One Wall Street analyst on the 2018 earnings call for Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE:BSX) wondered if the Marlborough, Mass.-based med-tech giant had bitten off more than it could chew with its 10 disclosed acquisitions from last year that were worth more than $6.4 billion. The largest deal by far was announced in late November for British interventional oncology company Btg plc for $4.2 billion; that acquisition is expected to close during the first half of 2019.
Developing a new administration route for an existing FDA-approved drug is a classic drug development strategy. That's precisely what Incarda Therapeutics Inc. has long been doing; it's in the midst of a phase II study for Inrhythm, an inhaled flecainide drug-device combo to treat recent-onset paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF).
Large-molecule drugs such as insulin and other proteins require delivery via injection or intravenous infusion. That typically limits their routine use to the most dire circumstances, given the associated inconvenience, expense and pain. To address that, drug delivery guru Robert Langer and other MIT researchers have teamed up with Novo Nordisk A/S to enable the delivery of injectable drugs via an ingestible pill that delivers a shot into the lining of the stomach.
A brain implant that translates thought into speech for those without that capacity sounds like science fiction. But now New York-based Columbia University researchers have become the first to generate sounds that are intelligible to human listeners via interpretation of brain signals. They made this promising advance by applying deep learning to neural data derived from five epilepsy patients during monitoring to identify a portion of their brain for surgical removal to quell severe tremors.
Critical care and surgery player Teleflex Inc. is already on the way to making good on its most recent acquisition of Essential Medical Inc. The deal dates to early October 2018 and was for $60 million in cash up front plus up to $100 million on undisclosed sales and regulatory milestones. Teleflex acquired Essential for its Manta vascular closure device for large bore arteriotomies. It was CE marked when the deal closed, but now it has gained a U.S. FDA PMA approval to close femoral arterial access sites after the use of relatively large devices or sheaths in endovascular catheterization procedures.
A pill or a device that is swallowable and can dispense a drug over weeks or longer has long been of interest to researchers, given how common poor patient compliance is with medication regimens. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a hydrogel device that is soft but tough, can remain in the stomach for about a month, and can easily be excreted.
