coronavirus Archives - Page 71 of 99 - Medical Design Sourcing

Cummins is supplying material for millions of face masks against COVID-19

Cummins (NYSE:CMI) is making material for millions of face masks out of its Cookeville, Tenn., filtration plant — thanks to a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory nearby.

“Because of our expertise in the automotive filtration industry, we believed we could adapt to supply the filter media used in the face masks worn by healthcare providers, which are also in high demand across the nation,” Christopher Holm, director of filter media technology and IP at Cummins, said in a news release posted yesterday.

Get the full story on our sister site Medical Design & Outsourcing.

Report: Abbott to hire 2,000 in Illinois to make rapid COVID-19 test

Abbott’s BinaxNow COVID-19 Ag Card [Image courtesy of Abbott]

Abbott (NYSE:ABT) is reportedly set to hire 2,000 new employees to increase manufacturing for its rapid COVID-19 test.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that the Abbot Park, Ill.-based company would be adding jobs at its Gurnee, Ill., facility following the FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) for its BinaxNow COVID-19 Ag Card and the subsequent announcement that the U.S. government would pay $750 million for 150 million tests.

Abbott did not offer comment on the announcement but told the Sun-Times that the added jobs will be in place “for the foreseeable future,” while many of the new positions will not require technical experience and will offer training on the job.

The company expects the Gurnee facility to be operating in a couple of weeks, according to the report, while another facility in Maine will assist…

NIH to boost COVID-19 testing capabilities

[Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash]

The National Institutes of Health announced a $129.3 million plan to support scaling and manufacturing for COVID-19 tests.

As part of its Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative, NIH is awarding contracts to nine companies for their technologies that include portable point-of-care tests for immediate results and high-throughput laboratories that can produce results in 24 hours.

Yesterday’s announcement follows a July investment in seven companies from NIH worth $248.7 million in new technologies to address challenges with COVID-19 testing.

Some of the testing technologies are also being supported by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) as part of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, along with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in the U.S. Defense Dept.

Here are the nine co…

Report: Feds to send Abbott’s rapid tests to states for school reopenings

Abbott’s BinaxNow COVID-19 Ag Card [Image courtesy of Abbott]

The U.S. government is reportedly set to use rapid COVID-19 tests it purchased from Abbott (NYSE:ABT) for school reopenings.

Reuters reported that the feds will send an “overwhelming majority” of Abbott’s tests to governors and state territories to support school reopenings and other critical tasks, according to a Trump administration official. The administration struck a $750 million deal with Abbott for 150 million of its tests last week.

A day before the deal was announced, Abbott received FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) for its BinaxNow COVID-19 Ag Card — a speedy antigen test for the virus that can be directly read off the testing card. The test is designed to display a result 15 minutes following a nasal swab: one line for a negative result and two for a positive result.

The test will be accompanied by…

These researchers adapted a stroke patient device for COVID-19

Designed to detect speech and swallowing problems, the device has found a new use in tracking cough frequency to alert healthcare providers that frontline workers may need to be tested for SARS-COV-2.

(Image courtesy of Northwestern University)

Researchers in Chicago have adapted a flexible patch they developed to monitor stroke patients for swallowing trouble to help detect symptoms of COVID-19.

They’re hoping it can help physicians decide whether frontline healthcare workers have developed symptoms of the novel coronavirus so they can prevent the illness from worsening. In their “Lost on the Frontline” series, Kaiser Health News and The Guardian have reported 922 U.S. healthcare worker deaths that likely stemmed from caring for COVID-19 patients.

Get the full story on our sister site, Medical Design & Outsourcing.

Roche to compete against Abbott with fast COVID-19 antigen tests

Roche (SWX: RO, ROG) plans to launch a SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test that doesn’t need lab equipment to process results — similar to the test that Abbott (NYSE:ABT) recently launched.

Roche’s test will launch late this month in Europe, initially making 40 million tests available per month. The Swiss pharma and diagnostics giant plans to also seek an emergency use authorization from U.S. FDA, and will double production by the end of the year.

The test can provide results within 15 minutes. It has a sensitivity of 96.52% (positive percent agreement) and a specificity of 99.68% (negative percent agreement), based on 426 samples from two independent study centers, according to Roche.

Roche is launching the rapid antigen test in partnership with SD Biosensor, with whom Roche has a global distribution agreement

“Especially in the upcoming flu season, it is important to know whether a person has SARS-CoV-2 or the flu to ensure the righ…

Report: U.S. ventilator stockpile is full

Philips Trilogy EVO portable ventilator (Image courtesy of Philips)

The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) is reportedly terminating more ventilator contracts as the national stockpile is full.

The Hill reported today that HHS is throwing out some of the contracts that totaled $3 billion as the U.S. government sought to supply as many ventilators as possible during the first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This news follows a recent announcement from Royal Philips (NYSE:PHG) that it would not be supplying the remaining 30,700 ventilators it was slated to manufacture by December to the Strategic National Stockpile, with HHS canceling the contract after the Amsterdam-based company delivered 12,300 total bundled ventilator configurations supplied to the stockpile through August, falling in line with the stipulations of the contract.

HHS has not divulged details on any terms of their can…

FDA authorizes mobile COVID-19 test kit

The FDA has issued emergency use authorization (EUA) for a mobile COVID-19 test kit developed by handheld detection system maker DetectaChem.

Stafford, Texas-based DetectaChem develops the MobileDetect Bio BCC19 test kit is designed to test for the detection of nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal, anterior nasal swabs, mid-turbinate nasal swabs and oropharyngeal swab specimens.

The test kit utilizes a reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal nucleic acid amplification technique, according to a letter from the FDA. The sample is added directly to reaction tubes with reagent buffers without the need for separate lysis buffers or additional extraction steps.

As part of the testing kit, DetectaChem’s MobileDetect Bio subsidiary included a mobile app which runs the test and analyzes the sample within minutes, according to MobileDetect Bio’s website.

T2 Biosystems wins EUA for COVID-19 molecular diagnostic test

T2 Biosystems (NSDQ:TTOO) announced that it received FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) for its COVID-19 test.

Lexington, Mass.-based T2 Biosystems’ T2SARS-CoV-2 Panel is a molecular diagnostic test for detecting SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. The company said in a news release that the test is capable of providing results in under two hours using a nasopharyngeal swab sample.

The test is run on T2 Biosystems’ T2Dx instrument, which can perform analysis on seven tests simultaneously. Clinical testing for positive and negative patient samples resulted in a sensitivity of 95% and specificity of 100%, the company said.

“We believe the emergency use authorization for our COVID-19 molecular diagnostic test will lead to greater adoption of our technology by U.S. hospitals, and we are expanding manufacturing capacity to meet the anticipated demand,” T2 Biosystems president & CEO John Sperzel said in the rel…

Smith & Nephew is using vibrating bracelets to encourage social distancing

Smith & Nephew (NYSE:SNN) is utilizing devices made by Tharsus to help with social distancing as the company returns to the office.

A report in The Telegraph outlines how the London-based medtech company is being providing vibrating bracelets from Blythe, England-based Tharsus to keep the six-foot (two-meter) distance widely recommended for preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Get the full story at our sister site, Medical Design & Outsourcing.

Does plasma therapy work against COVID-19? NIH panel says data lacking

[Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash]

More than a week after the FDA granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the use of convalescent plasma against COVID-19, an NIH advisory panel is saying that there is insufficient data to recommend either for or against the treatment.

The National Institutes of Health’s COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel said in a statement released today: “There are currently no data from well-controlled, adequately powered, randomized clinical trials that demonstrate the efficacy and safety of convalescent plasma for the treatment of COVID-19.”

Get the full story on our sister site Medical Design & Outsourcing.

Does plasma therapy work against COVID-19? NIH panel says data lacking

[Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash]

More than a week after the FDA granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the use of convalescent plasma against COVID-19, an NIH advisory panel is saying that there is insufficient data to recommend either for or against the treatment.

The National Institutes of Health’s COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel said in a statement released today: “There are currently no data from well-controlled, adequately powered, randomized clinical trials that demonstrate the efficacy and safety of convalescent plasma for the treatment of COVID-19.”

FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn already apologized on Twitter last week after heavy criticism for his statement that convalescent plasma donated by former coronavirus patients could reduce COVID-19 deaths by 35% — criticism that he acknowledged was justified. The FDA has taken heat over its decisionmaking a…