NEW DELHI – Indian health care technology startups have gained ‘significant momentum’ over the last five years, fueled by a government push towards digitization, the uptake of technological advances and a spurt in health care apps. “The Indian health tech startup landscape has now come of age and includes a robust pipeline of ventures across both ends of the spectrum,” Sathguru director Pushpa Vijayaraghavan told BioWorld.

The news that the U.S. FDA has opened a new digital health office carries some significant expectations for stakeholders, expectations that may take time to meet. More than one participant in the Oct. 19 FDA listening session for the Digital Health Center of Excellence (DHCoE) called on the FDA to ensure that this new center provides more regulatory clarity regarding a number of products, a task that may be some time in coming, given the need to harmonize with other national and international regulatory entities.

Nec Corp.’s bioinformatics subsidiary Nec Oncoimmunity AS said it is working with Oslo University Hospital to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that will allow the team to design a T-cell diagnostic to complement the current serological tests for infectious diseases, including COVID-19.

Over the last seven months, the pandemic starkly illuminated both the tremendous potential and the significant limitations of telehealth today. Tyto Care Ltd. benefited tremendously from the increase in physician visits using its proprietary all-in-one modular device and examination platform as patients tried to avoid exposure to the novel coronavirus. It also recognized the opportunity to improve the quality of remote interactions with artificial intelligence (AI).

Intervenn Biosciences said it has identified stark differences in the glycoproteomic profile of COVID-19 patients who became very sick and people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus who were either asymptomatic or experienced only minimal effects. The contrast could help clinicians better understand the biological mechanisms of the disease and triage patients at risk of responding detrimentally to early treatments and more intensive care.

PARIS – A consortium that includes Therapanacea SAS, GE Healthcare France SAS, Orange Healthcare SA, the AP-HP group of 39 hospitals in the Paris region and the French academic society for thoracic imaging has created a database for COVID-19.

Belong.Life has expanded its digital clinical trial matching program to include patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The technology uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) that processes a patient's medical data and determines which trials in its global database are appropriate. The app typically returns results, which are prescreened by a clinical trial coordinator, in less than two days. More than 8,000 cancer patients have used the program so far.

COVID-19 stalled clinical trials, halted elective surgeries, and body slammed many med-tech companies’ revenues. Despite that, an industry report released by Ernst & Young (EY) finds that the pandemic also drove some positive changes in the med-tech industry including long-neglected attention to enterprise-wide business continuity.

An artificial intelligence machine learning model that mines electronic health record data could help physicians fight the opioid epidemic by targeting non-opioid pain treatments to patients experiencing severe pain after surgery, according to new research presented at the Anesthesiology 2020 annual meeting.

LONDON – French venture capital firm Kurma Partners has announced the first closing at €50 million (US$58.6 million) of its second fund to be wholly devoted to seed and early stage investment in diagnostics. Kurma Diagnostics 2 (KDx2) will be invested in molecular and digital diagnostics technologies being spun out of universities and research centers across Europe, backing a total of 15 companies.