NEW YORK – The Delaware Court of Chancery last week approved a settlement in a case between Myriad Genetics and certain shareholders. Under the terms of the settlement, the plaintiff dropped their case against Myriad and Myriad agreed to pay the plaintiff $950,000 of attorneys' fees and expenses. The settlement included no admission of liability, wrongdoing, or responsibility by any of the parties.
Europa Biosite said last week that it acquired Oxford, UK-based AMSBIO, a supplier of life science products and services with expertise in biospecimens, stem cell research, 3D cell culture, glycobiology, and molecular biology, for an undisclosed amount. AMSBIO has 30 employees and has an office in the US and the Netherlands. Europa Biosite is a supplier of life science products and services that has 150 employees and consists of one biospecimen service provider, Research Donors, and six distribution companies: Biomol in Germany, Cambridge Bioscience in the UK and Ireland, LubioScience in Switzerland, Nordic Biosite in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Sanbio in the Benelux countries, and Szabo-Scandic in Austria.
Mount Sinai Health System said last week that it has opened the Hamilton and Amabel James Center for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health. The center, which a spokesperson said took five years to complete at a cost of about $100 million, will combine artificial intelligence with data science and genomics. It is located at the Mount Sinai Hospital campus in Manhattan and will initially house approximately 40 principal investigators, as well as 250 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, computer scientists, and support staff. It was in part supported by a gift from Hamilton James, executive VP of investment firm Blackstone, and his wife Amabel James. The center will house several institutes, including the Institute for Genomic Health and Division of Medical Genetics and the Institute for Personalized Medicine.
Diagnostics developer DeepUll announced this week that it has received breakthrough device designation from the US Food and Drug Administration for a sepsis test that detects pathogens directly from blood. The Ullcore BSI test runs on the firm's Ullcore sample-to-answer benchtop analyzer and detects up to 95 percent of pathogens that can cause sepsis from 8 milliliters of whole blood, with 52 reportable results.
Thermo Fisher Scientific said this week that it has completed the repurchase of $1 billion (1.9 million shares) of its common stock. As of Dec. 3, $3 billion remained available under the company’s share repurchase authorization.
Health management platform company Function Health said this week that it will make Grail’s Galleri test available to eligible members. The company offers more than 100 laboratory tests, along with healthcare advice, to its more than 100,000 members in the US for $499 per year. Grail’s multi-cancer early detection blood test screens for several types of cancer and is recommended for adults with an elevated risk of cancer, including those age 50 years or older.
Precision medicine firm OncoHost said this week that its Cary, North Carolina-based CLIA lab has received accreditation from the College of American Pathologists (CAP). The company runs its proteomic PROphet blood test out of the laboratory. PROphet measures the levels of roughly 7,000 proteins, analyzing expression patterns to predict whether a patient is likely to respond to a given cancer therapy. The company's initial offering is intended to guide decision-making around first-line treatment with immunotherapy in individuals with non-small cell lung cancer.
Alpro Group, Malaysia’s largest prescription pharmacy chain, said this week that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with AGTC Genomics. Under the agreement, AGTC will provide pharmacogenomics and nutrigenomics testing services, which will be available at Alpro pharmacies across the country. The partners will also launch educational initiatives to raise awareness about genetic testing.
Bionano Genomics said this week that its stockholders have approved the issuance of up to an aggregate of 35,026,272 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of the Series A warrants and Series B warrants issued in connection with a private placement in July. The Series warrants have an exercise price of $.571 per share, and the aggregate gross proceeds from the offering were approximately $10 million.
Foundation Medicine has awarded two grants of undisclosed amounts to organizations working to address disparities in biomarker testing for breast and prostate cancer, the company announced this week. The company originally issued an open call for grant proposals in April, requesting that they include collaboration between two separate organizations. The 2024 grant recipients are: Living Beyond Breast Cancer and Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Jefferson Health for a project titled "No One Missed: Grassroots Pilot for Under-Resourced Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients;" and Patient Advocate Foundation and Zero Prostate Cancer for a project titled "A Patient-Focused Partnership to Advance Health Equity in Biomarker Testing Among Patients with Prostate Cancer."
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on GenomeWeb.