A reagent in a batch of COVID-19 tests shipped by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to state laboratories “wasn’t performing consistently,” a top CDC official says, so the agency is reformulating it – slowing down the labs’ ability to use the diagnostic, which yielded inconsistent results when quality-tested. But waiting in the wings are commercial coronavirus test kits being developed by Qiagen and Cepheid; both firms say they’ll submit the kits to the FDA for emergency-use approval.

The US FDA’s decision to allow Medtronic to market the Symplicity Spyral renal denervation (RDN) device sets up a rivalry in the RDN market, as the medtech giant’s offering will come up against ReCor’s Paradise system.

This week, the US FDA announced that several pandemic-era guidance documents are no longer in effect; an FDA advisory committee meeting on multi-cancer detection (MCD) diagnostics was scheduled; and both a needle-free blood collection device and the first VR treatment for pain and anxiety landed FDA clearances.