UK INVESTS £5M FOR LIBRARY OF VACCINES

CPI, part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult has received a £5 million investment to support the development of an mRNA vaccine library as part of the UK government's vaccine support package announced by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak.

The vaccine library will form the basis of a response facility, which will enable mRNA vaccines to be developed to help protect against new variants of COVID-19. CPI is currently the only company based in the UK capable of batch developing mRNA vaccines ready for use in clinical trials and manufacture.

Frank Millar, CPI CEO said: ​“We’re delighted to be a key part of the UK’s ongoing fight against coronavirus, which has had such a devastating impact over the past year. It’s essential that we prepare for a future living with the threat of COVID-19 and the library of vaccine candidates we are building here in Darlington will help future-proof against further outbreaks caused by new strains of the disease. It will mean that as soon as a new strain of COVID-19 is identified, the relevant vaccine can be selected and rapidly manufactured for use in clinical trials, in a very similar way that we see flu vaccines developed each year.”

CLINERION AND MEDEXPRIM PARTNER FOR IMAGING DATA RESEARCH

Swiss-based medical data company, Clinerion has concluded a three-year partnership with French regulatory-grade datasets organisation, Medexprim.

The partnership is dedicated to the merger of electronic health records and imaging data into a private clinical data cloud warehouse dedicated to research.

Clinerion and Medexprim will set up a joint offering, which allows access to de-identified, longitudinal data points derived from medical data sets, which combine electronic health records and their corresponding clinical images.

With the aim of improving research and patient care, this collaboration aims to expand Clinerion’s and Medexprim’s networks of hospital partners and accelerate the implementation of a clinical data warehouse globally.

DATA REVEALS SURGE IN VACCINE-RELATED CYBER ATTACKS

Data from provider for cloud-enabled security solutions, Barracuda Networks has revealed that hackers are taking advantage of the increased focus on the COVID-19 vaccine and are increasingly using vaccine-related emails in their targeted attacks.

The findings, which were published in Barracuda’s most recent Threat Spotlight, analysed phishing emails between October 2020 and January 2021. The number of vaccine-related spear-phishing attacks increased by 12% following vaccine availability announcements from Pfizer and Moderna in November 2020.

By the end of January 2021, following the continued roll-out of the vaccine, the average number of vaccine-related spear-phishing attacks was up 26% since October.

NHS SCOTLAND USES ADVANCED SOFTWARE FOR URGENT CARE

NHS Scotland is using the Advanced clinical patient management software, Adastra, to redesign its urgent care services for 5.5 million citizens. The aim is to significantly improve the exchange of clinical data between clinicians and healthcare services.

The implementation is part of the Scottish government’s new scheme to help its hospitals cope with the number of A&E admissions during the pandemic.

Patients calling NHS 24 111 and requiring treatment at A&E will now be booked an appointment, at which point their clinical information will be transferred into Adastra for the management of care in A&E. Those not requiring A&E admission will be able to book an appointment to go to the most appropriate service.

Adastra provides data flow between clinicians and healthcare services by ensuring that when a patient arrives at an urgent care service, their medical records can be viewed instantly.

QUIBIM RECEIVES FDA CLEARANCE FOR QP-PROSTATE

Spanish medical imaging analysis company, Quibim has announced the launch of qp-Prostate, its prostate AI-based Magnetic Resonance (MR) solution after receiving 510(k) clearance by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The platform assists in the process of prostate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reporting, with the aim of improving diagnostic accuracy and early prostate cancer detection.  

Dr Angel Alberich Bayarri, Quibim CEO said: “Instead of analysing the prostate as a whole, the solution can segment the prostate’s transitional zone, peripheral zone and seminal vesicles, as well as other regions defined in the Prostate Imaging Reporting and Data System (PI-RADS) v2.1 guidelines to extract clinically meaningful quantitative information from the MRI examination as a potential aid for early and accurate clinicians’ diagnosis.”

DERBYSHIRE MOVES TO SINGLE NHS AND SOCIAL CARE RECORD

Following a procurement using the London Procurement Partnership framework, Joined Up Care Derbyshire, an integrated care system covering Derby and Chesterfield, has signed a ten-year contract with global tech company, Orion for its shared care record technology and Discover analytics platform,

Health and social care organisations in Derbyshire are working with Orion Health to meet the government’s target to have a shared care record in place by September.

It is now looking to give staff working at all its partner organisations access to the information held in an existing instance of the Medical Interoperability Gateway by March, and access to the data for a shared care record by September.

PHILIPS TO PARTNER WITH LUNIT FOR AI DIAGNOSTICS TECH

Global medical startup Lunit, has announced its partnership with Philips. Announced during the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) virtual event this week, the collaboration will make Lunit’s AI software accessible to users of Philips’ diagnostic X-ray solutions.

The announcement is the latest extension of Philips’ AI portfolio in precision diagnosis, with the aim of achieving better patient outcomes, improve the experience of patients and staff, and lower the cost of care.

“By partnering with Philips, one of the biggest medical device companies globally, our AI will be available to its significant global installed base,” said Brandon Suh, CEO of Lunit. “With the start of this partnership, we look forward to further expanding our collaboration to make data-driven medicine the new standard of care. Lunit will continue to build upon its current AI offering, making it better and better with time, and will continue to deliver best-in-class AI.”

CHILD HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM LAUNCHES

As part of a three-phase project conducted under lockdown, the final phase of a project to join up half a million records of children across the whole of Cheshire and Merseyside in England has gone live.

The new record platform will provide a single source of information about children from birth to adulthood and collect real-time immunisation information from GPs. 

It is the first time all the children’s data in Cheshire and Merseyside has been held on a single database after records and services were combined into the new CarePlus child health information system (CHIS) provided by System C. 

Records and services were integrated across twelve CCGs, nine local authorities, 18 specialist, acute and community trusts, 392 general practices, and six legacy child health information systems.

POCDOC ANNOUNCES RAPID TESTING AT EDINBURGH AIRPORT  

Digital healthcare company and COVID-19 testing solution, PocDoc is launching a trial with Edinburgh Airport to provide “fit to fly” certificates.

As part of recovery planning for aviation, the trial will take place over the duration of a week. The pre-departure COVID-19 testing claims to provide results in 15 minutes and will require a saliva sample, meaning no nasal swab is required. 

PocDoc and BioSure are running the trial, delivering an end-to-end testing solution using the new Vatic KnowNow saliva antigen test. The trial will be open to staff and volunteers and will demonstrate how testing can be scaled at airports.