Pic: Dementia Australia
Health & Biotech
Dementia Australia is trying to catch the disease out early with a new free brain training app.
The app – called BrainTrack – helps people privately monitor and better understand suspected changes in their cognition over time, and if they have concerns, they can share the results with their GP and use it as a conversation starter to support an earlier dementia diagnosis.
“While not intended to replace a formal cognitive assessment, BrainTrack supports the early identification of cognitive changes over time that may warrant further testing,” CEO Maree McCabe AM said.
“I encourage everyone interested in exploring more about their brain health to download BrainTrack and for GPs and other treating healthcare professionals to encourage their patients who have concerns about their cognition to do so too,” McCabe said.
“With up to half a million Australians living with dementia – which is projected to increase to 1.1 million people by 2058 – improving early diagnosis must be a priority.”
To be able to explore delaying decline, dementia needs to be diagnosed early and currently around 76% of Aussies diagnosed have already advanced beyond the early stage by the time it’s picked up.
“If we find using BrainTrack increases awareness of brain health and prompts individuals to seek help for cognitive concerns then many vulnerable Australians may be supported earlier,” Deakin Uni Director of the Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research in the Institute for Health Transformation Professor Alison Hutchinson said.
“There is also an opportunity offered on downloading BrainTrack to consider volunteering to contribute to research about the app and its impact.”
BrainChip has further strengthened its patent portfolio, acquiring previously licensed JAST learning rule technology, including licensed patents
In 2017, BrainChip acquired an exclusive licence for the JAST learning rule and algorithms from French technology transfer-based company TTT.
And the company has now acquired full ownership of the IP rights related to the JAST learning rule and algorithms and terminated the licence agreement.
“BrainChip believes the pending patent applications, once issued, will protect a broad level of learning algorithms, providing competitive advantages to the company,” they said.
Incannex has completed dosing in its Phase 1 clinical trial to assess multi-use, anti-inflammatory drug IHL-675A, and the company is now arranging Phase 2 studies.
“At this stage, there have been no unexpected adverse events and the drug appears to be well tolerated,” chief scientific officer Dr Mark Bleackley says.
“This gives our team the confidence to take the next steps necessary to commence Phase 2 clinical trials, initially in patients with arthritis, then in patients with lung inflammation and inflammatory bowel disease.”
The company is also preparing for a pre-IND meeting with the FDA on the development of IHL-675A specifically for the treatment of patients with arthritis – which could potentially be a major economic opportunity.
CEO and MD Joel Latham says many people throughout the world are using unapproved CBD or cannabinoids for inflammation-based disorders.
“By undertaking pivotal clinical studies over IHL-675A, and subject to ongoing clinical success, we intend to both disrupt the market for CBD and to open our product to the purview of medical professionals who are eminently more comfortable prescribing FDA approved, pharmaceutical grade products to their patients,” he said.
Weebit says it has progressed its selector development with new results confirming its ReRAM selector is suitable for both embedded and discrete (standalone) applications, greatly increasing the number of possible applications for the company’s tech.
The ReRAM selector has the potential achieve the high densities needed for discrete chips using standard materials and tools, and this same selector technology will fit embedded applications, enabling unprecedented Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) densities for future system-on-chips (SoCs).
To put this in context, in a memory array, the role of a selector is to ensure that only the specific cells which should be accessed actually are, and all other cells are disconnected and not impacted.
Embedded designs currently use a transistor as the selector device, but transistors increase the cell area of a memory bit and cannot support the high densities required for discrete chips.
And in future embedded applications such as edge AI and automotive will require far larger memory arrays and could benefit from an optimised selector that enables higher densities.
CEO Coby Hanoch says using fab-friendly materials and standard tools will make it easy and cost-effective for any foundry to integrate the technology into existing processes and offer it to their customers.
AdAlta and GPCR Therapeutics have formed a collaboration to evaluate a new cancer treatment approach combining beta blockers plus AdAlta’s CXCR4-inhibiting i-bodies.
AdAlta has the first option to license and further commercialise any products resulting from the collaboration.
“Through the program, we hope to demonstrate that AdAlta’s i-bodies, when combined with other GPCR inhibitors can have enhanced therapeutic outcomes in cancer, in comparison with the typical approach of inhibiting individual GPCRs,” CEO and MD Tim Oldham says.
“This collaboration is consistent with our strategy of expanding the commercial use of our i-bodies in a cost-effective way.”
The company says the September quarter was its second highest cash receipt quarter of $5.6 million customer and grant cash receipts, up 103% on 2Q22.
Plus, there’s $50 million pipeline for remainder of 2022 (with a further $180 million pipeline for 2023 onwards), with growing focus towards the US and Australian Government customers.
Highlights include multiple larger size contracts, including $2 million European order for DroneSentry systems, $1.8 million US DoD order for DroneGuns.
DRO also nabbed its first paid US civilian airport deployment – which could pave the way for additional airport sales.
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