Heart and Asthma Monitors? There’s an App for That

BERKELEY, Calif. — He could have been surfing in Cabo. Instead, Tyler Crouch, then a 21-year-old mechanical-engineering student, spent spring break of 2013 building a digitized stethoscope and thinking, “This better be worth it.”
Since then, he and two classmates from the University of California, Berkeley, have formed a company — Eko Devices, which is based here — raised nearly $5 million and sold 6,000 digital stethoscopes, used in 700 hospitals. The wireless stethoscopes can transfer a patient’s heart rate and other vital signs directly to Eko’s secure portal, where it can, among other things, be shared with other doctors for a second opinion.....

Read more here: nytimes.com

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Dupixent Asthma Data Could Seal A Second Blockbuster Market

Impending results in a large phase III uncontrolled asthma study have the potential to confirm Sanofi (NYSE:SNY) and Regeneron's (NASDAQ:REGN) Dupixent as one of the most notable new drugs to reach the market this year.
Like other antibodies being used or tested in asthma, the drug is being targeted at people with severe disease; Dupixent is unique in that its efficacy does not appear to be restricted to a narrow subtype of these patients. But confirmation of this broader utility is needed to cement already lofty sales forecasts and put the drug on track for a second blockbuster indication.....

Read more here: seekingalpha.com

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Roche unloads some rights to drug hopeful after asthma trial disappointment

ZURICH (Reuters) - Roche is offloading some rights to what was once one of its top drug prospects, lebrikizumab, for payments which could total more than $1 billion after the medicine produced only lacklustre results in an asthma study last year.
The Basel-based drugmaker had said in February 2016 that the monoclonal antibody targeting the so-called Interleukin 13 protein hit its goal in just one of two identical Phase III studies - dashing its hopes that late-stage studies would provide a clear path forward after promising earlier trials.....

Read more here: reuters.com