The FDA has issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for Becton, Dickinson & Co.’s (BD) Veritor At-Home COVID-19 test – a rapid COVID-19 digital antigen test. The test, which is designed for home use, uses a mobile app from Los Angeles-based Scanwell Health Inc. that provides instructions on how to collect and transfer the nasal swab sample to the test stick. The smartphone camera is then used to capture, analyze and interpret results within 15 minutes. BD said it will initially be rolled out to businesses, schools and governments looking to provide a self-testing option.

Smart Meter LLC has launched its Iglucose blood glucose monitoring system for managing gestational diabetes. According to the CDC, every year, 2% to 10% of, or 700,000, pregnancies in the U.S. are affected by gestational diabetes, with incidences increasing worldwide. Usually tested around week 24 of pregnancy, gestational diabetes can cause severe complications in women including preeclampsia, hypoglycemia and babies born large for gestational age.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said it has developed a novel method of sample preparation for tests for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which could trim time and costs for diagnostic testing for COVID-19. This approach bypasses the RNA extraction step, thus eliminating the need for some supplies, and NIH said this technique is available for co-development or licensing with the private sector, giving the smart testing company access to a patent-protected technology with an existing demand already built in.

PARIS – A consortium led by French clinical and scientific experts has just published results in the Journal of Experimental Medicine of a study showing the contribution of a new simplified diagnostic test in better identifying the level of contagiousness of subjects infected with SARS-CoV-2.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is hardly alone in its antipathy toward Illumina Inc.'s acquisition of Grail Inc., and FTC attorney Susan Musser said Aug. 24 that Illumina’s dominance of the market for next-generation sequencing (NGS) is perhaps the key aspect of the FTC’s case. Musser invoked the wide number of companies that jumped into the fray to develop a vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic as an illustration of the need to maintain competition in the multicancer testing space.

Fujifilm Holdings Corp. has bagged the Japanese Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA)’s approval for CXR-AID, its artificial intelligence (AI) powered chest X-ray analysis system developed in collaboration with Lunit Inc.

Illumina Inc.’s acquisition of cancer diagnostic specialist Grail Inc. is on go in a $7.1 billion transaction that is structured so that it can be unwound with limited impact on Illumina. However, a number of regulatory entities are closely scrutinizing the deal for a potential regulatory challenge, a fact of life that shaved nearly 10% off the value of the company’s shares in early Aug. 19 trading, and which could ultimately scuttle the transaction altogether.