Tag Archives: pharma

Axios reports: An oral antiviral drug to stop the virus that causes COVID-19 from replicating could be ready next year “if all goes right,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC on Tuesday, adding that the drug should work against all variants of the virus. Why it matters: Antiviral drugs can be a key pandemic-fighting tool, since not everyone will get …

Courthouse News reports: An independent advisory panel for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted Friday to recommend the continued use of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine after the single-dose jab was put on pause over blood clotting concerns. Friday’s vote followed similar concerns in the Europe Union over both the J&J jab and the AstraZeneca vaccine, …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Pfizer Inc. says it has identified in Mexico and Poland the first confirmed instances of counterfeit versions of the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with BioNTech SE , the latest attempt by criminals trying to exploit the world-wide vaccination campaign. Vials seized by authorities in separate investigations were tested by the company and confirmed to contain …

Axios reports: All 50 U.S. states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, have now made U.S. adults over the age of 16 eligible for COVID-19 vaccines, meeting President Biden’s April 19 deadline. The landmark speaks to the increased pace of the national vaccination campaign, but will increase pressure on the federal government, states and pharmaceutical companies to provide adequate vaccine …

CBS News reports: COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna will make a third booster shot for its two-dose vaccine available to Americans by the fall, CEO Stéphane Bancel said this week. Moderna’s vaccine is more than 90% effective against the coronavirus six months after the second shot, studies show. What remains unclear is how long immunity from the virus lasts. The same …

Reuters reports: More than 60 former heads of state, including former leaders of Britain and France, and over 100 Nobel Prize winners called on U.S. President Joe Biden to back a waiver of intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines. A waiver would boost vaccine manufacturing and speed up the response to the pandemic in poorer countries which otherwise might have …

MarketWatch reports: Pfizer Inc. Chief Executive Albert Bourla tweeted late Tuesday that the pharma company has “ramped up” production of its COVID-19 vaccine, and will be able to deliver 10% more doses to the U.S. by the end of May than a previously agreed total of 220 million doses, as well as supply “the full (300 million doses) agreed on …

CNN reports: The ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of Pfizer/BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine confirms its protection remains high for at least six months after the second dose, the companies said Thursday. Protection likely lasts even longer than that, vaccine experts say, but they say having data showing good protection six months after people were vaccinated is good news. The vaccine remains …

The New York Times reports: AstraZeneca reiterated on Wednesday that its Covid-19 vaccine was very effective at preventing the disease, based on more recent data than was included when the company announced the interim results of its U.S. clinical trial on Monday. The company said in a news release that its vaccine was 76 percent effective at preventing Covid-19. That …

CNBC reports: Moncef Slaoui, who was chief scientist for the U.S government’s Covid vaccine development effort Operation Warp Speed during the Trump administration, was fired as Galvani Bioelectronics chairman over “substantiated” sexual harassment allegations by a woman, it was announced Wednesday. Slaoui’s dismissal by the board of Galvani majority shareholder GlaxoSmithKline came after GSK in February was sent a letter …

Reuters reports: Pfizer Inc has started an early-stage U.S. trial of an oral COVID-19 antiviral therapy that could be prescribed to patients at the first sign of infection, the company said on Tuesday. The drugmaker said the antiviral candidate showed potent activity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in lab studies. Pfizer’s candidate, named PF-07321332, is a protease inhibitor …

Reuters reports: The Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), an independent committee overseeing the trial, has “expressed concern that AstraZeneca may have included outdated information from that trial, which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data,” the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said in a statement released after midnight in the United States. The …

The New York Times reports: The coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford provided strong protection against Covid-19 in a large clinical trial in the United States, completely preventing the worst outcomes from the disease while causing no serious side effects, according to results announced on Monday. The findings, announced in a news release from AstraZeneca, may …

Reuters reports: The United States has administered 90,351,750 doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of Sunday morning and distributed 116,363,405 doses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines as of 9 a.m. ET (1400 GMT) on Sunday, the agency said.The agency said 58,873,710 people had received one or more doses …

The New York Post reports: Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli was slapped with a class action lawsuit Thursday from health insurers who claim he engaged in a scheme to create a pharmaceutical monopoly that allowed him to raise the price of an HIV drug by more than 4,000 percent. In the Manhattan federal court suit, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of …

Axios reports: Just over 2.4 million coronavirus vaccinations were reported to the CDC on Sunday, matching Saturday’s record-high for inoculations as seen in Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. Why it matters: Vaccinations are ramping up again after widespread delays caused by historic winter storms. Over 75 million vaccine doses have been administered thus far, with 7.5% of the population fully vaccinated and …

The New York Times reports: The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday authorized Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, beginning the rollout of millions of doses of a third effective vaccine that could reach Americans by early next week. The announcement arrived at a critical moment, as the steep decline in coronavirus cases seems to have plateaued …

NBC News reports: An independent advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration voted Friday to recommend that the agency authorize Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine. Members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, or VRBPAC, voted unanimously in favor of recommending authorization. The FDA is not required to go along with the committee’s recommendation, but is widely …

The Washington Post reports: Moderna said Wednesday that it has manufactured a new version of its coronavirus vaccine that is tailored to quell infection by the variant first identified in South Africa. A small amount of vaccine has been sent to the National Institutes of Health for a trial to determine whether boosting humans with the modified vaccine will stimulate …

CNBC reports: The Food and Drug Administration’s staff endorsed Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, a critical step in bringing a third shot to the U.S. marketplace. The staff report released Wednesday is meant to brief the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which will meet Friday to review J&J’s request for emergency use authorization. The …