Standard newborn screening can detect dozens of inherited diseases, but genomics technology enables testing for hundreds of them. A North Carolina program evaluating the feasibility of bringing genomics to newborn screening is expanding with an initial goal of testing 5,000 babies in the next year.

Quest Diagnostics is acquiring liquid biopsy company Haystack Oncology. The startup’s technology is used for identifying cancer patients who need adjuvant therapy.

Check out news from BioMEMS Diagnostics, Rx Redefined, Ferrum Health and Avanlee Care.

Process improvement and advanced technology can also help relieve the staffing burden that medical laboratories are facing.

Thermo Fisher Scientific’s acquisition of The Binding Site brings a company that specializes in diagnostic tests for blood cancers and immune system disorders. It’s Thermo Fisher’s biggest acquisition since its 2021 buyout of contract research organization PPD.

Targeted drugs and immunotherapies are among the advances that contribute to declines in incidence and deaths from non-small cell lung cancer, according to the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer. But the trends are on the rise for some other cancers and racial disparities persist, highlighting the need to better understand these differences.

The breast cancer solution will help determine which patients would benefit from targeted therapies and which patients could avoid chemotherapy. Meanwhile, the colorectal solution will be able to match patients with the most effective treatment sooner.

Beyond preparedness policies, we need to think forward to policies that rapidly identify the spread of zoonotic disease to prevent or minimize the impact.

Advanced technologies, such as AI-guided robotics and automation, offer a potential solution to the provider shortage by freeing healthcare professionals from repetitive and time-consuming tasks and allow clinicians to focus on tasks that require a specialized touch.

Check out new developments from BioMEMS Diagnostics, Neuroflow, Druglike, Health Note, and Rhinostics.

Check out news from Equiva, Canvas Medical, Particle Health, Fold Health, and Nucleus Genomics.

With the information contained in a simple 30-second voice sample, providers can help patients get ahead of future health issues and prescribe or adjust treatment plans as needed.

MedArrive providers will use Spect’s artificial intelligence-enabled telemedicine platform to screen patients at home for eye diseases such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration.

The point of care diagnostics and testing market has climbed dramatically with the rise of the Covid-19 public health crisis. We’re seeking applications for diagnostics startups who would like to take part in INVEST Pitch Perfect Diagnostics 2.0 track at the conference, scheduled to take place March 28-30 in Chicago.

It turns out that the laws governing traditional Medicare don’t provide for coverage of self-administered diagnostic tests. Medicare patients are left to seek free tests other ways, including through the administration’s new website, covidtests.gov, and at community centers.

The transaction also brought a $200 million investment for Sema4 from life science investors including Pfizer, which can help the combined company’s goal of translating insights from genomics data and analytics into making precision medicine a standard of care.

To improve heart attack prevention, there is an urgent unmet need to modernize our approach from late-stage symptom-driven care to direct disease-based care, a care paradigm that addresses heart attack risk in all patients across the entire continuum of heart disease severity.

What draws investors to healthcare startups? In this series in the runup to MedCity INVEST in Chicago, we’ll highlight these perspectives. If you’re a startup in pharma tech, value-based care and care coordination, diagnostics or remote patient monitoring/smart devices, apply to our Pitch Perfect contest today.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought a laser focus to the critical and immediate need for next-generation sequencing tools that can generate invaluable data for not only identifying emerging variants but for understanding the functional and epidemiological consequences of variant-specific mutations.

Genetic tests are becoming available for a wider range of applications. During a CB Insights panel discussion, Phil Febbo of Illumina and Alicia Zhou of Color explained what they think needs to happen to make these tests accessible and affordable for more people.

The Toronto-based startup is applying AI to ultrasound signals. It differentiates healthy tissue from diseased tissue by measuring its acoustic properties.

INVEST, scheduled for March 28-30, 2022 in Chicago, marks a return to in-person events for MedCity News. The conference, held in partnership with Mid-America Healthcare Investors Network, will spotlight healthcare innovation, investment trends, and share insights from healthcare executives.

Recognized as Method of the Year by Nature in 2020, spatial transcriptomics employs advanced imaging methods with novel chemistry techniques that stand to dramatically expand our understanding of health and disease.

General Electric plans to spin out its healthcare business into a publicly traded entity in 2023. It’s part of a broader restructuring as the company looks to turn around its business.

The company expanded a recall of its at-home Covid-19 tests due to a manufacturing error. The FDA upped the recall to a Class 1 recall, its most serious level, after noting a higher-than-acceptable false positive rate for the affected tests. 

Randy Pritchard, Pillar Biosciences CEO, highlighted some of the progress the oncology solutions company has made in developing in-vitro diagnostics in response to emailed questions from MedCity News.

New semiquantitative tests offer a more granular understanding of our protective immunity, not only identifying Covid-19 antibodies but providing direct, individualized measures of neutralizing antibody levels. 

Utilizing POC testing for sepsis is a pragmatic solution for risk-stratification of new patients, helping physicians to prioritize those for treatment based on the severity of their condition.

A new service from MedCity News is designed to add momentum to lead generation campaigns.

The Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization for an at-home Covid-19 and flu test kit by Labcorp. It uses a test that was developed by Roche and authorized last year.