covid-19

The U.S. government will pay $1.74 billion to buy 66 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine made with the new omicron-adapted formula, the drugmaker said today. The government has the option to acquire up to 300 million total doses of the omicron boosters under the agreement. The U.S. last month agreed to buy 105 million…

Approximately two-thirds of Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.  But COVID-19 cases remain elevated following the spread of a series of omicron sublineages, which pose a threat to those vaccinated and naturally infected with various lineages of the coronavirus.  A variety of companies are developing next-generation COVID-19 vaccines that could potentially…

“Fail fast” is a philosophy many use in every industry worldwide. It’s the notion of freely experimenting and learning throughout the process to make necessary changes to reach the desired outcome. Failing along the way, businesses learn more and make changes that will improve the final product. While some industries, such as information technology, decide…

The mRNA-focused biopharma CureVac N.V. (Nasdaq:CVAC) has filed a lawsuit in the German Regional Court in Düsseldorf against BioNTech SE (Nasdaq:BNTX) demanding compensation for infringement of CureVac’s patents. In particular, the lawsuit claims that the four German patents, EP 1 857 122 B1, DE 20 2015 009 961 U1, DE 20 2021 003 575 U1…

The first-generation COVID-19 vaccines remain potent tools in protecting against severe COVID-19, but their effectiveness in protecting against infections from SARS-CoV-2 has slipped as the virus evolves. While boosters improve protection, their effectiveness wanes over time. FDA today followed the lead of its independent Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) in backing the…

Where would clinical trial diversity be without the COVID-19 pandemic and the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020? It likely wouldn’t be the priority it is today across the industry, according to Ariel Katz, CEO and co-founder of H1, a New York–based healthcare and data analytics platform firm. After the death of George…

GSK plc (LSE/NYSE:GSK) and Sanofi (EPA:SAN) have announced that their adjuvanted bivalent vaccine candidate had 72% efficacy against omicron in adults in stage 2 of a Phase 3 study. For those with SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity, the vaccine was 93.2% effective against omicron. The vaccine is based on the original D614 virus and the beta (B.1.351) strain.…

After struggling to find support for its inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine candidate VLA2001, French vaccine company Valneva SE (Nasdaq:VALN; Euronext Paris:VLA) has received a €90.5 ($95) million investment from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), which amounts to 8.1% of the company’s share capital at a price of €9.49 per share. The Saint-Herblain, France–based company plans on using the…

Until recently, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was available for all individuals 5 years of age and older, while the Moderna vaccine was authorized for individuals at least 18. Now, the FDA has authorized the use of both vaccines in children from 6 months to four years old. In addition, the agency also agreed to allow…

The most popular COVID-19 antiviral is Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir [PF-07321332] and ritonavir). The manufacturer of the drug, Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), anticipates selling about $22 billion worth of Paxlovid this year. Complicating matters, however, is the failure of the drug to meet its primary endpoint of self-reported, sustained alleviation of all COVID-19 symptoms for four consecutive days in the…

While vaccines have emerged as a central tool in battling the COVID-19 pandemic, the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to fuel waves of infections.  COVID-19 antivirals could play a vital role in managing the disease in the future, and a handful are currently in use in the U.S.  One possible way to accelerate the development of additional…

Sanofi (Nasdaq:SNY) and GSK (NYSE:GSK) have announced that their next-generation COVID-19 booster vaccine candidate based on the beta variant yielded a substantial immune boost in adults previously primed with mRNA vaccines. The novel vaccine yielded a strong increase in antibody titers above baseline against various variants of concern, including a 40-fold increase against the BA.1 omicron subvariant 15…

Moderna (Nasdaq:MRNA) has announced that its omicron-containing bivalent COVID-19 booster candidate mRNA-1273.214 yielded 1.75 times more neutralizing antibodies than its FDA-approved mRNA-1273 vaccine. The company also noted that a booster dose of mRNA-1273.214 increased neutralizing geometric mean titers (GMT) against the omicron variant roughly eight times over baseline levels in the primary immunogenicity study. The…

Moderna’s (NYSE:MRNA) bivalent booster COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273.211, bested its first-generation mRNA-1273 vaccine in a Phase 2/3 study. The study compared the neutralizing antibody levels generated from both vaccine boosters. The mRNA-1273.211 vaccine booster candidate offered superior performance against all variants of concern, including omicron. The company notes that the mRNA-1273.211 booster outperformed the first-generation…

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine booster had been previously limited in the U.S. to individuals at least 12 years old, but now children as young as 5 are eligible, thanks to an expanded emergency use authorization related to the vaccine. The agency agreed to expand the vaccine’s use in children to “provide continued protection against COVID-19,” said…

RQ Biotechnology (London) emerged from stealth mode today, saying that AstraZeneca will pay it up to $157 million plus royalties for its existing mAbs against SARS-CoV-2. “Our vision is to build on our successful debut with neutralizing antibody therapy for SARS-CoV-2 and develop innovative medicines to address current and evolving unmet needs in other viral…

The Biden-Harris administration has announced that the NIH has licensed COVID-19 research technologies and vaccine candidates to the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). Working with the WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), the NIH will provide licenses to enable manufacturers to use the technologies to develop COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostics. In total, NIH is providing…

The JAK inhibitor Olumiant (baricitinib) from Incyte (Nasdaq:INCY) and Lilly (NYSE:LLY) has scored FDA approval to treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients who need help breathing. In particular, the new indication covers adult patients needing supplemental oxygen, non-invasive or invasive mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Olumiant first won FDA approval in 2018 for treating moderately-to-severely active…

Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla recently said that patients who relapse after completing a course of the COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir) could continue taking the drug.   “Paxlovid does what it has to do: it reduces the viral load,” Bourla told Bloomberg. “Then your body is supposed to do the job.”   “While the…

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) shares rose today on first-quarter financial results that came in ahead of the consensus forecast. The New York-based pharmaceutical company posted profits of $7.9 billion, or $1.37 per share, on sales of $25.7 billion for the three months ended April 3, 2022, for a 61.2% bottom-line gain on sales growth of 76.8%. Adjusted…

SK Bioscience (KRX:302440) and GSK (NYSE:GSK) have filed a biologics license application with the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for their SKYCovione, a recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The self-assembled nanoparticle vaccine candidate is adjuvanted with GSK’s pandemic adjuvant. SKYCovione fared well in a Phase 3 study involving more than 4,000 adults in…

The clinical-stage company First Wave BioPharma (Nasdaq:FWBI) saw its share price fall by more than 40% to $0.37 in after-hours trading today after releasing new clinical trial data. To save money, the company will initiate austerity measures, cutting headcount by about 20% and closing clinical operations site in Hayward, California and a facility in Langlade, France.…

FDA has announced that it has signed off on the use of COVID-19 therapy Veklury (remdesivir) from Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq:GILD) to include children at least 28 days old who weigh at least 3 kg (roughly 7 lb) and test positive results for COVID-19. The indication is limited to children who are either hospitalized or have…

Moderna (Nasdaq:MRNA) announced that its first bivalent booster vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273.211, offered superior protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern compared with its first-gen mRNA-1273 vaccine. A 50-µg booster of the mRNA-1273.211 vaccine offered protection against the beta, delta and omicron variants for six months and appeared to provide similar tolerability to the FDA-approved mRNA-1273 vaccine.…

The oncology biopharma Veru Inc. (Nasdaq:VERU) revealed positive efficacy and safety data from an interim analysis of a Phase 3 trial testing oral sabizabulin 9 mg against placebo. The trial enrolled 210 hospitalized COVID-19 patients with an elevated risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The interim analysis focused on data collected from 150 of…