A roundup of the most newsworthy healthcare press releases from PR Newswire, including FDA approval for Aktiia's cuffless blood pressure monitor, Cochlear's new smart cochlear implant system and Varda's $187M Series C funding for space medicine.

NEW YORK, Aug. 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- With thousands of press releases published each month, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on PR Newswire. To help healthcare journalists and consumers stay on top of the month's most popular releases and newsworthy trends, here's a recap of some of the past month's most read- and engaged-with stories.

The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download.

1. Lorient Closes $500 Million Fund III to Scale Founder-Led Healthcare Companies
   Lorient partners with founder-led healthcare companies in the middle market, bringing sector expertise, hands-on operational capabilities, and a repeatable approach to scaling mission-driven businesses. The firm has built a track record of supporting improvements in clinical outcomes, workforce efficiency, and access to care across the U.S. healthcare system.
2. Medicare Drug Pricing Changes Threaten Patient Access to Life-Saving Treatments 
   The brief highlights concerns that the next round of negotiations under the Inflation Reduction Act may unintentionally restrict access to vital medications for Medicare patients. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' upcoming drug price negotiation program, which includes medications covered by Medicare Part B, would take effect in 2028.
3. OpenEvidence, the Fastest-Growing Application for Physicians in History, Announces $210 Million Round at $3.5 Billion Valuation
   OpenEvidence rapidly surfaces relevant medical knowledge, synthesizes medical research, and gives clinicians the power to make faster, more evidence-based decisions—accelerating both medical literature review and clinical decision support. By reducing the lag between new evidence and bedside application, OpenEvidence enables improved patient outcomes.
4. Dizal's ZEGFROVY® (sunvozertinib) Receives FDA Accelerated Approval as the Only Targeted Oral Treatment for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer with EGFR Exon 20 Insertion Mutations 
   "We are proud to have developed ZEGFROVY, a first-in-class oral therapy that offers a more effective treatment option with enhanced safety and ease of administration for NSCLC patients with EGFR exon20ins," said Dr. Xiaolin Zhang, CEO of Dizal.
5. Former Sandoz Inc. CEO Don DeGolyer Leads PharmaTech Startup Ategenos as Company Prepares Public Launch 
   Ategenos has been quietly developing a novel platform that integrates pharmaceutical science with real-time digital health technologies to address adherence in critical dose management. The company will share details on its SmartPatch platform and initial partnerships in the coming weeks.
6. The Villages Health ("TVH") Announces Strategic Restructuring and Agreement to be Acquired by CenterWell 
   "Under CenterWell, this healthcare system will continue to be a leading provider of patient-centered, primary care-driven and community-based healthcare. Our primary goal remains to keep our patients healthy and to heal them quickly, as it has always been from the inception of TVH," said Dr. Elliot Sussman, Chairman of the Board and physician founder of The Villages Health.
7. Cochlear Launches World's First and Only Smart Cochlear Implant System 
   This new firmware update pathway will enhance recipients' sound processor upgrades to deliver their best possible hearing experience, giving recipients more ways to access new innovations over time. It is also the first implant with internal memory, which enables unique hearing settings (MAPs) to be securely stored in the implant itself which can be easily transferred to any Nucleus Nexa Sound Processor in the future.
8. Zimmer Biomet Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire Monogram Technologies, Expanding Robotics Suite with Autonomous Solutions 
   Monogram's semi- and fully autonomous robotic technologies are expected to add new and differentiated capabilities to expand Zimmer Biomet's flagship ROSA® Robotics platform and broad suite of navigation and enabling technologies. Monogram has developed a CT-based, semi-autonomous, AI-navigated total knee arthroplasty (TKA) robotic technology, which received FDA 510(k) clearance in March 2025 and is expected to be commercialized with Zimmer Biomet implants in early 2027.
9. Aktiia's Hilo Band Becomes First Cuffless Blood Pressure Monitor Cleared by FDA for Over-the-Counter Use 
   The milestone sets a new global benchmark for how blood pressure can be effortlessly monitored through wearable, user-friendly technology. With this FDA clearance, Aktiia is now positioned to establish Hilo as the category-defining wearable for cuffless blood pressure monitoring in the U.S. and beyond.
10. Hengrui Pharma and GSK enter agreements to develop up to 12 innovative medicines across Respiratory, Immunology & Inflammation and Oncology 
    The benefits from GSK's therapy area expertise, deep understanding of disease biology, clinical development capability and global commercial scale with Hengrui Pharma's early discovery engine, platform technologies, extensive pre-clinical pipeline of high-value programs and speed of clinical evaluation.
11. Varda Announces $187 million in Series C Funding to Make Medicines in Space 
    Varda's orbital laboratories are the first to process materials outside the International Space Station and mark the beginnings of commercial expansion into low Earth orbit. Due to the lack of gravity, materials such as the active pharmaceutical ingredients in medicines crystallize differently than they would on Earth, creating novel drug formulations that would otherwise be impossible.
12. Waystar to Acquire Iodine Software, Accelerating the AI-Powered Transformation of Healthcare Payments 
    The proposed transaction is expected to accelerate Waystar's ability to transform healthcare payments through its leading cloud-based software platform, empowering more than one million providers with advanced AI capabilities to prevent denials, reduce manual work, and improve financial performance.
13. Waters and BD's Biosciences & Diagnostic Solutions Business to Combine, Creating a Life Science and Diagnostics Leader Focused on Regulated, High-Volume Testing 
    The combined company will continue to operate under the Waters name and retain its listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol WAT. Waters' headquarters will remain in Milford, Mass., and the combined company will maintain a significant presence where the BD Biosciences & Diagnostic Solutions business currently operates.

For more news like this, check out all of the latest health-related releases from PR Newswire.

Trending Topics

Among the health news that was distributed in July, the PR Newswire team was able spot several larger stories that highlight the trends shaping the industry.

• OBBA: The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) saw health providers and advocacy groups responding with both concern and praise. Shatterproof, a non-profit dedicated to reducing the burden of substance use disorder in the U.S., found itself on both sides of the bill in its statement applauding the inclusion of the permanent closure of the de minimis loophole, while also being "deeply concerned about the bill's potential impact on access to treatment for individuals living with substance use disorder (SUD)."
• ENDO 2025: The Endocrine Society's annual meeting took place in San Francisco July 12-15 and drew over 7,000 attendees, nearly 2,500 abstracts and over 200 other sessions. Tyra Biosciences announced details of its abstract to be presented at the meeting. Neurocrine Biosciences sent several ENDO-related announcements, including its presentation of one-year data showing the efficacy of CRENESSITY® (crinecerfont) in adults. To support this, Neurocrine presented data from the CAHtalog® Registry that showed patients are still exposed to excess glucocorticoids and often do not meet clinical targets, which underscores an unmet need that could be filled by CRENESSITY®.

Do you have a health press release to distribute? Sign up with PR Newswire to share your story with the audiences who matter most.

Helping Journalists Stay Up to Date on Industry News

These are just a few of the recent press releases that consumers and the media should know about. To be notified of releases relevant to their coverage area, journalists can set up a custom newsfeed with PR Newswire for Journalists.

Once they're signed up, reporters, bloggers, and freelancers have access to the following free features:

• Customization: Users can create customized newsfeeds that will deliver relevant news right to their inbox. Newsfeed results can be targeted by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more.
• Photos and Videos: Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include in a journalist or blogger's next story.
• Subject Matter Experts: Journalists will have access to ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in their articles.
• Related Resources: Our journalist- and blogger-focused blog, Beyond Bylines, features regular media news roundups, writing tips, upcoming events, and more.

About PR Newswire

PR Newswire is the industry's leading press release distribution partner with an unparalleled global reach of more than 440,000 newsrooms, websites, direct feeds, journalists and influencers and is available in more than 170 countries and 40 languages. From our award-winning Content Services offerings, integrated media newsroom and microsite products, Investor Relations suite of services, paid placement and social sharing tools, PR Newswire has a comprehensive catalog of solutions to solve the modern-day challenges PR and communications teams face. For 70 years, PR Newswire has been the preferred destination for brands to share their most important news stories across the world.

For questions, contact the team at media.relations@cision.com.

For more news like this, check out all of the latest health-related releases from PR Newswire.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/july-in-review-13-top-health-press-releases-302524891.html

SOURCE PR Newswire