A new national project to support bioventures and the venture capital funds investing in them has started in Japan. The strategic aim of the JPY50bn initiative is to enhance the speed of development and trials of new drugs and vaccines for infectious diseases, the lack of which became obvious since the breakout of COVID-19. 

The list of medical device approvals outside the US captured by Medtech Insight's Approvals Tracker in 2018 was shorter than in 2017, but it includes approvals from 14 different territories – more than one-fifth of the approvals came from emerging markets – covering more than 50 different indication categories.

A snapshot of global medical device and diagnostics approvals recorded during the past week in Medtech Insight's Approvals Tracker. This week, Abiomed's Impella enters India, and more.

The second quarter of 2018 brought 62 approvals from outside the US, including 46 in Europe, according to Medtech Insight's Approvals Tracker. Among those approvals, 14 were for devices to treat coronary artery disease, and the second most-common indications were obesity and soft-tissue repair. Outside of Europe, Japan had the most non-US approvals in the quarter with five.