The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) has furthered its drive to establish wearable devices as part of the data-gathering toolkit in clinical trials of Parkinson's treatments. Cynapsus is collaborating with MJFF on the inclusion of a wearable-enabled substudy in its Phase III trial. The alliance builds on a deal MJFF struck with Intel in 2014, which set out to improve the monitoring of Parkinson's patients between site visits through the use of wearable devices. Release
> Thermo Fisher Scientific agreed to buy genomics veteran Affymetrix for $1.3 billion. Release
> Guardant Health wrapped up the first closing of a $100 million round intended to bankroll the expansion of its sequencing platform. News
> Illumina set up a new company to develop a blood-based screening test for cancer. Statement
> Validic added a way to import data from nonconnected devices to its digital health platform. More
> PierianDx raised $9.25 million to expand the capabilities of its genomics software. Item | More
> NSF committed $10 million to support the creation of a set of guidelines for synthetic biology. Post