This week, the FDA extended a comment period on digital health tools to detect diabetes; Theradaptive launched a trial of its spinal fusion device; and devices from Hologic and GE Healthcare won FDA clearance.

Biomedicine is a priority sector for Taiwan. The government has goals to establish Taiwan as the capital of biomedical research and development in the Asia-Pacific region. The country is striving to develop 20 new medicines, bring 80 high-value medical devices to market, and build biomedicine into a trillion-NT-dollar industry by 2025. Tax incentives and other credits will help expand the scale of the biotech and pharmaceutical industry.

Private Company Edition: Clover’s $230m financing was the largest of recent mega-rounds. Century Therapeutics ($160m), Vividion ($135m) and eGenesis ($125m) also raised big rounds and investors Foresite Capital ($969m), Sofinnova Partners ($540m) and OMX Ventures ($150m) raised new VC funds. 

In the latest instalment of VC Playbook, In Vivo gets to know Arix Bioscience, a relatively young venture capital firm that went public in 2016. Arix has “has many similarities yet some key differences from a typical venture capital firm,” says the management team.