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The Israeli startup CorNeat Vision has received approval to conduct clinical trials of a synthetic cornea that bio-integrates with the human eye.

The Health Ministry-approved trial of the CorNeat KPro will be run at Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva on 10 patients suffering from corneal blindness who are either not candidates for or have experienced one or more failed cornea transplants, the company announced last week.

Corporate boards have been debating the need to invest in innovation as a driver of future growth for the better part of a decade.

And while many enterprises have demonstrated an organizational commitment to innovation through standing up dedicated teams, allocating budget, and developing bets for the future, innovation leaders now face a sizable challenge. As the world grapples with the current public health crisis and its long-tail impacts on society and the economy, many CEOs and their boards of directors are looking for reasons not to invest in innovation.

🤔 The WHO Chief is urging African nations to take part in clinical trials for a vaccine, yet is sending a team to China 7 months after the fact, and after China destroyed samples. The same WHO also is complaining about countries handling of the outbreak.

The UN body announced that over 1.4 million infections of COVID-19 are accounted for by health care sector workers, at least 10% of all cases. EU leaders have met to discuss a recovery package. Follow DW for the latest.

The global health crisis is accelerating meta-trends and hurling civilization towards the transhuman future. The disruptors are being disrupted, and the rush is on to digitize and virtualize everything in weeks’ time that otherwise would have taken a few years to play out. Recent surveys show that we have compressed five years in business and consumer digital adoption within a couple of months. https://www.ecstadelic.net/top-stories/the-great-reset-2020-…-look-like

#GreatReset2020

Continue reading “The Great Reset 2020: What Would the Near Future Post-Pandemic World Look Like?” »

The human microbiome—our own personalized bacteria profile—plays a part in our health. The different parts of our body, from our skin to our gut, each have their own microbial profile. A team of researchers decided to explore the bacteria living inside our nose, publishing this week in the journal Cell Reports. Microbiologist Sarah Lebeer, one of the authors of the study, discusses what beneficial bacteria reside in our nose—and how this could be used to create a probiotic for upper respiratory infections.

A team of researchers created a profile of the nose microbiome to help create future probiotics for upper respiratory infections.

Moderna, Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate mRNA-1273 will advance to a 30,000-participant Phase III trial later this month, following publication of additional positive Phase I data from a study led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Moderna said its closely-watched COVID-19 vaccine candidate mRNA-1273 will advance to a 30,000-participant Phase III trial later this month, following publication of additional positive Phase I data from a study led by the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

The Phase III “COVE” study (NCT04470427) is expected to begin registration at study centers nationwide beginning on July 21 with study initiation set for six days later. The primary endpoint of the randomized, 1:1 placebo-controlled trial will be the prevention of symptomatic COVID-19 disease. Key secondary endpoints include prevention of severe COVID-19 disease as defined by the need for hospitalization, and prevention of infection by SARS-CoV-2, Moderna said.

Continue reading “Moderna Advancing COVID-19 Vaccine into Phase III after Positive Initial Clinical Results” »

No industry will be spared.

The pharmaceutical business is perhaps the only industry on the planet, where to get the product from idea to market the company needs to spend about a decade, several billion dollars, and there is about 90% chance of failure. It is very different from the IT business, where only the paranoid survive but a business where executives need to plan decades ahead and execute. So when the revolution in artificial intelligence fueled by credible advances in deep learning hit in 2013–2014, the pharmaceutical industry executives got interested but did not immediately jump on the bandwagon. Many pharmaceutical companies started investing heavily in internal data science R&D but without a coordinated strategy it looked more like re-branding exercise with the many heads of data science, digital, and AI in one organization and often in one department. And while some of the pharmaceutical companies invested in AI startups no sizable acquisitions were made to date. Most discussions with AI startups started with “show me a clinical asset in Phase III where you identified a target and generated a molecule using AI?” or “how are you different from a myriad of other AI startups?” often coming from the newly-minted heads of data science strategy who, in theory, need to know the market.

However, some of the pharmaceutical companies managed to demonstrate very impressive results in the individual segments of drug discovery and development. For example, around 2018 AstraZeneca started publishing in generative chemistry and by 2019 published several impressive papers that were noticed by the community. Several other pharmaceutical companies demonstrated impressive internal modules and Eli Lilly built an impressive AI-powered robotics lab in cooperation with a startup.

Continue reading “Deep Dive Into Big Pharma AI Productivity: One Study Shaking The Pharmaceutical Industry” »

British Health Minister Matt Hancock said that the government would not recommend that office workers wear face masks while at work.

“We will not be recommending masks in the office,” Hancock told Sky News on Wednesday.

Nearly a dozen Indian states have imposed a partial lockdown in high-risk areas after spikes in coronavirus cases, with the country’s infections topping 900,000 just three days after crossing the 800,000 mark.

Cheap paper and pencil-based medical wearables could one day replace expensive health monitors.