Biopharma industry leaders in China who were the first to experience the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic shared their thoughts during a closing plenary session of the virtual Bio-Europe Spring 2020 meeting.

The U.S. FDA has OK’d expanded labeling for Physiq Inc.’s continuous remote monitoring system, Pinpointiq, for use during the COVID-19 pandemic. The machine learning-based platform, including Multivariate Change Index (MCI), will allow clinicians to track physiologic changes in homebound, quarantined or high-risk patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 – freeing up hospital beds for the most severe cases and reducing exposure of doctors and nurses to the highly contagious disease.

Leuven, Belgium-based Midiagnostics NV, which is looking to bring miniaturized, rapid, blood-based tests with built-in connectivity to both patients and clinicians, reported the completion of a €14 million (US$15.4 million) investment round. The company intends to use the funds to speed the development of its nanofluidic processor on a chip and prepare it for industrial-scale manufacturing.

More than a dozen robotics researchers expressed the need for robots to play a greater role in managing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, as well as in future preparedness. They pointed to three broad medical areas where robots can make a difference: clinical care with applications such as telemedicine and decontamination; logistics for delivery and handling of medical waste; and reconnaissance such as quarantine enforcement.