Calla Lily Clinical Care Ltd. secured £1 million (US$1.3 million) in funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research to begin clinical trials of Callavid, a drug delivery technology which treats women at risk of miscarriage.

The latest obesity contender, Antag Therapeutics A/S, has dosed the first participants in a phase I trial of a glucose-dependent insulinotrophic polypeptide (GIP) agonist it said will address key gaps in the current treatment options, not least the gastrointestinal side effects seen with GLP-1 agonists.

At first glance, it appears that biopharmaceuticals dodged the latest U.S. tariff bullet; med-tech, not so much. According to the executive order President Donald Trump signed in the Rose Garden late yesterday, pharmaceuticals are one of the few things exempt from the new country-by-country reciprocal tariffs that will be going into effect over the next week. However, U.S.-based manufacturers of both drugs and devices could face supply chain disruptions, further market restrictions and increased operating costs as the new tariffs take effect and other countries retaliate.

Counterintuitively, use of cerebral embolic protection failed to reduce the incidence of stroke in the 72 hours following a transcatheter aortic valve replacement or implantation found a late-breaking clinical trial presented at ACC.25, the American College of Cardiology’s annual scientific session held March 29-31 in Chicago and simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

CMR Surgical Ltd. secured more than $200 million in funding to bring its surgical robotic system, Versius, to the U.S. market and expand elsewhere. The financing, which came in the form of equity and debt, is “highly important” for the company and comes at the right time as it is “expanding and growing nicely,” company CEO Massimiliano Colella told BioWorld.

The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) unveiled the pilot version of its AI Airlock in 2024, and the agency posted a list of the products that are taking part in this version of a regulatory sandbox.

GE Healthcare Technologies Inc. gained full ownership of Nihon Medi-Physics Co. Ltd. after acquiring the remaining 50% stake from Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. on March 31.

Two French startups, Gleamer SAS and Azmed SAS, received clearance from the U.S. FDA for their AI-powered tools for chest X-rays. They join an increasing number of companies developing software tools to help clinicians detect a range of abnormalities on images, enhancing diagnostic accuracy, reducing delays and improving patient outcomes.

It was a mixed day for Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., which disclosed separately on March 28 both the termination of a $336 million licensing deal with CS Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and upbeat plans to unveil three new oncology assets at the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research in April.