News

Overland Park, Kan. – September 24, 2026 -- Aria Care Partners has appointed Veda Lewis-Simmons, DPM, MHA, as chief medical officer of podiatry, giving her oversight of operational effectiveness and clinical quality for the company's onsite podiatry services across skilled nursing facilities (SNFs).

Aria Care Partners taps board-certified podiatrist to lead clinical quality for SNF foot care programs

Dr. Lewis-Simmons holds a master's degree in healthcare administration and a Doctor of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery from Des Moines University Medicine and Health Sciences. She completed her residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and is board certified.

San Diego – September 24, 2026 -- ACROBiosystems has launched CHO-Direct, a rapid high-throughput affinity validation service that delivers antibody affinity data in as little as four days from sequence submission, alongside a broader infrastructure platform called ACRO AIx aimed at AI-driven drug discovery (AIDD).

CHO-Direct compresses antibody validation timelines to four days

Using an optimized CHO cell system, CHO-Direct converts computationally generated antibody sequences into structured affinity data within days, addressing a bottleneck where AI tools generate candidate sequences faster than labs can validate them. The service leverages the protein-folding and post-translational modification environment of mammalian cells while maintaining compatibility with CHO systems already used in downstream development and manufacturing.

Dallas and Tel Aviv – September 24, 2026 -- Enterprises have working detections for only 63% of the cyber threats they have already identified as relevant, leaving more than a third of known risks operationally uncovered, according to new research from Conifers based on an analysis of 14,652 detections in live enterprise environments.

The report, titled The Detection Blind Spot, found that detection coverage extended to just 64% of the MITRE ATT&CK techniques relevant to each environment studied. Nearly half of all detections examined, 47%, required attention before they could be trusted to function as intended, despite appearing as deployed or healthy in standard inventory-based reporting.

Santa Fe, N.M. – September 24, 2026 -- Snow Secure's insulated mats retained 85% of stored snow volume through a full Colorado summer, according to drone measurements taken by Aspen Snowmass management on August 31, 2026, at the resort's Buttermilk and Snowmass locations.

Aspen Snowmass tested Colorado's first deployment of the European snow-storage system

Snow was covered under the insulated mats in April 2026, marking the first-ever Colorado deployment of Snow Secure's patented technology. Continuous temperature monitoring ran from April 30 through August 31, tracking how the insulation performed against seasonal heat and sun exposure.

Jacksonville Beach, Fla. – September 24, 2026 -- FaverGray has broken ground on a 415-unit market-rate multifamily community on the former site of Adventure Landing in Jacksonville Beach, marking the general contractor's second project with developer Trevato Development.

Development spans 10.7 acres with 410,509 square feet of new construction

The project will introduce a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom rental units across two three-story residential buildings. Approximately 1,800 square feet of ground-floor commercial space will be included alongside the residential units.

Austin, Texas – September 24, 2026 -- A proposed Medicare payment change involving Modifier 25 would reallocate approximately $889 million in annual fee-for-service payments, with private practices and solo physicians absorbing $724.4 million, or 81.5%, of the modeled reductions, according to a new analysis from Jiro Health.

Six specialties bear 82.3% of the total reduction

Jiro's Practice Impact Analysis, titled "Who Pays for CMS's Modifier 25 Proposal?", found that six medical specialties account for roughly $732 million of the modeled impact. Dermatology alone represents $395.4 million, or 44.5% of the total reallocation. Podiatric medicine and surgery, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology, ophthalmology and family medicine together account for an additional $336 million.

Boston – September 24, 2026 -- RS2 Healthcare Partners has completed an investment in KMM Group, a Hatboro, Pennsylvania-based precision contract manufacturer for the medical device industry, marking the Boston private equity firm's first new platform deal since narrowing its focus exclusively to lower middle-market healthcare investing.

RS2 names industry veteran J. Mark King as KMM's new CEO

J. Mark King, who brings more than 30 years of medical device industry experience, has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of KMM. King previously served as President and CEO of Tegra Medical, a medical device contract manufacturer and former RS2 portfolio company, and has also acted as an advisor to KMM prior to the deal.

"I am honored and excited to continue building on KMM's momentum," King said, citing a long working history with RS2's principals.

Washington – September 24, 2026 -- More than half of US adults did not attempt to get a flu, COVID-19, RSV, or pneumococcal vaccine in the past year, even though 77% agree vaccines are among the best proven tools against serious infectious disease, according to a new national survey released by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID).

Survey finds 48% of adults tried to get at least one of four respiratory vaccines in the past year

The survey, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago among 1,206 US adults age 18 and older between August 13-17, 2026, has a margin of sampling error of ±3.6 percentage points. Just 44% tried to get a flu vaccine and only 23% attempted a COVID-19 vaccine, despite 89% of respondents agreeing that anyone who wants vaccine access should have it and 71% saying benefits strongly outweigh risks.

Fulton County, Ill. – September 24, 2026 -- Lightstar Renewables confirmed continued expansion of its Illinois development portfolio spanning community solar, agrivoltaic solar, and battery energy storage systems (BESS), building on a national pipeline that now exceeds 1,000 MW across 15 states.

Illinois clean energy mandates drive developer demand

Illinois' Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) sets a target of 100% clean energy by 2050, while the Illinois Shines Adjustable Block Program opens its 2026-2027 cycle on June 1, 2026. The state's Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act (CRGA) permits co-location of projects up to 10 MW on a single parcel or adjacent properties, and 2026 statewide energy storage legislation established new storage targets, reinforcing demand for grid-responsive infrastructure.

West Chester, Ohio – September 24, 2026 -- E Tech Group will present on the compliance and data integrity risks of scaling laboratory automation from pilot to full production at the ISPE Boston Area Chapter 2026 Product Show on October 7 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Session targets the gap between pilot success and regulated production failure

Sura Hadi, Director of Laboratory Automation and Industrial Robotics (LAIR) at E Tech Group, will lead the 3:00 p.m. ET session, "From Pilot to Production: Scaling Lab Automation Without Breaking Compliance, Data Integrity, or Teams," in West Red Level, Suite 81. The talk addresses why automation pilots that succeed in contained workflows frequently break down when expanded into regulated manufacturing environments, where instruments must connect to scheduling systems, Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELN), and other enterprise platforms.