LONDON – After the hard, solitary slog through months of pandemic, U.K. biotech finally convened in person, buoyed by the contribution the sector has made to dealing with COVID-19, and evidently pleased to be face-to-face once more.

Medtronic plc’s Hugo robotic-assisted surgery system has received a CE mark for urologic and gynecologic procedures, paving the way for commercialization in Europe. The approval is a key milestone for the Dublin-headquartered company, following the launch of Hugo in Latin America and India. The company is prioritizing robotics as a major growth opportunity, but will face tough competition in the space as it goes head-to-head with established market leader Intuitive Surgical Inc. According to Medtronic, Europe could provide a significant opportunity due to its current low uptake of surgical robotic procedures.

Curevac AG, once a forerunner in COVID-19 vaccine development but later surpassed, said it would terminate its first effort in the field, CVnCoV, withdrawing it from a rolling review at the EMA to focus instead on development of second-generation mRNA vaccine candidates with Glaxosmithkline plc.

Mindmaze SA raised $125 million in a debt financing round led by Albacore Capital Group to expand its virtual reality-based digital neurotherapeutics platform. Total funding for Mindmaze now exceeds $235.7 million to date. Investors include the Hinduja Group, Venture Kick, the Foundation for Technological Innovation, and Leonardo DiCaprio. The Mindmaze platform assesses and restores cognitive and motor function in individuals who have sustained neural injuries or impairment from degeneration and aging.

Calpro AS and Ampersand Health Ltd. are combining technologies to provide a self-management and remote monitoring solution for people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The partnership will integrate Oslo, Norway-based Calpro’s smart biomarker test with Ampersand’s digital therapeutic app My IBD Care. The companies said the collaboration could help reduce the administrative burden of IBD patient care.

Cambridge, U.K.-based Astrazeneca plc has new data from its long-acting COVID-19 antibody combination, AZD-7442, which aims to provide longer protection, potentially for up to a year. Latest data show the intramuscularly injected drug achieved a statistically significant reduction in severe COVID-19 or death compared to placebo in non-hospitalized patients with mild to moderate symptomatic disease.

Regulatory agencies are starting to catch up on their guidance agendas, including the European Union’s Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG), which has posted a guidance for risk classification. Rather than provide a list of risk classes for specific device types, the guidance provides a framework by which the manufacturer does its own evaluation of the inherent risk of the device, opening the door to disagreements between the manufacturer and its notified body.

PARIS – A Russian research consortium has discovered that coating magnetic nanoparticles with a non-magnetic silica shell significantly decreased the viability of cancer cells in a low frequency alternating magnetic field. This discovery may augur new therapeutic prospects for nanotechnology combined with medical imaging.

Exscientia plc has raised $510.4 million in an upsized Nasdaq IPO and private funding round as it pushes forward with its artificial intelligence-based drug discovery mission. The Oxford, U.K.-based company aims to out-license some of its candidates to other companies, while saving others for its own pipeline.