Research focused on finding viable solutions to counter the COVID-19 pandemic continues at an explosive pace with a total of 588 potential therapeutics and vaccines at the forefront of scientific efforts launched by industry, academia and government.

LONDON – Owkin Inc. added a further $18 million to its series A, bringing the amount raised in the round to $70 million and equipping the company to push forward with its federated learning approach to applying artificial intelligence (AI) to the analysis of health data.

The question of prices for a COVID-19 vaccine have raged in recent days. Gary Disbrow, acting director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), told members of a Senate committee that vaccines developed with the help of taxpayer funding will come with an appropriate reduction in price. However, CDC Director Robert Redfield emphasized that the cold-chain distribution system for those products requires the same kind of at-risk investment that is used for vaccine development.

Startup Nanodiagnostics Inc. has been working for years toward a panel of point-of-care tests, helmed by one for traumatic brain injury.

With the push for value-based care, health care players – from manufacturers, to providers, to payers – are looking for ways to improve patient quality while reducing the costs of care. Advanced technologies, including digital health and artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools, are a major part of the equation, but companies face several challenges and barriers to adoption. To that end, management consultancy has launched a new Health Tech website featuring a Health Tech Industry Accounting Guide and other helpful advice for health-tech companies.

The checkpoint molecule CD47 has high hopes riding on it in oncology as being the innate immune equivalent of PD-1. Multiple companies are developing blockers against CD47 and/or its ligand, SIRPa, for the treatment of various tumors.