hoping the technology can tackle the global antibiotic resistance crisis. According to the World Health Organization, antimicrobial resistance is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity.