Thermo Fisher Scientific is an American provisioner of scientific instrumentation, reagents and consumables, and software and services to healthcare, life science, and other laboratories in academia, government, and industry (including in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors). Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Thermo Fisher was created in 2006 by the merger of Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific, to form a company with US$ 9 billion in combined revenues. The combined company has added significantly to its technologies, workforce, and revenues through the acquisition of other reagent, consumable, instrumentation, and service providers, including Life Technologies Corporation in 2013 (for US$ 13.6 billion, for probe reagents and advanced DNA sequencing services), Advanced Scientifics (US$ 300 million, for bioprocessing technologies) and Alfa Aesar (US$ 405 million, for research chemicals), both in 2015; Affymetrix (US$ 1.3 billion, for gene chip technologies) and MTI-GlobalStem (amount unknown, for cell transfection and neurobiology), both in 2016; FEI Company (US$ 4.2 billion, an electron microscope manufacturer), Finesse Solutions (amount unknown, for bioproduction control systems and software), Core Informatics (amount unknown, for cloud-based scientific data management), and Patheon (US$ 7.2 billion, for its contract development and manufacturing services), all in 2017; Becton, Dickinson's Advanced Bioprocessing business in 2018 (amount unknown, for further bioprocessing products); and Brammer Bio in 2019 (US$ 1.7 billion, for gene therapy manufacturing capabilities). As of 2017, the company had revenues of $21 billion and was a Fortune 500 company. As of 2018, the company employed on the order of 70,000 workers, and was reporting $US 24 billion in annual revenues. In March 2020, Thermo Fisher received emergency use authorization from the FDA for a test for SARS-COV-2 to help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hydroxyapatite (HA) is promising for bone-replacement applications, but its structural use is limited by low fracture toughness and defect-sensitive brittle failure. Here, DLP printed HA containing 1 vol% Al2O3 plate-like particles was evaluated in three build orientations. XRD showed an HA-dominated phase composition with minor β-TCP and no evidence of extensive bulk degradation. All specimens reached similar relative densities of 92–93% t.d., yet microscopy revealed pronounced local changes: the particles aligned within the printed layers, were surrounded by microporous halos, and were locally associated with MgAl2O4 and CaAl2O4 phases. The mechanical response was strongly orientation dependent. Al2O3 addition did not improve flexural strength or clearly enhance fracture toughness because potential crack-deflection mechanisms were offset by particle-associated porosity and interfacial defects. Microporous halo formation, rather than bulk densification or phase stability, was therefore identified as the main barrier to effective low-volume reinforcement of DLP printed HA.
Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. A substantial proportion of patients experience disease progression despite adequate IOP control, which is the most significant modifiable risk factor. This indicates the involvement of additional pathogenic mechanisms. One such mechanism is neuroinflammation within the retina and optic nerve head, spearheaded by resident glial cells. These activated glial cells initiate a cascade of proinflammatory cytokines that drives oxidative stress, excitotoxic injury, and ultimately apoptosis in retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), the cells that are responsible for vision. Given the central role of cytokines in mediating this neuroinflammatory damage, several genetic association studies have checked whether functional variants in the cytokine genes modify disease susceptibility to primary glaucoma. In this review, we critically compare and assess the strength of these associations in both open-angle and angle-closure glaucoma, highlighting the inconsistencies and population-specific variability, while also evaluating the limitations of current association studies and how to overcome these challenges. Second, we address a critical mechanistic gap—how cytokine gene variants may influence glial activation, and contribute to the inflammatory ocular microenvironment that may drive disease progression. Finally, we discuss if oxidative stress–driven epigenetic modifications may modulate cytokine gene expression and amplify inflammatory responses in individuals who might be genetically predisposed to develop primary glaucoma.
Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) mutations in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are associated with aggressive disease and poor prognosis. Improved understanding of patient characteristics is vital to advance personalized treatment and improve outcomes. In this structured protocol-based targeted literature review, we assessed the epidemiology and ‘real-world’ outcomes in patients with HER2-mutant NSCLC by region, and by mutation category (tyrosine kinase domain [TKD] and non-TKD). Across 64 studies, the frequency of HER2 mutations ranged from 1
Economic evaluations of interventions that target or include children require health state utilities (HSUs). Despite the availability of preference-weighted measures for children, methods for valuing child health states and estimating child utilities are not as well established as those for adult HSUs. The objective of this task force was to develop emerging good practice recommendations for valuing child and adolescent health to generate HSUs for use in economic evaluation. This task force identified and described the interrelated methodological choices regarding the valuation of child health to generate HSUs. The task force considered available evidence related to 4 key issues: (1) whose preferences should be sought, (2) whose health is imagined, (3) which method should be used, and (4) the comparability between adult and child utilities. Best practices may vary depending on the modeling context, characteristics of the health states, and the health technology assessment setting in which the HSUs will be used. For any individual study, methods will be informed by empirical evidence, value judgments, and recommendations from healthcare decision makers. Rather than recommending an approach that would apply to every study, this task force presents options to consider when determining the preference elicitation approach to generate utilities for child health states, along with the strengths and limitations of each. Given that child HSUs can affect the outcomes of a cost-utility analysis and subsequent decisions about healthcare resource allocation, this task force recommends that researchers be transparent about methodological choices and their impact on HSUs.
This research explores the growing importance of qualitative in-trial research (ITR) in regulatory and health technology assessment (HTA) decision making. Since 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) have emphasized incorporating patient experience data into drug development and approval. We reviewed regulatory guidance documents, drug approval records, and HTA reports from January 2017 to March 2025. This included labels and reviews for new drug applications from the FDA and EMA, the Patient-Focused Drug Development guidance series, guidance on rare diseases, oncology, and gene therapy, and methodological guidance from HTA bodies in Scotland, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. From more than 1000 drug applications assessed by both regulatory agencies, only ten and eight products (from the FDA and EMA, respectively) included ITR, with 55
