Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced today that it successfully completed its $6.5 billion acquisition of Momenta Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:MNTA). After the all-cash acquisition was agreed upon in August, it officially closed today through a merger of Vigor with and into Momenta, which now operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. In connection with the merger, shares…

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…

Five COVID-19 vaccine candidates are going through Phase 3 clinical trials to prove safety and efficacy. Researchers worldwide are testing 132 COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including 42 that are in clinical trials on humans and at least 92 in preclinical or animal trials, according to the New York Times. With the U.S. alone topping 200,000 COVID-19…

Novavax (NSDQ:NVAX) today announced that it has begun its first Phase 3 study to evaluate the efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, NVX-CoV2373. The trial is underway in the UK, in partnership with the UK government’s Vaccines Taskforce. Gaithersburg, Md.-based Novavax said it expects to enroll up to 10,000 individuals between 18…

AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) is reportedly keeping its COVID-19 vaccine trial in the U.S. on hold as questions remain over patient safety. U.S. Health and Human Services Dept. Secretary Alex Azar told CNBC yesterday that federal investigators are looking for “answers to important questions,” regarding the safety of patients involved in the trial operated by the United Kingdom-based…

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) has begun enrollment of adult volunteers for a fourth Phase 3 clinical trial of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The National Institutes of Health announced today that J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals COVID-19 vaccine candidate (JNJ-78436725) has begun the Phase 3 trial to evaluate if it can prevent symptomatic COVID-19 after a single dose regimen. Get the…

Sanofi (NYSE:SNY), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) and Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA) have all agreed to supply Canada with a total of more than 90 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Beginning in 2021, Government of Canada is set to receive up to 72 million doses of an adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine from Sanofi and GSK, while the country also increased its confirmed…

Ortho Clinical Diagnostics announced that it received a nearly $12.9 million award from BARDA to support the development of its COVID-19 antigen test. Raritan, N.J.-based Ortho Clinical Diagnostics and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) are working together under a new contract as part of the government’s ongoing COVID-19 medical countermeasure development efforts,…

Siemens Healthineers (ETR:SHL)  and Novartis (NYSE:NVS) have agreed to jointly design, develop and commercialize diagnostic tests for therapeutic products across Novartis’ therapeutic pipeline, the companies announced today. The first project will be a serum neurofilament light chain (NfL) immunoassay for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurological diseases. NfL is a highly specific biomarker for nerve…

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…

CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield told a Senate panel today that the federal government should have enough coronavirus vaccine for Americans to resume “regular life” by the third quarter of 2021, according to a report by CNBC. Redfield said vaccinations could begin November or December of 2020 and that it could take 6 to 9…

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 (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…

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) announced today that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate protected against infection in preliminary non-human trials. The vaccine, being developed in collaboration with BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX), was tested in mouse and non-human primate models. In the non-human primate study, the BNT162b2 mRNA-based vaccine candidate protected rhesus macaques against SARS-CoV-2 infection, according to a news release. In a viral…

AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) announced today that it voluntarily paused the trials for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate after an unexplained illness. The company said in a news release that a standard review process was triggered so an independent committee could review safety data surrounding a single event of an unexplained illness that occurred in the UK Phase III…

Executives from nine different drug companies today announced a pledge to ensure safety with a potential COVID-19 vaccine. The CEOs of AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN), BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Merck (NYSE:MRK), Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA), Novavax (NSDQ:NVAX), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)  and Sanofi (NYSE:SNY), all of whom are developing vaccine candidates, all signed the pledge, which vows to “uphold the integrity of the scientific process” as…

Laboratory Corporation of America (NYSE:LH) announced today that it launched its COVID-19, influenza A/B and RSV diagnostic combo. The single-panel test is designed to detect multiple types of infections including the novel coronavirus, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), helping doctors diagnose patients and inform decisions for treatment options. Burlington, N.C.-based LabCorp’s testing combo…

Officials at Navitor Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, Mass.) think they could help people increase their healthy years by developing more targeted therapeutics. Products from its pipeline may soon pave the way for more effective treatments for conditions such as kidney disease, but how could the company shape the way we look at “aging gracefully?” Drug Discovery &…

Nestlé (VTX:NESN) announced today that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire food allergy treatment developer Aimmune Therapeutics (NSDQ:AIMT). Under the agreement, Nestlé Health Science (NHSc) would acquire Aimmune with a cash offer for $34.50 per share, totaling approximately $2.6 billion. The per-share price for Aimmune represents a 174% premium to the company’s closing share…

AstraZeneca has denied news reports that it’s involved in talks with U.S. authorities about an emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The denial comes after recent news reports claiming the Trump administration is eyeing a plan to fast-track the vaccine candidate, AZD1222, before the Nov. 3 presidential election. “AstraZeneca has not discussed emergency…

A top FDA official has threatened to resign if the Trump administration moves too quickly to approve a vaccine for COVID-19, according to a published report. Peter Marks, director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), made the threat over concerns a vaccine would be approved without being proven safe and effective,…

Researchers at Hackensack Meridian Health are touting the drug tocilizumab as a treatment for critically ill COVID-19 patients in the ICU. Observational data of hospitalized COVID-19 patients shows that tocilizumab, generally used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and cancer, improves hospital survival in the critically ill ICU patients, according to a news release. The researchers published…

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced today that it entered into an agreement to purchase Momenta Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:MNTA) for $6.5 billion. New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson will pay $6.5 billion in an all-cash transaction for the developer of novel therapies for immune-mediated diseases, according to a news release. Momenta felt the full effect of the news…

Massachusetts federal prosecutors today claimed that Teva Pharmaceuticals funneled $300 million from a pair of charitable foundations to subsidize Medicare copayments for a multiple sclerosis drug. Teva Pharmaceuticals and Teva Neuroscience, the maker of Copaxone, simultaneously raised the drug’s price by 329%, allegedly violating the Anti-Kickback Statute and False Claims Act, according to the complaint…

Medtech stocks helped the S&P 500 Index reach record highs today amid a bounceback from the lows of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reuters reported that medtech played its part in the record turn of the market, with Abiomed (NSDQ:ABMD), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:REGN) and West Pharmaceutical Services (NYSE:WST), all of which are involved in developing COVID-19 therapeutics, all rising more than 50% since the index’s…