Stryker has acquired OrthoSensor, a former Fierce 15 winner focused on applying digital technologies and big data to total joint replacements.

After gathering multiple emergency authorizations from the FDA last year for COVID-19 testing and self-sampling kits, Color has now raised $167 million in venture capital financing to help scale up its work to larger populations—and expand into the next phase of the pandemic by supporting digital vaccine logistics.

The immune pathway known as stimulator of interferon genes (STING) has long been of interest in the oncology community because activating it creates an inflammatory environment that should improve the ability of immune cells to attack cancer. But experimental STING-activating treatments have produced mixed results in clinical trials.

After COVID-19 testing sales pushed the company’s quarterly income to over $1.3 billion last year, Hologic is beginning to spend some of that cash—albeit conservatively. The company kicked off 2021 with a $64 million tuck-in acquisition of a German manufacturer of breast cancer biopsy markers and guidance equipment.

In a first for the contract research organization, Parexel has hired Clare Grace, Ph.D., as its first-ever chief patient officer, with a focus on boosting clinical trial diversity.

2020 didn’t match 2018’s record-breaking performance in the new drug approvals department, but it came pretty darn close.

A standardized “Artificial Pancreas (AP) Dashboard” should provide easy to use single-page hybrid closed-loop system (HCL) reporting for insulin-requiring patients with diabetes. The AP Dashboard will help standardize HCL reporting similar to standardized CGM reporting and an electrocardiogram (EKG) and will be likely to help improve glycemic control and reduce hypoglycemia.

Multiple drugmakers agreed to cut prices of some of their newest drugs by as much as 50% in order to receive coverage from China’s national insurance program.

Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group closed $500 million in new funds that will be used to accelerate startup tech and life science companies primarily in the Pacific Northwest.

Neurological diseases of the brain such as dementia, autism and schizophrenia are now a growing social problem. Nevertheless, studies on their definitive cause are still insufficient. Recently, a POSTECH research team has identified the mechanism in which such neurological diseases occur, thus solving the enigma to treating them.