Healthcare, Pharma & Life Sciences

Fargo – October 13, 2026 -- Sharp Biomedical, a medical device company building manual procedures for outpatient pain clinics, has closed its pre-seed funding round, led by North Dakota venture fund gener8tor 1889 with participation from several physician angel investors. The announcement did not disclose the round size.

Capital covers the full development and testing pathway for a first implant system

Sharp Biomedical says the proceeds fully fund development and testing of its first purpose-built toolset and implant system. The system is designed to fit the workflow of outpatient pain clinics and targets early-to-mid-stage chronic pain patients.

Chicago – October 13, 2026 -- The American Osteopathic Foundation (AOF) has named Peter B. Ajluni, DO, an orthopedic surgeon with more than 50 years of practice, as recipient of its 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award, one of the foundation's highest honors.

The award will be presented on Friday, Oct. 23, at the AOF Honors Gala, held in conjunction with the American Osteopathic Association's (AOA) annual OMED conference. The foundation established the award in 2006 to recognize leaders whose service embodies the values of the osteopathic profession.

Los Angeles – October 13, 2026 -- TED patients with pre-existing hearing loss were more than 60% less likely to suffer a further hearing decline when teprotumumab (TEPEZZA) infusions were spaced six weeks apart instead of the standard three, according to a retrospective study presented at the ASOPRS 57th Annual Fall Scientific Symposium.

Hearing decline hit 45% of patients on the standard schedule at 24 weeks

Nine of 20 patients (45%) on the standard three-week schedule showed a clinically significant decline on formal audiometry at 24 weeks. On the six-week schedule, the rate was about one in six. Clinical significance was defined using American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) criteria.

The symposium ran October 8-9, 2026, at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans. Shoaib Ugradar, MD, was the presenting author. The study was led by Raymond Douglas, MD, PhD.

San Diego – October 13, 2026 -- Robles BioCeutics, a regenerative dermatology company built on stem cell and senolytic technologies, has appointed trial attorney Mark Skeels to its Advisory Board, adding more than 25 years of litigation, government and business-negotiation experience as it targets international expansion.

Skeels brings prosecutorial and city-government leadership experience to the board

Skeels is the founder of Skeels Law Group, APC. He previously served as a Deputy District Attorney in the San Diego County District Attorney's Office. He later held senior leadership roles in the San Diego City Attorney's Office, including Senior Chief Deputy City Attorney. He studied at Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of San Diego School of Law, where he also served as adjunct faculty.

Birmingham, Ala. – October 13, 2026 -- Eighty-seven percent of employers say they are likely to switch their pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) at contract renewal, according to a new RxBenefits report that describes the most unsettled pharmacy benefits market in years.

The report, "2026 State of Pharmacy Benefits Decisions: The Churn Trap," draws on survey data fielded by FTI Consulting on behalf of RxBenefits. It covers 601 employers and 300 employee benefits consultants and advisors, all with decision-making authority over pharmacy benefits.

Three in four employers have changed or plan to change advisors within 12 months

Three out of four employers have replaced their pharmacy benefits advisor in the past 12 months or plan to do so in the next 12 months. RxBenefits says the advisor relationships and vendor arrangements that once anchored pharmacy decisions are losing their hold.

Seoul – October 13, 2026 -- Lunit (KRX: 328130) has partnered with Discovery Life Sciences, a lab that supports more than 350 active clinical trial programs, to roll out the Lunit SCOPE suite across biopharmaceutical research.

The AI-powered pathology platform will run inside Discovery's biomarker and tissue analysis workflows. Both companies will tailor it to each client program's design, working directly with pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers.

Discovery brings 25 years of assay experience and 2,000 trial programs to the deal

Discovery has delivered biomarker services for more than 2,000 clinical trial programs. Its specialty laboratory services cover the drug development lifecycle end to end. The partners expect the combination of Discovery's global biospecimen network and Lunit's AI image analysis to broaden worldwide access to the SCOPE platform.

Rockville, Md. – October 13, 2026 -- REGENXBIO Inc. (Nasdaq: RGNX) will host a three-hour investor event on October 13, 2026 to review its wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) gene therapy program, with topline pivotal data anticipated in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Event runs 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET in New York and online

The session will be held in person in New York and streamed by webcast. It will cover the clinical program for surabgene lomparvovec (sura-vec, ABBV-RGX-314), which REGENXBIO is developing in collaboration with AbbVie.

Management and five retina specialists to address commercial readiness

REGENXBIO management and retina specialists will discuss the treatment landscape, unmet need, the ATMOSPHERE and ASCENT pivotal trials, and the commercial readiness of sura-vec in wet AMD.

Five key opinion leaders are scheduled to appear:

Dublin – October 13, 2026 -- Keenova Therapeutics plc will present an exploratory analysis of the CONFIRM trial on October 12 at the American College of Gastroenterology Annual Meeting (October 9-14, 2026). The analysis covers TERLIVAZ (terlipressin) in hepatorenal syndrome-acute kidney injury (HRS-AKI) patients who are ineligible for liver transplant.

Ten-author analysis targets liver transplant-ineligible patients

The presentation is titled "Efficacy and Safety of Terlipressin in Patients With Hepatorenal Syndrome-Acute Kidney Injury Ineligible for Liver Transplant: An Exploratory Analysis of the CONFIRM Trial." Nancy Reau, MD, Associate Director of Solid Organ Transplantation and Section Chief of Hepatology at Rush University Medical Center, is the presenting author. Nine co-authors are listed, including Kavish Patidar, Kevin Regner and Nneka N. Ufere.

Laval – October 13, 2026 -- A six-month pilot of a standardized cirrhosis clinical pathway raised follow-up office visit adherence by 9.0% in relative terms, to 51.1% from 46.9%, across 4,251 patients in five community gastroenterology practices, Bausch Health Companies Inc. and its GI unit Salix Pharmaceuticals announced.

The results will be presented as a poster at the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) Annual Scientific Meeting & Postgraduate Course, held October 9-14, 2026, in Nashville, Tennessee. The companies describe the findings as preliminary until presented and evaluated in peer-reviewed publications.

Guangzhou – October 13, 2026 -- Nasdaq-listed Pomdoctor Limited (POM) said it will integrate AI, wearable devices, remote patient monitoring (RPM) and real-world healthcare data with its existing physician resources, aiming to move care from "diagnose and treat" to "predict, alert and intervene."

Pomdoctor bets on chronic disease management as the first use case

The company said continuous monitoring and timely intervention are particularly relevant to chronic disease management. Wearables and RPM can collect health indicators outside clinical settings, while longitudinal and real-world data give a broader view of changes in an individual's health status. AI would analyze these datasets, flag potential risk signals and support earlier healthcare decisions.