Vir Biotechnology has signed an agreement that grants the company non-exclusive in-licensed rights to Xencor's Xtend Fc technology to be used to develop a potential therapy for COVID-19. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Forge Therapeutics and Roche have partnered through a licensing agreement for Forge's FG-LpxC LUNG program, a new antibiotic under development for the treatment of severe bacterial lung infections resistant to available drugs.

Researchers from the University of Oxford are working on a novel coronavirus point-of-care molecular diagnostic test that can be done at home and can deliver results within 30 minutes.

The FDA is warning patients, caregivers and health care professional about potential safety issues with the EpiPen as well as generic epinephrine auto-injectors. Pfizer and Mylan said the device could fail or activate prematurely if a blue safety release is removed with sideways force rather than with two hands, as recommended.

Ken Reali has been tapped to serve as CEO of Bioventus, succeeding Tony Bihl, who will be retiring April 20. Reali is a former board member of AdvaMed and AdvaMed Accel, and he also formerly served as the group's ethics and compliance committee chair.

Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Research and Development is collaborating with China-based AmoyDx on a companion diagnostic for an undisclosed cancer therapy. Under the deal, AmoyDx will develop and seek Chinese regulatory approval for its LC10 Essential NGS panel.

Health care workers at the University Hospital San Luigi Gonzaga in Turin, Italy, have been using lung ultrasounds to assess the severity of COVID-19 in the emergency department. The team classifies patients based on the presence of fever, cough or labored breathing, and anyone with just one of those symptoms is moved into isolation for an exam and lung ultrasound to capture early signs of pneumonia, which has been seen even in patients whose symptoms are mild.

Astrotech is working on a COVID-19 test called BreathTest-1000 that can detect lung diseases and the novel coronavirus from metabolites in the breath.

The FDA has given expanded emergency use authorization to Quidel's Lyra SARS-CoV-2 test, which can now be used with three more thermocyclers: Roche's LightCycler 480, Qiagen's Rotor-Gene Q and Thermo Fisher Scientific's Applied Biosystems 7500 Standard. European regulators have also given the assay CE mark approval.

The FDA has given its approval to Aegea Medical for its Mara Water Vapor Ablation System used to treat menorrhagia.