With an eye toward helping those potentially suffering from COVID-19, Mountain View, Calif.-based Alivecor Inc. said its six-lead electrocardiogram (ECG), known as the Kardiamobile 6L, now is allowed for use in the measurement of a patient's QTc and detection of QT prolongation. The Kardiamobile 6L enables patients to take a six-lead ECG outside a doctor’s office.

With the number of COVID-19 cases continuing to rise and with people social distancing and quarantining, at-home diagnostics and telehealth offer the means for doctors and patients to get vital answers and care without meeting face to face. Now, Los Angeles-based Scanwell Health has gained exclusive rights to license and distribute a rapid serology test from Innovita Biological Technology Co. Ltd., of Hebei, China, for at-home testing of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order enabling the Defense Production Act, which gives the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services broader leeway to conscript industrial production to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak.

As COVID-19 testing remains elusive in the U.S., much of the nation’s focus has started to shift to how to treat the presumed millions of patients who are already or soon to be infected with the novel coronavirus.

The U.S. capacity for SARS-CoV-2 testing is limited by several items, including the swabs used to collect patient specimens, but the supply of reagents has been front and center recently. Despite those concerns, several private test makers said they are quickly ramping up production, including Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., of Waltham, Mass., which said it has enough supplies of all types on hand to provide 2 million reactions per week, a volume that should increase to 5 million per week in April.

As the world goes to war with COVID-19, the U.S. is ripping open the purse strings to fund mobilization against both the coronavirus and the economic devastation it’s causing.

With the high need for ventilators in the face of COVID-19, Ventec Life Systems, of Bothell, Wash., is stepping up with its multifunction ventilator, known as VOCSN, for ventilation, oxygen, cough, suction and nebulization.

Google sister company Verily Life Sciences LLC has been under an unprecedented amount of scrutiny since it was promoted over the weekend by President Donald Trump as responsible for a nationwide information and testing program for the emerging novel coronavirus.

Chronic disease patients are facing serious risks both from keeping away from necessary care settings, as well as from potential COVID-19 infection. One in five chronic disease patients was already starting to avoid seeking care in physician’s offices and hospitals, according to a survey that started early last week of a panel of 1,300 chronic disease patients across several indications.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has posted new legislation that would bolster antitrust enforcement and deter anticompetitive behavior in the private sector, but the bill faces considerable opposition. Glenn Lammi of the Washington Legal Foundation told BioWorld that the legislation would blunt investment in the life sciences due to provisions that would make the possession of a patent an indication of legally actionable anticompetitive behavior.