An Infrared-based Food Scanner will be Able to Determine Shelf Life of Food

An infrared sensor based mobile food scanner will be able to determine the freshness of food. The device can be used by supermarkets and consumers alike to know the shelf life of food item. The technique uses infrared measurements to determine the shelf life and ripeness of a product which will help in understanding the edibility of a food item. Fraunhofer researchers developed the system in partnership with Bavarian ministry of food and the technology is available only for demonstration.

Every year ten million metric tons of food is thrown into garbage according to estimates by the environmental organization WWF Germany. US food and agricultural Association states that the one third of food produced in the world is wasted amounting 1.3 billion tons every year. Developed world which is responsible for the highest amount of food wastes the cost of such waste is US$680 billion.

The wastage is due to numerous factors including food aesthetics, food habits, cultural choices but the major reason is the inability of consumers to determine whether food is edible or not. To address this issue by offering a proactive solution, the Bavarian Ministry of Food launched 17 new initiatives one of which is the Fraunhofer’s food scanner. The device is inexpensive offering the consumer to determine fresh products from farm to table.

In the promising new technology, high-precision infrared beam is shined on the food product, and the reflected light measurement are recorded across the IR spectrum. The absorbed wavelengths will determine the chemical composition of food. The data will be sent to a central cloud where it will be analyzed, and the test results will be sent back to the user’s smartphone app where it will show the shelf life of the food product and consumption span.

Fraunhofer’s researchers have said that the food scanner is only in its initial testing phases and much work remains to be completed. One significant limitation of the technology is that it is only capable of determining freshness of homogenous food products. It is able to determine the freshness of a potato or onion but not that of pizza with many toppings. The research group wants to add new capabilities to the technology by new research. The group wants to employ AI based machine learning algorithms to expand its recognition potential. The more the number of food products tested on the device, through machine learning it will be able to determine and identify complex products.

The research group wants to test the device initially in supermarkets this year to see consumer response. The application can be expanded to other simple homogenous material like such as sorting wool, textiles, minerals and plastics.

Antioxidants in Grain Bran Shows Potential for Naturally Preserving Food says Penn State Researchers

Food preservatives have shown a tendency to cause allergic reactions and have proved to be less than ideal for our health. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University have found a natural antioxidant in grain bran which has shown potential to be used for food preservation in the coming years. Grain bran is the hard cover of grain.

Antioxidants are compounds responsible for slowing down the degradation rate of omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids with lots of health benefits, for many years is being added to healthy foods. Antioxidants preserve the health benefits of these acids by slowing down their decay. A class of antioxidants called alkylresorcinols (AR) were studied by the Penn’s researchers which are naturally occurring compounds present in whole grains like rye, wheat and barley to prevent bacteria, mold and other organisms from growing on the grain kernels.

Food has very limited shelf life, which makes food preservatives an inevitable necessity for preserving foods for delayed consumption. Common food preservatives like nitrates and sulfites have shown numerous side effects including headache, nausea, allergies and palpitations. Some preservatives have been classified as probable cancer causing agents. Food industry have even fantasized using nuclear radiation for preserving food. The industry’s struggle to find natural antioxidants for preserving food in place of synthetic ones may be coming to an end with ARs.

ARs if used in preservation will make them ideal natural preservatives as they have many health benefits including helping to protect against cancer. Also ARs which come from bran layer of cereal grain, are very cost effective as gray bran is only used as animal fodder. Its use could be extended further by recycling.

Researchers extracted ARs from rye bran and used it in testing emulsion. As many people use oils as emulsions. Researchers found that the AR’s did work as antioxidants in preserving omega-3 fatty acids. The AR’s action was compared to two traditional antioxidants one natural and the other synthetic, namely Vitamin E and butylated hydroxytoluene respectively.

The research unfortunately showed that the AR’s did not prove to be as good as either the natural or synthetic antioxidants. They think the reason for the poor performance of AR may be that the ARs were not pure enough which may have reduced its activity. Now the researchers are testing the activity of ARs from different sources with different molecular structures. They are looking for a specific type of AR which will prove more effective than the conventional synthetic antioxidants.

Medical Manufacturers are Exploiting a Grandfathering Clause in the Regulation to Postpone Implementation of EU’s New Rules

 As Implant Files, an investigation by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), have exposed failure of medical regulators to test faulty medical implants and save lives, companies are using an exemption clause to escape from EU’s new rules. The May 2020 Deadline for manufacturers who test medical devices to comply with recertification norms has led many companies to look for loopholes in the law.

EU instead of making new regulation is opting for stricter compliance of norms in the existing law.

ICIJ’s Implant files reported 4400 violations by device companies to report complaints and device problems in the last decade, the outrage ran across all sections of public opinion.

Companies are exploiting a grandfathering clause in the law to postpone recertification for another five years. European commission stated that the intention for the clause was to apply under some very specific conditions so that key products which could not make it up to the deadline wouldn’t have to be taken off the shelf. A clause which was meant to be a safe exit or a Plan B is being used by medical manufacturers to bypass implementation deadline.

The postponement of recertification will result in delay in access to critical medical devices to patients.   The grace period clause which allows companies to postpone recertification up to 2025 will not be feasible for the safety of patient as well as by transparency perspective, according to a senior member of EPF, A nodal patient advocacy group in Europe.

The Delay seems deliberate as MedTech, a lobbying firm for device makers warned of large scale discontinuation of vital medical technology products the healthcare industry has relied on for decades. In May 2018, just two years away from deadline, the firm replied with a negative response on whether recertification was on track. Concerned voices in European Parliament have shown skepticism about the new framework’s ability to effectively ensure compliance.

The medical device industry has around 27,000 players which collectively make 5, 00,000 products. Around a handful of 60 bodies which have been notified, has gained final approval from European commission to scrutinize and certify medical products according to safety standards. The regulation attracted criticism as the bodies which appointed certification are themselves waiting for final approval. The administrative lapses along with escapist attitude of companies has enraged patient rights and advocacy groups all over the continent.

Spain and Denmark seems to have taken the issue seriously and it was put on immediate agenda on Health Council in December last year. The commission having worked for decades to formulate these norms, can’t wait for another delay in its implementation, said Ellen Trane Norby, the Danish Health Minister.

Graphene based Implant will Deepen the Understanding of Brain at Low Frequencies

Researchers in Barcelona have found a new grapheme based implant to map the brains activity below 0.1 Hz of frequency. The prototype created at Barcelona Microelectronics Institute will help in understanding the brains activity exponentially.

For decades researchers were using electrode arrays to map the activity in the various parts of the brain. The electrode arrays were helpful in understanding which areas of the brain are active when a particular activity was being performed and which areas were silent. But a limitation to this technology was that this could only detect frequencies over certain threshold. This limited the scope of understanding brains working at subtle frequencies. The new technology has paved the way for understanding brains working below the frequency of 0.1 Hz.

The technology was invented as a collaboration project involving Barcelona Microelectronics Institute, CIBER in Bioengineering, Catalan Institute of Nano sciences and Nanotechnology, August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute. The Technology by using a transistor based architecture amplifies low frequencies before they are transmitted to the receiver, this technology will do away the existing electrode array method of brain’s activity mapping.

Graphene being flexible and slim will enable the use of implants in various parts of brain earlier unexplored by the electrode array method of mapping. Information on Many new regions of brain will be available by this technology’s application. For neurologists this is good news as hearing and understanding subtle whispers of the brain will be possible for the first time with the new technology. Unprecedented insights are awaited by academia and researchers alike on such matters like the origins of seizure and effective diagnosis and treatment for conditions like epilepsy by the full throttle application of this technology.

The technique where a large number are recording sites are explored by using transistor configuration is called multiplexing strategy. A European project BrainCom, is using the same technique to restore communication and speech in patients. The project is working on creating new array of brain-computer interfaces to repair high level of cognitive functions focusing particularly on speech disorders caused by spinal cord or brain injuries.

Graphene has shown promising applications in medical implants field, with news reports in April 2018 breakthrough innovation where vertical; grapheme could be used to kill bacteria while surgery and stop further infection. When the flakes were added to the surface of the implant Graphene hindered bacterial infection during the surgery. This and other interesting applications of Graphene has shown promising future for nanotechnology applications in medicine and medical implants.

Intel and GE Healthcare’s New AI-based Solution Will Help Reduce Delay in Medical Diagnosis

Intel and GE Health’s, two of the  biggest players in the digital healthcare sector, have in a collaborative project shown promises to significantly reduce the time between imaging and medical diagnosis. The new technology will harness the Intel Distribution of OpenVINO Toolkit which runs on Intel’s x-ray systems to help prioritizing and optimizing patient care.

Before the latest development, a longer amount of time was wasted to effectively diagnose a health condition based on the massive imaging data generated which would often lead to delayed diagnosis and treatment which in the case of critical conditions would take a toll on patient’s health. 97% of medical imaging data remains unused or unanalyzed every year according to reports. This inability of medical imaging data.

A specialized deep learning based training is undertaken where numerous labelled example images are fed to the models without specifying exact features to look for. These optimized models are able to identify details not noticeable to human eye which when integrated into GE applications with API’s from OpenVINO inference engine. The x-ray machine will acquire the images and inference engine will run the medical diagnosis. GE Healthcare’s Bigelow said that the technology’s potential will help diagnose life threatening events like pneumothorax. The technology will enable effective and efficient decision making, a good news and hope for nearly 16,000 Americans who are diagnosed every year for lung cancer. As delayed diagnosis is one of the major determining factor of cancer death rate, the technology’s promises to on time correct diagnosis will improve the patient’s chance of survival radically.

The new development is particularly promising for radiology as its trained models will be able look for target features in images such as anatomies and tumors. This will reduce retakes which will reduce patient’s unwarranted exposure to painful radiation and will make radiologists life easier by managing workload and enhanced quality of images.

Reconstructing an image from imaging modalities will become easier with deep learning based models. Future applications may include cellular microscopy, pathology, patient’s digital health records in helping develop precision based medicine and targeted drugs.

Bristol-Myers Agrees on Acquisition of Celgene; Healthcare ETFs Remains the Key Focus

The healthcare industry has been continually witnessing a wave of strategic mergers and acquisitions, which could bring in major transformations in the spectrum of healthcare business. Post multiple series of consolidation between the pharmacy benefits managers and health insurers last year, biotech companies have been flourishing in the healthcare space as they have evolved as highly attractive targets for large firms after their valuations came down in the past few months.

This is apparently evident as Bristol-Myers Squibb, a leading American pharmaceutical company, agreed vis-à-vis acquiring Celgene Corporation for a valuation worth $74 billion, in terms of cash and stock deal. This proposed deal would be beneficial for either of the companies that are struggling in the cancer market (presently one of the largest pharmaceutical spaces) for innovation-oriented treatments.

Details of the Deal

As per terms and conditions of the deal, Celgene investors would be receiving one Bristol-Myers share and around $50 cash for every holding of Celgene, along with a contingent value of $9, in case three treatments in development get approvals at the right time.

The deal values Celgene at $102.43 each, a premium of around 53.7% to the closing price and would bring in together two of the global leaders in cancer drug businesses in the largest ever pharmaceutical deal. The combined company would be 69% taken by Bristol-Myers and will frame a specialty biopharma company dedicated for treatments in cancer, inflammatory, and cardiovascular diseases. It will also have a robust portfolio of around nine drugs with a surpassed valuation of $1 billion in case of annual sales.

The transaction would eventually translate into an overall cost savings of around $2.5 billion by 2022, with around 55% derived from cuts in expenses in terms of  general, sales, and administrative, 35% via reduction in the research & development spending and around 10% from the manufacturing spectrum. Therefore, Bristol-Myers anticipates the deal to supplement 40% to its net earnings in the first year post closing.

The news has shed some light on multiple number of ETFs in healthcare, primarily in case of biotech and pharma, which could be in absolute favor of investors to leverage opportunity coming from the BMY-CELG deal. Investors should also keep a close track of the movement of ETFs in the forthcoming weeks.

In multiple cases, acquisitions are instrumental in terms of overcoming significant hindrances in achieving organic growth or growth obtained with the help of the existing assets. Otherwise, in case the existing business is not growing in significant terms, purchasing another business has become more of a common strategy to flourish and reap significant benefits through augmented cash flow.

Australian Oil Explorer Melbana Finalizes Agreement with Chinese Major to Drill Three Wells in Cuba’s Block 9

Australian oil explorer Melbana Energy has signed agreement with Anhui Modestinner Energy, a subsidiary of Chinese major Anhui Guangda Mining Investment to conduct drilling operations in exploration well Alameda1 in northern Cuba.

Alameda is highest ranking exploration target in block 9, and holds a structural proximity to the largest oil field in Cuba, Varadero field, which is nearly 35 km away. Block 9 is one the most underexplored onshore acreage covers around 2,380 Sq. Km.  Three wells are planned to be drilled in this key location.

This is a recent development after a letter of intent was formulated in October last year mutually by both parties. The farm-out agreement is legally binding on both parties. Anhui Modestinner is an international equipment and oilfield service provider. Melbana CEO Robert Zammit, believes the prospects are high for Alameda1 exploration, Alameda and Zapato drills will come with zero cost to company.

The terms of the farm-out agreement state that Anhui will fund all costs of block 9 production, including the three wells. The two wells at Zapato and Alameda will be drilled by November 2019 and the third by July 2020. Anhui will provide all necessary guarantees to the Australian oil explorer along with 12.5% profit sharing. Melbana will cover back costs of $3.5 million for Block 9. The conditions of the agreement includes securing Chinese and Cuban regulatory approvals.

Melbana in December 2018 signed a long term binding contract to share any enhanced production from Santa Cruz oil field with CubaPetrolio. The Santa Cruz field has a potential of 100 million barrels of recoverable oil. The field is offshore, just 28 Miles away from Havana. The Beehive prospect along with Alameda exploration will significantly improve Melbana’s growth prospects.

According to preliminary reports from USEIA, Cuba is heavily dependent on imports with imports of 1, 72,000 barrels per day and domestic production of about 50,000 barrels per day. The area offers significant potential as it was left unexplored by the American 60-year embargo during cold war. In 2016, Cuban oil assets were estimated at 124 million barrels. With Melbana drills the country is set to harness the immense underexploited oil and gas potential which will help reduce its imports.

Colpac to Launch Recyclable and Compostable Heat Seal Sandwich Pack, Aims to Build Consumer Confidence with Environmentally-Responsible Offerings

Sustainability is no longer just a trend, rather it has become more of a necessity. Many of the big brands are coming forward and taking significant steps in this direction to make their offerings in line with the necessities of sustainability. Similarly, Colpac is set to launch a latest and exclusive product from its Zest eco packaging range at Packaging Innovations i.e. a recyclable and compostable heat seal sandwich pack.

The company stated that this particular launch of heat seal packaging has the potential to aid in extending shelf life of the food inside having short-life ingredients and is ecofriendly by nature.

The pack, along with the window, has been created using recyclable materials, such as paperboard, that enable the complete pack to get instantly recycled. Appropriate for any sort of food service operators, ranging from delicatessens to bakeries and from restaurants to supermarkets, the pack offers feasibility in terms of customization to a large extent as per the user specifications.

The eco packaging format by Colpac was developed as a response to the mushrooming demand from various food service establishments and operators, who are on a lookout for packaging, which is compatible with various steams of waste.

Packaging Innovations shall be conducted at NEC Birmingham from 27th February onwards. With rising consumer preferences for products offered by sustainable companies, leading brands are paying immense attention to offer products that are environmentally responsible. For years it has been claimed that consumers are not concerned with products being environmentally-responsible, which is not the case anymore. It’s increasingly observed that sales figures of products that are environmentally responsible have crossed significant boundaries as compared to that of the ones that are not environmentally responsible.

The aforementioned has been inferred in line with statistics from some of the world’s leading organizations. With drastic changes in climatic adversities, damage to environment has become uncompromising and larger brands with stronghold are not willing to take risks in terms of customer confidence on their products. Unmet consumer needs do exist across many categories, with packaging being a prominent one. This step by Colpac in terms of aligning their production strategies vis-à-vis sustainability and launching products along the similar lines will definitely help the company tap into some colossal business opportunities and gain high-profit margins.

Governmental Policy Shift Along with Changing Landscape Threatens Chinese Drug maker’s Generic-based Business Model

Chinese drug maker’s stocks plunged by $46 billion in December 2018.  Chinese government is planning a shift in its drug pricing policy by undertaking bulk procurement of drugs as part of its new program. The move is significant as it will bring down prices of drugs as a major step towards universal and cheaper access of drugs to its citizens.

Generic drugs are a class of drugs whose patents have been expired, Chinese domestic pharmaceutical industry relied mostly on manufacturing generic drugs. After serving inflated profit margins to the industry, governmental policy shift has raised concerns about the efficacy of generic drugs profitability in the long run.

The central procurement program of drugs launched by Chinese government buys drugs for a city in bulk, as contracts are placed in competitive bids by pharmaceutical companies the prices of drugs have fallen forcing the fragmented industry into consolidation. This is only the beginning as the government plans to expand the program to all major cities in near future. One such bidding, drove down the price of the drugs by 55% and the other by as much as 90%. This radical shift in governmental policy has forced pharmaceutical companies into introspecting its business model.

According to fresh data gathered by Bloomberg, of the top 100 generic drug makers, Chinese companies with a gross and profit margin of 74% and 18% respectively, outran the global average of 55% and 9.5%.  The oversized profit margins owe their existence to regulatory privileges enjoyed by many. The domestic generic drug makers swiftly acquired government approval for copying drugs, while foreign multinationals had to wait for years to get government’s green signal. This along with the absence of any regulatory quality control gave domestic companies to rapidly expand in the market.  

But now many companies are planning to reverse this overdependence on generic drugs driven business model by investing more on Research and Development. The new landscape will favor companies who have already invested heavily in R&D. The companies with impressive R&D investment are Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine, Yipinhong Pharmaceutical and Chengdu Kanghong Pharmaceuticals with 16%, 8.4% and 8% of R&D investment of their total revenues respectively. Jiangsu Hengrui has 20:80 novel to generic drugs revenue ratio, the company wants invert this by focusing on new research.

Launching any novel drug is a many-year-long process, Chinese pharmaceuticals will find it hard to compete with global giants with vast talent pool and deep pockets. However, experts believe that with generic drugs revenue in shock, the transition to R&D and novel drugs won’t be easy.

Amazon, a Company Notoriously Famous for Secrecy has Finally Revealed the Number of Alexa built in Devices Sold

Amazon has revealed recently that approximately 100 million devices with Alexa built in have been sold. The number came from the senior vice president of devices and services of the company, Dave Limp in an interview with The Verge. When asked about the number of Echo dots sold this season, Mr. Limp refused to give an exact number instead remarked that it has already outran its expectations for this season and Echo dots are sold out already.

100 million number seems extravagant at first look, but comparatively with other platforms in market it lags far behind impressive. In May 2017, Google reported that its android platform is run on 2 billion mobile devices. Apple’s iPhone and Android already has captured more than 99% of smartphone market. If compared to Siri and Google assistant run devices, Amazon’s number lags but Dave believes that as these assistants are preinstalled on the phones, customers are not making active choices. While in case of Amazon’s Alexa customers are actively choosing the devices.

There are 150 Alexa built in devices on the market along with 28,000+ smart home devices which work on Alexa platform made by 4500 Manufacturers. The sheer number of devices adopting Amazon’s Alexa is big pat on the back of Alexa. The platform is also diversifying its 70,000+ skills base by localizing content and getting more voice developers on board. 

Although technology analysts have long drawn comparisons between Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant, The Company rejects the idea of a full-on platform war. Out of the 150 products running on Alexa, 100 are shipped in 2018 and Amazon doesn’t even make it. The company hasn’t signed any exclusivity agreements with its partner, and believes in the strategy of allowing its partners to work with diverse assistants. He’s open for diverse assistants working with each other and cited the partnership with Microsoft to make Cortana and Alexa work with each other. According to Dave, in future we’ll see multiple players in the Assistant field, and in order to ensure ease of access and inter-platform operability for the user, a collaborative effort to integrate all assistants is necessary.

Amazons goal is to create an ambient user interface. A smartphone is not ambient as the user has to actively use it. Without direct interaction the phone just sits there in the pocket. This is the game Alexa wants to change by allowing smart interfaces to interact with user without active participation. Amazon doesn’t feel comfortable to label Alexa as an assistant. The company sees no point luring android users already using Google assistant to use Alexa, it’s difficult. Neither is there any possibility that Apple, in its right senses, will allow Alexa to be preinstalled in its iPhone. Amazon wants to expand Alexa’s reach to where smartphone cant, the home, the car and the workplace.