Top of the News:

The COVID-19 pandemic made self-testing accessible and easy. Now self-testing could expand to other health measures.

POLITICS:

A South Carolina House committee heard on April 4^th from people their thoughts on a bill that would legalize medical marijuana within the state.

The House of Representatives is determining whether forwarding The Accelerated Approval Integrity Act of 2022 (H.R. 6963) would get rid of loopholes in the FDA’s drug approval process or prevent medications from moving forward.

SOCIAL:

Sanofi has launched a Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion board staffed with outside advisors, allegedly the first of its kind within the pharmaceutical industry.

An article in JAMA Network Open shows that Black patients undergoing surgery for GI tract cancers were less likely to receive chemotherapy or radiotherapy and were less likely to be recommended for both.

ENVIRONMENT:

Bluebird bio is laying off 30% of its staff.

The July-September 2021 quarter saw a 5.71% drop in pharmaceutical industry patent grants from the previous quarter.

Professional Development:

Are you designing your workplace with neurodiverse employees in mind?

ECONOMIC:

Freudenberg Medical announced its ISO 14001 certification, which highlights environmental management system requirements, for 11 of its locations throughout the world.

TECHNOLOGY:

iRhythm Technologies has provided more studies on its wearable cardiac monitor Zio at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) 71st Annual Scientific Session & Expo, showing case studies on using the device to better the identification of arrhythmia and atrial fibrillation within certain situations. 

Bayer is donating another €1.3 billion euros to its investment arm, Leaps by Bayer, to invest in healthcare and agricultural technology, as well as AI-focused startups.

LEGAL:

Myriad Genetics has settled a whistleblower lawsuit filed against them by STF for allegedly violating anti-kickback laws.

The University of California, Berkeley, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier, Ph.D. are appealing a decision from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office regarding its ruling in favor of Harvard and the Broad Institute of MIT, claiming that the Broad first invented CRISPR/Cas9 for editing human cells to make medicines.