NORTH READING, Mass. — TraceLink Inc., the World’s Largest Track and Trace Network for connecting the life sciences supply chain and providing real-time information sharing for better patient outcomes, today announced that it has developed a streamlined program for its more than 190 customers to rapidly complete conformance testing and successfully receive European Medicines Verification Organization (EMVO) approval to submit data to the EU Hub – a complex and lengthy process that requires each individual company to complete EMVO registration and provide a full set of test cases to be executed for conformance with the EU Hub.
In just one month, 34 companies have completed their conformance testing with TraceLink’s conformance test kit. Of these, 11 companies have received EMVO approval to submit data to the EU Hub and 14 companies are awaiting review from the EMVO. In order to achieve final approval, all pharmaceutical companies must now submit a series of transactions to be reviewed by the EMVO, a process that can now take several weeks due to the surge of companies seeking to connect to the EU Hub before the EU Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) deadline in February 2019. Once the transactions are approved by the EMVO, a pharmaceutical company will receive access to the certificates required for production and data submission to the EU Hub.
OTA Insight Partners with Outrigger Hotels and Resorts
LONDON and NEW YORK — OTA Insight, the cloud-based data intelligence platform for the hospitality industry, today announced a partnership with Outrigger Hotels and Resorts to drive better revenue and distribution decisions for its multi-branded line of hotels, condominiums and vacation resort properties in Hawaii and the Asia-Pacific region. Outrigger Hotels and Resorts turned to OTA Insight’s suite of revenue intelligence tools to help understand pricing trends and gain greater insights into their markets throughout the Pacific. The partnership represents a monumental milestone for the company as now, 30,000 hotels worldwide are benefiting from OTA Insight’s solutions.
“Not maintaining parity is one of the largest threats to our brand and OTA Insight allows us to efficiently track down rate parity violations. Additionally, we are able to measure parity loss by property, which allows us to hold our revenue leaders accountable across various locations,” says Jenna Villalobos, Vice President of Revenue Management, Outrigger Hotels and Resorts.
OTA Insight’s customer milestone showcases strong growth to its North American and APAC business divisions. Since entering the market in August 2016, OTA Insight’s ability to expand rapidly in this region is a testament to its hard work in creating a simple-to-use, intuitive and interactive platform that customers have quickly embraced.
Adaptimmune Announces First Patient to Receive One Billion Target Cell Dose after Positive Safety Data from Pilot Study with MAGE-A4 SPEAR T-cells
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. and OXFORD, U.K. — Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq:ADAP), a leader in T-cell therapy to treat cancer, today announced that the independent safety review committee has recommended dose escalation in the MAGE-A4 basket study, based on an acceptable safety profile in three patients dosed with 100 million cells. The company will start treating patients with the target dose of one billion transduced MAGE-A4 SPEAR T-cells in the ongoing basket study.
In addition, after confirming expression levels for MAGE-A4 from synovial sarcoma and myxoid/round cell liposarcoma (MRCLS) tumor samples, Adaptimmune has amended the study to add these two indications to the ongoing basket study, which already includes bladder, melanoma, head & neck, esophageal, gastric, ovarian, and non-small cell lung (NSCLC) cancers. Screening of patients with synovial sarcoma and MRCLS is ongoing.
“Today’s announcement that we are dosing patients with one billion cells, which we believe is a potentially therapeutic dose based on data from NY-ESO, means that we are on target to get response data in our MAGE-A4 study, to which we have added two solid tumor indications, in 2018,” said James Noble, Adaptimmune’s Chief Executive Officer. “This follows the earlier announcement that pilot studies in our other program, MAGE-A10, have also moved to the one billion cells dose.”
EY Names Flywire CEO Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist in New England
BOSTON, May 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — EY has selected Mike Massaro, CEO of global payment and receivables solutions provider Flywire, as a finalist for the Entrepreneur of The Year 2018 Award in the New England program. The finalists were announced on May 23rd. The awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who are excelling in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Massaro was selected as a finalist by a panel of independent judges. Award winners will be announced at a special gala event on June 28, 2018 at the Westin Boston Waterfront.
Flywire processes billions in payments around the world – connecting all the entities involved to make complex global transactions faster, more secure, less expensive, and more transparent for all. The company’s platform optimizes the payment experience for customers in a variety of verticals and provides a single point for management and payer engagement – from billing and payment through reconciliation.
Snapsheet Wins “Best Insurtech Solution” at 2018 Benzinga Fintech Awards
Judges selected Snapsheet from finalist list based on innovative approach to simplifying the claims process
Snapsheet, the industry-leading provider of virtual claims technology for the personal and commercial insurance marketplace, has accepted the honor of being selected the Best Insurtech Solution at the 2018 Benzinga Fintech Awards.
Snapsheet won the award over 11 other finalists based on its ability to remove obstacles within the claims process. Snapsheet’s unique combination of insurance and technical expertise allows insureds to upload vehicle information and photos of damage via smartphone and receive an estimate in as few as three hours. From there, Snapsheet’s payment solution, Snapsheet Transactions, allows customers and repairers to receive payments virtually within hours instead of waiting weeks for a check in the mail.
Circulation Teams Up with AI Powered Buoy Health to Bring On-Demand Transportation Options to Millions of Patients Online
Nationwide partnership solves for major issue in the industry by making it easy for consumers online to be transported to recommended care as soon as they realize something is wrong
BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Circulation Health (www.circulation.com), a ride-ordering exchange that coordinates medical transportation logistics using Lyft and other transportation partners, today announced that it has entered into a nationwide partnership with Buoy Health (www.buoyhealth.com), to help millions of patients online receive the care they need when they need it the most. The partnership – which will roll out before the end of 2018 – will introduce Buoy’s patients to an even further streamlined, end-to-end healthcare experience by making it easy for them, post assessment, to book reliable on-demand transportation, powered by Circulation, to recommended care.
“Ultimately, it comes down to providing a better experience to individuals who need timely access to care,” said Robin Heffernan, CEO & Co-Founder of Circulation. “And since every patient journey starts with a ride, it makes so much sense to give Buoy users easy access to convenient, reliable transportation to their local pharmacies, primary care clinics, or urgent care centers.”
Threat Stack Announces Enhanced Support for Businesses Transitioning to Container-Based Infrastructure and Kubernetes
Threat Stack® Cloud SecOps Program Now Offers Businesses Enhanced Visibility and Expertise to Effectively Manage Container-Based Cloud Environments
Threat Stack, the leader in Cloud Infrastructure Security, today announced enhancements to the Threat Stack Cloud Security Platform® and Cloud SecOps Program. Threat Stack now provides security and IT leaders transitioning to container-based infrastructure the expertise and enhanced security visibility necessary to effectively manage the addition of container-based cloud environments.
Gartner estimates that 50 percent of companies will use container technology by 2020, up from less than 20 percent in 2017. Operations teams are accelerating the transition to container-based infrastructure to reduce operational complexity; however, even when adding containers and kubernetes, they frequently underestimate the visibility required in these complex, heterogeneous environments. Threat Stack’s integrated offering minimizes risk across the attack surface, providing unparalleled visibility and actionable analytics across host and container environments.
Navigant, Lumere Collaborate to Help Healthcare Providers Target Clinical and Financial Variation
Combination of analytics, research, and performance improvement expertise to support evidence-based medical device and drug selection, utilization
CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Navigant (NYSE: NCI) and Lumere today announced a collaboration to help healthcare providers implement evidence-based, technology-enabled consulting solutions aimed at reducing clinical and financial variation. The goal of the collaboration is to assist hospitals and health systems with reducing unnecessary utilization of drugs and medical devices in such areas as orthopedic, spine, cardiac, and surgical services.
Research suggests up to a quarter of overall healthcare expenditures are wasteful and not associated with improved quality. A proven way to reduce waste is to target unnecessary variation in clinical processes. However, providers often lack the resources to analyze major clinical cost factors necessary to drive action.
Turnstone Biologics listed in top 10 among Canada’s 50 most attractive VC companies
Innovative biotechnology firm BlueRock Therapeutics and Vancouver-based social media management firm Hootsuite are amongst those featured on the University of Toronto’s Narwhal 2018 rankings, listing the 50 most financially attractive technology companies within Canada.
The Impact Centre at the University of Toronto highlights the young firms and startups most likely to reach unicorn status on the list, having studied more than 1,000 private venture capital (VC) funded businesses.
Flywire Expands London HQ to Support Strong Growth in Europe
Global payments and receivables business booms worldwide as company continues to expand in commercial, education and healthcare segments
LONDON and BOSTON, May 22, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Flywire, a provider of global payment and receivables solutions, today announced a major expansion of its UK and European operations and team. The company has moved into new space on Folgate Street in London’s Spitalfields District, between Liverpool Street’s Financial District and London’s Fintech start-up hub at Shoreditch. The new office is quadruple the size of its previous location in Canary Wharf, and provides substantial room for future growth.
Flywire processes billions in payments around the world – connecting all the entities involved to make complex global transactions faster, more secure, less expensive, and more transparent for all. The company’s platform optimizes the payment experience for customers in a variety of verticals and provides a single point for management and payer engagement – from billing and payment through reconciliation.