Tag Archives: pharma

The Washington Post reports: Andy Slavitt, White House senior adviser on the coronavirus response, said vaccine-producing companies plan to update their shots to address variants of the virus. During a Washington Post live interview Thursday, he said the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines “work well for” the most prominent variant spreading throughout the United States, which is the one first identified …

Politico Europe reports: The BioNTech/Pfizer coronavirus vaccine should grant protection against both the South African and British variants, according to an article published in Nature Medicine Monday. The researchers tested the blood sera of participants who had been given the vaccine against virus samples that were genetically modified to resemble the variants, finding that the antibodies responded to these viruses. …

The Associated Press reports: Johnson & Johnson asked U.S. regulators late Thursday to clear the world’s first single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, an easier-to-use option that could boost scarce supplies. J&J’s vaccine was safe and offered strong protection against moderate to severe COVID-19, according to preliminary results from a massive international study. It didn’t appear quite as strong as two-dose competitors made …

The Washington Post reports: The rate of coronavirus vaccinations in the United States is accelerating, and the number of people who have received at least one shot is now higher than the total number of reported U.S. infections — a hopeful milestone that comes amid a vaccine rollout at times marked by complexity and frustration. The vaccination uptick is coinciding …

The Washington Post reports: British scientists have launched a study to determine whether mixing coronavirus vaccine doses produces a sufficient response to protect people from infection. The current approach involves the use of two shots of the same vaccine over several weeks. In the trial, participants will receive one shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine followed by a second dose from …

Reuters reports: The Netherlands is to introduce rapid COVID-19 breath tests to sites across the country to speed up the testing process and make it less intrusive. Testing facilities in Amsterdam were this week the first to start using the SpiroNose, a machine which requires a person to breathe into it to indicate a possible coronavirus infection within a minute. …

The Washington Post reports: Researchers at Oxford University released new results from their vaccine, which is being manufactured by British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca, showing it gives 76 percent protection for three months after just one dose. Testing also reveals that those vaccinated are much less likely to transmit the disease, which will help stem the continuing spread of the virus. The …

Politico Europe reports: The Russian-developed Sputnik V vaccine is 91.6 percent effective in protecting against symptomatic COVID-19 — on par with the currently approved Western jabs, according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet Tuesday. The data is from a Phase 3 study, with almost 20,000 participants across a number of hospitals and clinics in Russia taking part in …

Changing America reports: Emerging data from Israel indicates that the vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and BioNTech, as well as Moderna, may be even more effective than previous results from clinical trials suggested. Israel’s Ministry of Health studied more than 700,000 fully inoculated people—meaning those who received two doses of either vaccine—in the country and saw only 0.04 percent contract a …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Johnson & Johnson said its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was 66% effective at protecting people from moderate to severe disease in a large clinical trial, positive results that could pave the way for its deployment across the U.S. within weeks. The J&J vaccine also appeared to be generally safe and well tolerated among the 44,325 adults …

USA Today reports: Another COVID-19 candidate vaccine appears to be safe and roughly 90% effective against the virus that causes the disease. It also protects against at least a few of the variants that have arisen in recent months. On Thursday, Novavax, a Gaithersburg, Maryland-based biotechnology firm, released interim results from two clinical trials of its candidate vaccine, one in …

The Hill reports: A Pfizer study released Wednesday determined that the mutations in the COVID-19 variants originally found in the United Kingdom and South Africa have “small effects” on the effectiveness of the company’s vaccine developed with BioNTech. The preliminary research, conducted by Pfizer and University of Texas Medical Branch scientists, concluded that the results showed no need for an …

The New York Times reports: Moderna’s vaccine is effective against new variants of the coronavirus that have emerged in Britain and South Africa, the company announced on Monday. But it appears to be less protective against the variant discovered in South Africa, and so the company is developing a new form of the vaccine that could be used as a …

The Guardian reports: British scientists are trialing a new drug that could prevent someone who has been exposed to coronavirus from going on to develop the disease Covid-19, which experts say could save many lives. The antibody therapy would confer instant immunity against the disease and could be given as an emergency treatment to hospital inpatients and care home residents …

The Hill reports: The first coronavirus vaccine shots administered across the country have raised hopes for a breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19, but experts are now raising an even more hopeful possibility: that people might only need one shot instead of the current two-dose regimen. The prospect would effectively double the number of vaccine doses available and allow more …

Politico reports: More than 1 million Americans have received Covid shots, but the government isn’t likely to make good on the goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of this month, federal officials said Wednesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention touted breaking the 1 million mark 10 days after the start of the most ambitious immunization …

The Associated Press reports: The U.S. government is close to a deal to acquire tens of millions of additional doses of Pfizer’s vaccine in exchange for helping the pharmaceutical giant gain better access to manufacturing supplies. A person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the deal is under discussion and could be finalized shortly. …

CNN reports: Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to know in the next few days if there’s a concern that the coronavirus vaccines might not work against a mutated variant of the virus that’s rapidly spreading in parts of England, according to the institute’s top vaccine researcher. While there’s always a worry that a vaccine won’t …

The Daily Beast reports: A former Bloomberg News reporter quit her job, divorced her husband, and froze her eggs for imprisoned former CEO Martin Shkreli, known as the “Pharma Bro,” who now refuses to talk to her, Elle reported Sunday. Christie Smythe first broke the news of Shkreli’s arrest on fraud charges in December 2015.  Smythe said she and Shkreli …

The Associated Press reports: Workers on Sunday began packaging shipments of the second COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S., a desperately needed boost to efforts to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control. Employees at a factory in the Memphis area were boxing up the vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. and the National Institutes of Health. The much-needed shots are expected …