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Two healthcare apps available for prescription in Germany for first time...after the German federal government passed the Digital Healthcare Act, two health apps are now officially available for prescription...two apps have been approved, making it the first country to prescribe insured health apps...The first apps were unveiled last week after making it through the test procedure from the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices. They are the Kalmeda app, which aims to help with tinnitus, and Velibra, a therapy programme for anxiety disorders...READ MORE

Researchers have developed an algorithm that is able to accurately predict sex differences in drug response through the implementation of pharmacogenomic data...The study...presented AwareDX, a resource that uses machine learning to understand sex-specific adverse drug effects with the potential for use in drug discovery, repositioning, and pharmacogenetic studies, as well as for further analyses of electronic health records and clinical trials, according to investigators...Women are twice as likely as men to develop adverse drug reactions to a drug, partly due to differences in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics that induce increased drug bioavailability and sensitivity to medication and women [remain] severely underrepresented in clinical trials...READ MORE

Joining a recent spate of digital health companies hitting the public market, GoodRx filed its initial public offering...The startup, which helps consumers find deals on their prescription medications, is looking to raise up to $100 million in an IPO...Unlike many other digital health companies that have gone public, GoodRx has been profitable since 2016...The majority of the company's revenue, or 97%, comes from its prescription offering in which if collects fees from pharmacy benefit managers when consumers use a GoodRx code to fill a prescription...With the acquisition of telemedicine company HeyDoctor...GoodRx...now competes with other startups that combine virtual care and pharmacy services such as Hims, Hers, Ro and Nurx...GoodRx doesn’t sell medications; it instead directs consumers to the drugstore with the best prices and offers coupons...READ MORE

The Dubai Health Authority has introduced eight “smart” robots to sterilise its government-run hospitals and clinics...The robots – created by...UVD Robots – are part of the emirate’s drive to use smart technology, where possible, in the disinfection process in order for it to be “thorough, efficient and less time-consuming”...“[The] UVD Robot is used as part of the regular cleaning cycle, and aims at preventing and reducing the spread of infectious diseases, vira [SIC], bacteria, and other types of harmful organic microorganisms in the environment by breaking down their DNA-structure...READ MORE

Moderna, a biotech advancing one of the leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates, has faced questions for several months over its patents and intellectual property. Responding to investor questions, the company now says it won't enforce its vaccine patents against other companies during the pandemic...company President Stephen Hoge said Moderna is “quite studiously not asserting infringement.” Without naming names, the biotech says other COVID-19 vaccines in development might be using Moderna-patented technology...“We’re not interested in using that IP to decrease the number of vaccines available in a pandemic,”...Further, the company is open to licensing its technology after the pandemic. Moderna made the pledge in response to investor questions around its patents...READ MORE

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced the launch of the Digital Health Center of Excellence within the Center for Devices and Radiological Health...the center will be an important step in furthering the agency’s goal of advancing digital health technology, including mobile health devices, software as a medical device, wearables used with medical devices, and technology used to study medical products...The FDA aims to continue building and formalizing the coordinating structure and operation of the center as part of an its effort to modernize policies and regulations, as well as providing efficient access to specialized expertise, knowledge, and tools in accelerated access to digital health technology...READ MORE

A new patented process for delivering specialty medicine will assure AllianceRx Walgreens Prime patients receive their medicine delivered at the correct temperature...It is the only specialty pharmacy to offer a patented cold-chain shipment packaging process...Maintaining the right temperatures is critical to ensuring the efficacy of specialty medications, including costly biologics and injectables, which have special storage or temperature requirements...The new patented process also reduces waste and eliminates reship needs...AllianceRx Walgreens Prime anticipates a significant annual savings in reship costs...READ MORE

Cancer cells could play a key role in the delivery of tumor-fighting drugs, thanks to a new DNA transport system that keeps its therapeutic payload locked away until it comes into contact with diseased cells...Scientists at the Technical University of Munich and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology...say they’ve developed a synthetic DNA transport system for targeted delivery of cancer drugs...the team has created a nano-carrier using mucin, glycerol and synthetic DNA, which wraps up cancer drugs in a secure package that can only be unlocked by a certain RNA sequence unique to diseased cells...READ MORE

Antibiotic resistance is one of the world's most urgent public health threats...Researchers at UC San Francisco are tackling antibiotic resistance using a different approach: redesigning existing antibiotic molecules to evade a bacterium's resistance mechanisms. By devising a set of molecular LEGO pieces that can be altered and joined together to form larger molecules, the researchers have created what they hope is the first of many "rebuilds" of drugs that had been shelved due to antibiotic resistance..."The aim is to revive classes of drugs that haven't been able to achieve their full potential, especially those already shown to be safe in humans,"..."If we can do that, it eliminates the need to continually come up with new classes of drugs that can outdo resistant bacteria. Redesigning existing drugs could be a vital tool in this effort."...READ MORE

Never before have prospective vaccines for a pathogen entered final-stage clinical trials as rapidly as candidates for Covid-19...The colossal impact of the coronavirus is motivating the speed, opening a spigot of funding and inspiring research teams around the world to join the hunt. But the astonishing pace of the progress is also a consequence of the virus itself: It is, scientifically speaking, an easier target for potential vaccines than other pathogens, and a prime candidate for cutting-edge vaccine platforms new to scientists’ toolkits...Vaccines typically take years, if not decades, to reach people; the record now is four years for the mumps vaccine. Here’s what has propelled the Covid-19 endeavor to eclipse prior efforts so far...READ MORE
A familiar family
An acute, not chronic infection
Cutting-edge approaches
Money, money, money
Regulatory nimbleness
The challenges ahead