NANO-X imaging Ltd, a medical imaging technology company, announces it has entered into exclusive distribution agreements for the introduction of Nanox’s medical imaging services in Russia and Belarus with local distribution partners.

The Nanox System will offer a range of medical imaging services, from 2D X-ray to 3D Tomosynthesis computed tomography and are aimed to be deployed in rural areas for maximum patients’ outreach. The services are planned to be operated on a pay-per-scan business model at affordable prices for communities of varying socio-economic status.

According to the agreements, subject to regulatory approval and acceptance test clearance, the Distribution Partners will commit to Nanox a combined minimum annual service fee of approximately $48 million over a 3-year term. The service commitment is to be backed by a standby letter of credit in favor of Nanox.

The parties will collaborate on the deployment and operation of 600 Nanox Systems comprised of the Nanox.ARC and the Nanox.CLOUD to provide medical imaging services across Russia and Belarus.

“Nanox is rapidly advancing in contracted deployments of its medical imaging infrastructure on a global basis,” says Ran Poliakine, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nanox. “we plan to reach maximum global coverage over the next 5 years reaching the farthest regions in countries where the population has no access to medical imaging. Our partners in Russia and Belarus share our vision and I am looking forward to our mutual road ahead.”

About Nanox:
Nanox, founded by the serial entrepreneur Ran Poliakine, is an Israeli corporation that is developing a commercial-grade digital X-ray source designed to be used in real-world medical imaging applications. Nanox believes that its novel technology could significantly reduce the costs of medical imaging systems and plans to seek collaborations with world-leading healthcare organizations and companies to provide affordable, early detection imaging service for all.

Siemens Healthineers announced the establishment of manufacturing operations in the United States at its Issaquah site to supplement its existing overseas manufacturing operations. The company’s recently renovated Issaquah, Washington site will complete high-level assembly of its ultra-premium ACUSON Sequoia ultrasound system with the capability of supporting other products in its portfolio.

Effective May 11, the Siemens Medical Solutions, USA, Inc., Ultrasound business has changed its Headquarters/Legal Manufacturer site from its current location in Mountain View, California to its existing facility located at 22010 S.E. 51st Street, Issaquah, WA, 98029. The Silicon Valley office in Mountain View remains in operation and will become a satellite office to continue leveraging local talent.

“Establishing manufacturing capacity will benefit our customers through enhanced responsiveness, additional production flexibility and improved order to customer delivery time,” said Bob Thompson, Head of Ultrasound, Siemens Healthineers. “Moving the headquarters to Issaquah is an important step in the growth and evolution of our Ultrasound business, and an opportunity to expand solutions to deliver precision medicine.”

Siemens Healthineers began its presence in the Issaquah region in 1993 and with the recent renovation and added manufacturing operations expects to continue its strong foothold in the region. The company recently completed an extensive renovation to the two story 139,000 square foot building. The company currently has more than 300 employees in Issaquah.

About Siemens Healthineers AG
Siemens Healthineers AG is shaping the future of Healthcare. As a leading medical technology company headquartered in Erlangen, Germany, Siemens Healthineers enables healthcare providers worldwide through its regional companies to increase value by empowering them on their journey towards expanding precision medicine, transforming care delivery, improving the patient experience, and digitalizing healthcare. Siemens Healthineers is continuously developing its product and service portfolio, with AI-supported applications and digital offerings that play an increasingly important role in the next generation of medical technology. These new applications will enhance the company’s foundation in in-vitro diagnostic, image-guided therapy, and in-vivo diagnostics. Siemens Healthineers also provides a range of services and solutions to enhance healthcare providers ability to provide high-quality, efficient care to patients. In fiscal 2019, which ended on September 30, 2019, Siemens Healthineers, which has approximately 52,000 employees worldwide, generated revenue of €14.5 billion and adjusted profit of €2.5 billion.

Race Oncology is pleased to report positive clinical data from the investigator initiated Phase II clinical trial of bisantrene, conducted at Israel’s Sheba Medical Centre.

This open label, single agent trial studied patients (n=10) with relapsed or refractory Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (R/R AML) who on average had failed three prior lines of treatment. Bisantrene was found to be well tolerated, and after only a single course of treatment, had an overall clinical response rate of 40%.

Professor Borje Andersson, Chair of Race’s Clinical Advisory Board and an international authority in clinical leukaemia and stem cell research commented, “While bisantrene had been demonstrated to be an effective AML salvage drug in the 1980’s, the data we had were old. It was important for us to study it by today’s standards using the current formulation, as we sought to confirm whether our strategy of repurposing this drug was sound. We also wanted to confirm that bisantrene could still generate a meaningful response rate in this highly frail patient population with heavily pre-treated AML.”

“Importantly, in this study we saw a meaningful reduction in leukaemic disease burden and an overall response rate in 40% of the patients. While we must study the drug further, it appears that with this kind of response, bisantrene based therapy may have potential to serve as an important bridge to an allogeneic stem cell transplantation in patients who otherwise have few therapeutic options.”

Background

R/R AML remains a significant therapeutic challenge. While meaningful therapeutic gains have been achieved in recent years with the introduction of new targeted drugs, clinical outcomes still remain unsatisfactory. The class of drugs referred to as anthracyclines are an essential component of induction chemotherapy for AML patients, however mainly due to cardiotoxicity concerns, they are not broadly prescribed in relapsed or refractory AML settings. Bisantrene, which is an anthracene with anthracycline-like activity, was shown in earlier studies to be an effective salvage therapy in R/R AML with little or no discernible cardiotoxicity.

In this study, Israel’s Chaim Sheba Medical Centre studied the clinical efficacy of bisantrene in a cohort of heavily pre-treated, R/R AML patients under the leadership of Principal Investigator, Professor Arnon Nagler.

This investigator initiated study consisted of 10 patients who had received a median of three lines of prior therapy, including 7 patients who had relapsed following allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Three patients had an antecedent myeloid disorder while four patients had extramedullary disease (located outside of the bone marrow) at the time of recruitment.

Of the ten patients, one achieved a complete remission (CR) and three patients achieved a partial remission (PR), resulting in an overall response rate of 40% after only a single course of bisantrene treatment, with one patient being bridged to allogeneic stem cell transplantation. No patients were removed from the study during treatment.

Next generation DNA sequencing of the responding patient samples identified a wide array of genetic mutations including those associated with activated signalling, splicing, chromatin modification, and epigenetic modification. Bisantrene had marked activity in patients with the difficult to treat extramedullary AML, such as leukemia cutis, chloromas, and CNS disease 3. Interestingly, all four patients who had a clinically significant response to bisantrene had extramedullary disease.

The most frequently reported serious adverse event were thrombocytopaenia (low blood platelets) (60% Grade 3/4) and mucositis (mouth ulcers) (60% Grade 3/4), both of which are expected side effects of anthracyline and anthracene chemotherapeutics. One patient experienced transient Grade 1 kidney toxicity and there were no liver toxicities observed. These adverse events are at similar or lower levels to those seen in the historical bisantrene trials 4. Importantly, no anaphylactoid-type reactions were observed in any patient over the course of treatment, a serious adverse event regularly observed in the historical trials.

Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Daniel Tillett said, “A key focus of this trial was a determination of bisantrene’s safety in a modern context, so it was encouraging to see the drug’s tolerability profile compared favourably with other commonly used chemotherapy agents such as the anthracyclines. The side effects were in keeping with what we would expect to see with all chemotherapeutics of this class and provide further evidence of bisantrene’s clinical safety.

“These results are pleasing from both a safety and activity perspective, particularly given the clinically challenging patient population included in this trial.” The Sheba investigators concluded that the study showed bisantrene to be an agent with an acceptable safety profile and promising anti-leukemic activity. Data from this study will be submitted by the Sheba team to a peer-reviewed medical journal for publication.

About Race Oncology
Race Oncology (RAC) is a drug development biotech with a Phase II/III cancer drug called Bisantrene. RAC has compelling clinical data for Bisantrene in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) as well as breast and ovarian cancer. RAC is pursuing an exciting ‘5-Path’ clinical development strategy that involves parallel US and Australian clinical trials in AML, breast and ovarian with clinical trials to begin in 2020.

8×8, Inc., a leading integrated cloud communications platform provider, announced LetsGetChecked, the at-home health testing and insights company, deployed 8×8 Contact Centre to continue the successful support of their COVID-19 home test kit services through its remote contact centres in Ireland and New York.

LetsGetChecked is a leading health insights company that allows consumers direct access to a wide range of testing options and clinical services from home. Their medical home testing kits can be ordered online for instant shipping, and are supported by a customer services team to ensure successful kit delivery, seamless service, proactive reminders for optimum customer experience, and timely test returns.

In May, LetsGetChecked received FDA EUA-authorization for their new Sure-track test for COVID-19. The test was specifically designed to relieve pressure on over-stretched hospital services, frontline healthcare workers, and at-risk groups by offering convenient and secure results in 24 hours. Customer communication is central to its service delivery. LetsGetChecked provides oversight of the entire testing process including collection kit manufacturing, logistics, lab analysis and physician approval. These measures allow for superior patient care, communication, and guidance throughout the testing process.

In response to the surge in demand for COVID-19 testing kits, LetsGetChecked required a business communications and contact centre solution that offered efficient, outbound dialing functionality, and the ability to maintain timely post-order customer support. Support for remote agents was a key requirement.

Working with their technology partner, workair, a leading cloud communications solutions provider, the 8×8 Open Communications PlatformTM was proposed to meet LetsGetChecked’s requirements. Through a single platform, 8×8 Contact Centre is a complete solution able to deliver critical features, such as Answering Machine Detection, to enable high volumes of efficient outbound calling with high connection rates. Powerful reporting and analytics capabilities ensure that the highest standards of customer service are maintained.

Fast-tracking deployment with workair support, 8×8 Contact Centre was implemented within 10 days, enabling LetsGetChecked’s agents to work remotely and continue providing an uninterrupted, customer experience at this critical time.

Ronan Ryan, COO at LetsGetChecked said: “We faced a massive challenge at the outbreak of this pandemic to adapt at speed and meet the surging demand for tests. We needed to ensure that our customer support could continue at the same high standard despite the spike in order volumes and disruption to our staff’s working practices. We’re delighted to have partnered with workair and 8×8 to achieve this. With the right technology in place now, we have been able to continue to support frontline healthcare workers at this critical time, and we look forward to continuing the partnership as we extend testing to the wider public.”

Scott Sampson, SVP, Global Midmarket & Enterprise at 8×8 Inc said: “We are proud to be working with LetsGetChecked as they provide critical services to protect the population at this current time. The invaluable service they provide to frontline healthcare workers and the wider public cannot be underestimated. We look forward to continuing to support their vital efforts, while ensuring their agents are safely working from their homes.”

Stephen Mackarel, Managing Director, workair said: “workair are the leading cloud communications solutions provider in Ireland and our mission is to bring enterprise-grade communications solutions to business of all sizes. workair have a number of solutions for customers like LetsGetChecked but as their requirements included contact centre functionality across a number of countries, we felt that 8×8 were the best fit for the company’s specific needs. The solution enables remote working for all employees and has the ability to scale with the business. workair is delighted to help LetsGetChecked provide such a valuable service to society.”

About LetsGetChecked

LetsGetChecked is a leading health insights company that allows consumers direct access to a wide range of testing options and clinical services from home. Founded in 2015, the company empowers people to take an active role in their health to live longer, happier lives. By combining health data and diagnostic results, LetsGetChecked provides rich health insights to enable better healthcare decision making. LetsGetChecked tests cover general health, men’s health, women’s health, and sexual health, and are available nationwide in the US, Canada, and Europe. LetsGetChecked has corporate offices located in New York City and Dublin.

About 8×8, Inc.

8×8, Inc, is transforming the future of business communications as a leading Software-as-a-Service provider of voice, video, chat, contact centre, and enterprise-class API solutions powered by one global cloud communications platform. 8×8 empowers workforces worldwide to connect individuals and teams so they can collaborate faster and work smarter. Real-time business analytics and intelligence provide businesses unique insights across all interactions and channels so they can delight end-customers and accelerate their business.

AarogyaPath is a web-based solution for the healthcare supply chain portal which will provide real-time availability of critical healthcare supplies for manufacturers, customers, and suppliers.

The central government digitally launched AarogyaPath on June 12, 2020. It is a web-based solution for the healthcare supply chain portal. It will provide real-time availability of critical healthcare supplies for manufacturers, customers, and suppliers.

As per the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the integrated public platform launched by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will help customers in tackling a number of issues such as limited access to suppliers, time-consuming processes to identify good quality products, dependence on limited suppliers, etc.

CSIR stated that AarogyaPath will become the national healthcare information platform of choice in years to come. The platform will fill the critical gap in the last mile delivery of patient care within India through improved affordability and availability of healthcare supplies.

Significance:

In the time of ongoing national health emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where the entire country is facing a severe disruption in the supply chain, delivery of critical items, and the ability to produce, the platform AarogyPath has been developed to address these issues.

It will help the suppliers and manufacturers to reach a wide network of customers efficiently by overcoming the gaps in connectivity between them and the potential demand centres such as medical stores, pathological laboratories, hospitals, etc.

Key Highlights:

• The integrated public platform will provide single-point availability of key healthcare goods which will be helpful to customers in tackling a number of routine issues.
• The platform will create opportunities for business expansion due to an expanded slate of buyers and visibility of new requirements for products.
• With time, analytics of this platform has been expected to generate early signals to manufacturers on looming shortages or over capacity.
• It will help in reducing the wastage of resources due to inefficient excess manufacturing and forecasting, generate awareness about the demand of new technologies.

The portal has been developed in partnership with Sarvodaya Infotech. Manufactures/authorized suppliers and institutional users of healthcare essentials have been encouraged to register and participate actively.