Biologics, Wound Care, Infection Prevention

A small pharma company in Chicago just got big money to fight an even bigger problem: drug-resistant infections that spread in hospitals. Iterum Therapeutics has raised $65 million in an oversubscribed Series B round of funding. The money will go toward the development of sulopenem, an oral and intravenous antibiotic to treat superbugs caused by…

Axovant Sciences has announced positive preliminary results from a Phase II trial directed at reducing hallucinations in patients with dementia. Axovant Sciences is a biotech located in Bermuda, a British tropical island in the Atlantic ocean. From there, the company develops drugs against dementia. The company was founded by young biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, which has…

Siemens Healthineers announced today its CE-marked immunoassay—the Novagnost® Zika Virus IgM µ-capture Assay(1)—is now commercially available to laboratories outside of the U.S. The Novagnost Zika Virus IgM µ-capture Assay1 enables enhanced patient outcomes through differential diagnostics according to the WHO test algorithm. The assay is capable of detecting the Zika virus during the acute phase…

A woman in Nevada has been killed by a superbug that proved resistant to every antibiotic available in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said. The woman’s condition was deemed incurable, and 26 different antibiotics were tested in vain before she died in September. She was in her 70s, and had…

Terumo Corp. (TYO:4543) said today it inked a Japanese distribution deal with Xenex to distribute its Xenex LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robots in the region. The LightStrike device is designed to use pulsed xenon ultraviolet room disinfection technology to remove pathogens such as C. diff, staphylococcus aureus and carbapenem-resistent Enterobacteriaceae, Terumo said. The Xenex LightStrike device has also…

(NEWSER) – The Food and Drug Administration has banned only the second medical device ever, and it’s sort of an unlikely one: powdered medical gloves. Powder has for decades been added to (now a small minority) of latex medical gloves to help healthcare workers put them on and remove them more easily. But since the…

Drexel University researchers are one step closer to offering a new treatment for the millions of patients who suffer from slow-healing, chronic wounds. The battery-powered applicator — as small and light as a watch — is the first portable and potentially wearable device to heal wounds with low-frequency ultrasound. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)…

WALTHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Augmenix Inc., (http://www.spaceoar.com), a medical technology company that develops, manufactures, and sells proprietary biodegradable hydrogels that separate and protect organs at risk during radiotherapy, announced today that with the support of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the American Urological Association (AUA), the American Medical Association (AMA) has granted a Category…

If you’re tracking emerging infectious agents in the United States, it’s time to add a new one to the list. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified 13 cases of a fungal infection first seen in Japan in 2009. The culprit is called Candida auris. Candida auris is a fungus that can cause…

Implanted medical devices like catheters, surgical mesh and dialysis systems are ideal surfaces on which bacteria can colonize and form hard-to-kill sheets called biofilms. Known as biofouling, this contamination of devices is responsible for more than half of the 1.7 million hospital-acquired infections in the United States each year. In a report published in Biomaterials…