Research suggests N95 respirators used by medical staff can be safely decontaminated at least two to three times, with hydrogen peroxide vapor the most effective decontamination method.

Ascletis was the first with a new listing under new Hong Kong rules, but BeiGene also sold shares on the HKEX; the companies raised more than $1bn combined. Also, TherapeuticsMD sold stock in the US to commercialize Imvexxy, Curon raised the latest $150m VC mega-round, and NewLink cut jobs in R&D refocus.

Quality, compliance and regulatory officials at the three large device firms – along with their peers at Steris and CVRx – open up about appraisals conducted at their facilities under a voluntary US FDA pilot program that uses Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) to measure the capability and maturity of their manufacturing sites. Along with providing a step-by-step walk-through of the assessments, the officials explain how a CMMI appraisal is nothing like a typical regulatory audit. They also talk about the types of benefits they're seeing (hint: cost-savings, and better manufacturing capability and quality), and how they network via monthly conference calls linked to the pilot. Also: Baxter Healthcare explains why it made its own maturity model, and how it plans to eventually replace the homemade tool with CMMI at all its facilities.

The largest medical device merger ever will not be materially impacted by the Treasury Department's new rules to thwart tax-inversion deals.