FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn used a virtual conference appearance today to repeat that a COVID-19 vaccine approval will be up to the agency’s scientists — not political pressure. “We want to make sure that any vaccine we approve is safe and effective according to our criteria,” Hahn said during The Virtual Medtech Conference held…
How could holographic displays boost drug discovery?
Holographic displays company Looking Glass Factory in the early summer integrated its displays with drug discovery software from Schrödinger. The combination, according to Looking Glass Factory officials, enables drug designers to view molecular structures and compositions in true 3D right on their desktops, without having to wear VR or AR headsets. Looking Glass Factory CEO…
UC San Diego team claims it’s built a better microscope
A UC San Diego research team claims it’s developed a microscope that gives them a thorough view of molecular systems — not just single traits of molecules. The researchers recently published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Wei Xiong and other members of the Xiong Group at UC San Diego…
Illumina may buy back Grail
Illumina (NSDQ:ILMN) may acquire Grail for more than $8 billion — four years after it spun out the cancer detection startup. That’s according to a Bloomberg report out yesterday, which cited people familiar with the matter. Analysts told Bloomberg that the acquisition would put Illumina — a giant in the DNA sequencing space — in direct…
AstraZeneca resumes COVID-19 vaccine trial
AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) has resumed its COVID-19 vaccine trial in the U.K. following confirmation from the Medicines Health Regulatory Authority (MHRA) that it was safe to proceed. The news of the trial resumption, announced Sept. 12, came six days after a voluntary pause so that an independent committee could review safety data surrounding a single event of…
BioAscent spending £1M to boost drug discovery service offering
BioAscent (Newhouse, U.K.) recently announced that it will spend £1 million ($1.3 million) on new instrumentation and equipment. The investment is meant to further enhance the company’s offerings in integrated drug discovery and compound management. The new instrumentation will include a FLIPR Penta screening system and a Biacore 8k Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) system, as…
The top digital health startups in the world
CB Insights’ second annual Digital Health 150 list includes 26 startups seeking to improve drug research and development, an area hard-hit as the COVID-19 pandemic interrupts clinical trials. Drug discovery companies include Healx (rare diseases) and ProteinQure (quantum computing). (Download the full report here.) Get the full story on our sister site Medical Design & Outsourcing. …
Russia claims to have first COVID-19 vaccine
Russian officials announced today that they will make a COVID-19 vaccine available to its citizens on a voluntary basis, with President Vladimir Putin saying the vaccine has gone through all necessary tests. The vaccine, developed at by the Gamaleya Institute in Moscow, will first become available to medical workers, teachers and at-risk groups. Kirill Dmitriev,…
The hottest life science hubs in the U.S.
Boston, San Francisco and San Diego remain the leading U.S. life science hubs — hauling in 70% of all the venture capital in the space last year, according to a new report from commercial real estate services company JLL. Venture capital funding matters, according to JLL, because it fuels innovative companies that then require more…
Hackers targeted pharma and other IP for Chinese government, indictment claims
A federal grand jury in Spokane, Wash. has indicted two Chinese nationals on charges that they hacked into pharma companies and hundreds of other businesses, governments and organizations — in some cases on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security. The 11-count indictment, which the U.S. Department of Justice announced today, alleges that Li…
Johnson & Johnson Q2 results beat The Street amid pharma sales uptick
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) posted second-quarter results today that beat the consensus forecast on Wall Street — boosting its outlook for the year even as its medical device sales took a big hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. The New Brunswick, N.J.–based medical device and pharmaceutical giant reported profits of $3.6 billion, or $1.36 per share, on…
Boston Sci reportedly looking to sell snake antivenom business
Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX) is exploring selling its snake antivenom products business, according to Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources. A Boston Sci spokesperson told MassDevice via email that the company has a practice of not commenting on speculation. Boston Scientific acquired the antivenom business during its $4 billion acquisition of BTG, which closed last year. Its products include CroFab, touted as the…
Biopharmaceutical companies pledge more than $1 billion to develop new antibiotics
More than 20 biopharmaceutical companies around the world have pledged more than $1 billion toward the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Action Fund that launched today. Pledges include $100 million from Pfizer and $50 million from Boehringer Ingelheim. An initiative of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA), the fund’s goal is to bring two to four…
Remington-Davis launches dedicated COVID-19 research unit in Ohio
Clinical research outfit Remington-Davis recently announced that it has launched a dedicated 3,000 ft2 space in Columbus, Ohio for COVID-19 clinical trials. The space includes six private overnight rooms, patient lounge, dedicated laboratory, oxygen therapy and more. Participants must be 18 or older with COVID-19 symptoms and have a laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV2 infection. “We were not…
Want to reopen your pharma lab amid COVID-19? Consider these strategies first
Here are a few real estate and facility management strategies to help you get your pharma R&D lab up and running amid the COVID-19 pandemic, courtesy of commercial real estate outfit JLL. Roger Humphrey, JLL COVID-19 has unleashed a logistical conundrum for pharmaceutical leaders: How do you keep momentum in therapeutics development, when, like all…
BD launches COVID-19 antigen test that can produce results in 15 minutes
Becton Dickinson (NYSE:BDX) announced today that it’s received an FDA emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 antigen test, which the company will start shipping this week. BD plans to ramp-up manufacturing capacity to 2 million tests per week by the end of September, with 10 million tests produced by the end of September. The tests run…
COVID-19 vaccines need to work at least half of the time, FDA says
FDA expects that any COVID-19 vaccine it licenses should prevent the disease or decrease its severity in at least 50% of people vaccinated, according to guidance that the agency released today. The recommendation, which FDA said reflects the advice the agency has provided vaccine developers in recent months, was part of an overall document called…
FDA revokes EUA for malaria drugs against COVID-19
FDA today announced that it has revoked its emergency use authorization allowing doctors to use the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat COVID-19, citing concerns about the drugs’ efficacy against the virus. A large, randomized clinical trial in hospitalized patients found the malaria medicines showed no benefit for decreasing the likelihood of death or…
Q2 Solutions partners with Thermo Fisher Scientific to speed up clinical trial lab results
Q2 Solutions recently announced a partnership with Thermo Fisher Scientific to use the Ion Torrent Genexus System — touted as the first fully integrated, next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform — to quickly and economically deliver clinical trial lab results. “Clinical trial oncology patients require lab testing before they can receive potential life-saving treatments, which makes lab…
New web resource keeps vaccine researchers up-to-date on COVID-19 protein structures
Wladek Minor of the University of Virginia and other top structural biologists have created a Web resource so that scientists can track the progress of investigations into COVID-19 protein structures. The website also includes the research team’s assessment of the quality of the individual models. It includes enhanced versions of the protein structures when possible.…
The rush to develop a COVID-19 vaccine: Is there reason to worry?
Some alarm appears to be growing amid the rush to develop COVID-19 vaccines, with two prominent critics warning that politics could harm the process. In a New. York Times op-ed this week, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Dr. Paul A. Offit of the University of Pennsylvania worried that potential pressure to produce good news for…
J&J accelerates development of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced today that its Janssen Pharmaceutical subsidiary has moved up first-in-human clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate to late July, versus the previously planned start in September. “Based on the strength of the preclinical data we have seen so far and interactions with the regulatory authorities, we have been able to…
New research suggests neutralizing antibodies could help against COVID-19
New findings from an international research team suggest that neutralizing antibodies could have a use as a preventative treatment or as a post-exposure therapy against COVID-19. Their latest findings, which drew on data gathered from Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab’s) Advanced Light Source (ALS) — suggest that antibodies derived from SARS survivors could potentially block…
Thermo Fisher Scientific touts new mass spectrometers
Thermo Fisher Scientific has added two mass spectrometers — the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 240 and Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 120 — to its Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris portfolio. The Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 240 mass spectrometer boasts the latest generation of system architecture and instrument control software to boost data acquisition and analysis capabilities for…
FDA clears way for study of merimepodib against COVID-19
BioSig Technologies (Westport, Conn.) said today that its majority-owned ViralClear Pharmaceuticals subsidiary has secured FDA clearance for an Investigational New Drug application to use merimepodib to treat advanced COVID-19 cases. FDA told ViralClear that it may proceed with a phase II trial — a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of…