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A Stanford University team has created the amphibious all-terrain vehicle of the drug delivery world. The researchers designed the millimeter-scale robot to roll, flip and spin past obstacles and through liquids to navigate complex biomedical environments...Multiple papers have described the creation of wirelessly operated millimeter-scale origami robots that can move through narrow spaces and change shape to complete specific tasks. Potential applications for the robots include targeted drug delivery, in which context the vehicles would carry a payload for release at a specific site...Operated magnetically, the millirobot is designed to adapt itself to the environment, autonomously switching between rolling and flipping to get over some obstacles. Applying a magnetic field causes the millirobot to jump over bigger barriers...READ MORE

FDA granted an emergency use authorization for the first machine learning–based COVID-19 nondiagnostic screening device. The Tiger Tech COVID Plus Monitor identifies certain biomarkers that may be indicative of SARS-CoV-2 infection. It can also detect hypercoagulable conditions, such as sepsis or cancer, or hyper-inflammatory states in asymptomatic individuals over the age of 5 years...FDA said the device, which is an armband embedded with light sensors and a small computer processor, is intended for use by trained personnel to help prevent exposure to and the spread of COVID-19...READ MORE

The novel COVID-19 virus has now infiltrated our communities on a global scale, forcing pharmacies to quickly adapt in order to sustain operations in the new normal...pharmacies everywhere are experiencing a dramatic influx in demand, but dwindling supply of resources and staffing...in a world increasingly influenced by technology, there is ample opportunity to leverage automation within pharmacies that can not only improve operations and maximize efficiency, but support patient wellness while growing their business and profits...

Adherence Pouch Packaging
- unit-of-use packaging alone saved more than 46.5 minutes per 100 prescriptions filled compared to count-and-pour dispensing.

Medication Synchronization and Adherence
- pharmacies can adopt medication synchronization, meaning all of a patient’s prescriptions are synchronized to be refilled on the exact same day of the month, eliminating the need for separate call-ins and pickups...READ MORE

News about COVID-19 runs rampant on the internet and changes by the hour, or even by the minute. It’s difficult to stay on top of what’s happening, much less what’s important, in the life sciences industry without scrubbing the entire internet. That's what W2O Group and the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA) are looking to change with a new data-driven platform...Their jointly launched dashboard, called COR, uses W2O’s machine and artificial intelligence data engine to scrape its life science industry data set for news and posts mentioning COVID-19. It then serves up the top-ranked information across different sectors—life sciences, healthcare providers, media, California, and the scientific community—to reveal what’s trending in each one from that segment’s leading voices and sources in almost real time...READ MORE

The search for novel therapies has long been a trial-and-error process that costs drug companies a vast amount of time and money. Now, with artificial intelligence (AI) set to transform the pharmaceutical industry more than any other emerging technology, a growing number of pharma and biotech groups are harnessing the cutting-edge tech to minimise the hit-and-miss nature of R&D and discover new therapies with previously impossible speed and accuracy...READ MORE

Vaccine passports being developed to verify COVID-19 immunization status and allow inoculated people to more freely travel, shop and dine have become the latest flash point in America’s perpetual political wars, with Republicans portraying them as a heavy-handed intrusion into personal freedom and private health choices...They currently exist in only one state — a limited government partnership in New York with a private company — but that hasn’t stopped GOP lawmakers in a handful of states from rushing out legislative proposals to ban their use...READ MORE

CVS Health will try delivering prescriptions with self-driving vehicles in a test that begins next month...The drugstore chain said...that it will partner with the Silicon Valley robotics company Nuro to deliver medicines and other products to customers near a Houston-area store...A CVS spokesman said the prescriptions will routinely be delivered within an hour of being ordered...Nuro has previously started partnerships to test the delivery of pizzas for Domino’s or groceries for Kroger, also in the Houston area. This is the company’s first venture into health care...READ MORE

AMI, pronounced as Amy, is Bayer's new voice assistant and chatbot that can talk to physicians about prescription drugs when they say, “Hey Google, talk to Bayer Pharmaceutical” on Google Home...An acronym for assistant for medical information, AMI is meant to offer quick, hands-free and on-demand information for busy healthcare professionals. Doctors can ask about prescribing information and other details for two oncology drugs, Nubeqa and Xofigo, and three women’s health products, Mirena, Kyleena and Skyla...Bayer is the first pharma to use voice technology to access medical information through Google Home and Google Assistant...READ MORE

A new computer algorithm might be the next step toward accurate prediction of adverse drug reactions..Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research announced the creation of an open-source machine learning tool capable of predicting drug adverse effects (Aes)...The study, published in The Lancet journal EBioMedicine, examined 2 databases: 1 that reported adverse drug reactions and another with 184 proteins that specific drugs are known to interact with. Investigators constructed a computer algorithm to develop associations between the drug reactions and the 184 individual proteins...The algorithm discovered 221 associations, some known and some new. These associations indicated which proteins contribute to certain AEs and which may not...The new algorithm could help predict these AEs before the drug goes to human clinical trials, as well as before and after it enters the market...READ MORE

Digital health technology is transforming every aspect of pharmacy practice, whether it deploys robotics to fill prescriptions, uses analytics to track medication data, or offers access to digital therapy. Pharmacists in both the hospital and retail settings are using recently developed technology to prevent adverse drug effects, monitor the use of antibiotics, modify unhealthy behavior, and promote medication adherence...Not only can technology make a pharmacist’s day more efficient by automating repetitive tasks, but new digital health products are providing more insight into data and the opportunity for real-time patient interaction...READ MORE

Monitoring Medication
Digiceuticals and Behavior Modification
Preventing Adverse Effects
Antibiotic Stewardship in Real Time