Carthera SA received an additional €4.5 million (US$4.9 million) from investors to take its series B funding round to €42 million despite a tough fundraising environment for med-tech companies. Frédéric Sottilini, CEO of Carthera, told BioWorld that the strong investor interest was testament to their confidence in the company’s Sonocloud technology for brain disorder treatment.
Akadeum Life Sciences Inc. hopes to transform the world of cell therapy with the Alerion cell separation system, which it plans to launch in the next 12 months, Brandon McNaughton, founder and CEO of Akadeum, told BioWorld. The instrument will provide a closed system for separating T cells from a leukopak using Akadeum’s buoyancy-activated cell-sorting (BACS) microbubble technology.
Angle plc’s Parsortix system, which captures and harvest circulating tumor cells (CTCs) for liquid biopsy analysis, has been used in breakthrough work by researchers at the University of New Mexico looking into the role of CTC gene expression in the progression of melanoma brain metastasis. The researchers used the Parsortix system to harvest CTCs for analysis and concluded that “… gene expression in CTCs could be pivotal to prescribing more targeted treatment based on the needs of the patient.”
On Dec. 1, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware granted Natera Inc. a permanent injunction in its patent infringement suit against Archerdx Inc. and its former parent company, Invitae Corp., adding another block to the intellectual property wall of protection around the market dominance of Signatera, Natera’s molecular residual disease (MRD) assay.
Using minimally invasive focal therapies to treat prostate cancer are much more cost-effective and can improve patients’ quality of life compared to surgery or radiotherapy, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Economics.
Broncus Holding Corp. subsidiary Broncus Hangzhou is acquiring Chinese medical device company Hangzhou Jingliang in the form of an equity transfer agreement for ¥5.4 million (US$758,000). The move will strengthen Broncus’ R&D capabilities in the flexible robotic space and will allow the company to offer pulmonology diagnostics and therapeutic solutions covering the complete product life cycle.
Etcembly emerged from stealth mode in August with something it regards as seemingly impossible: A machine learning platform that has the ability to predict and engineer – at never-seen-before scale and speed – T-cell receptors (TCR) that enable bispecific T-cell engager antibodies targeting cancer cells to be produced.
Therabionic GmbH received U.S. FDA humanitarian device exemption (HDE) for its P1 device for at-home treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma, which accounts for 80% of all liver cancers, in patients who have failed first- and second-line therapies.
The acquisition of Icad Inc.’s brachytherapy business by Elekta AB takes the company a step closer to achieving its goal of providing hope to the millions of people dealing with cancer, John Lapré, president of Elekta’s Brachy and Neuro Solutions unit, told BioWorld. Elekta paid approximately $5.5 million for Icad’s subsidiary Xoft. In addition, most of Xoft’s staff and its main facility in San José, Calif., was transferred to the company.