NEW YORK — The US Department of Labor said this week that Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics has agreed to settle allegations that the firm paid female employees of a laboratory diagnostics manufacturing facility in Delaware less than male counterparts who worked in similar positions. Federal authorities said that eight system engineers will receive $57,200 in back wages and interest and three will receive $24,821 in salary adjustments. The company also will review its compensation policies and practices and train managers to ensure compliance with an executive order that prohibits federal contractors from discriminating in employment decisions based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.
DiaCarta said this week that it has entered into a testing service contract with the US Department of Veterans Affairs San Francisco VA Health Care System. The Pleasanton, California-based molecular diagnostic company said that under the contract, whose terms were not disclosed, it will provide testing for the autoinflammatory disease VEXAS syndrome within the VA system, starting Oct. 1. Biocarta’s QClamp Plex VEXAS test will be used for testing. It was developed by leveraging the firm’s XNA technology, which amplifies the signal from a mutant target sequence without needing RNA or DNA extraction or amplification.
Bionano Genomics said this week that it has adjourned a special meeting of stockholders held on Oct. 2 because the quorum was not satisfied at the time of the meeting. According to the company, only 22.5 percent of the total shares outstanding as of the record date have submitted their votes, below the 33.3 percent necessary to satisfy the quorum requirements for a meeting.
The special meeting was held to approve the issuance of unregistered clinical milestone-linked warrants the company placed in July, comprising Series A warrants to purchase up to 17,513,136 shares of common stock and Series B warrants to purchase up to 17,513,136 shares of common stock. The Series warrants have an exercise price of $.571 per share. The aggregate gross proceeds from the offering were approximately $10 million, and the potential additional gross proceeds from the Series warrants, if fully exercised on a cash basis, will be approximately $20 million. The special meeting will reconvene on Oct. 30, the company said.
PathAI this week announced that it has partnered with the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation to integrate PathAI's algorithms with the foundation's IBD Plexus dataset for inflammatory bowel disease. PathAI's IBD Explore and AIM-HI UC algorithms will be used on digitized histology images from the dataset to derive quantitative histopathology data. IBD Explore uses artificial intelligence-based histopathology analysis to provide insights into the tissue's inflammatory microenvironment, while AIM-HI UC provides Geboes scores to measure the histological stage and improvement for ulcerative colitis research and clinical trials.
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