Private
An assessment is ongoing to determine the extent and source of a ransomware attack on the New Mexico cities of Albuquerque, Los Ranchos, and Tijeras, which took affected systems offline and severed network connections, forcing most county buildings to shutter on Jan. 5.
While employees continued... Read More »
The Navy has reached a five-year agreement worth up to $154 million with BAE Systems for the firm to continue supporting the Naval Air Warfare Center Webster Outlying Field.
“Those on the front lines need rapid integration of the latest technologies to ensure open, clear, secure, and reliable... Read More »
While Cue Health already has a COVID-19 test on the market capable of detecting the widespread omicron variant, the organization announced that it will work with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to create a point-of-care test specifically focused on rooting out... Read More »
The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation a five-year contract valued at over $1 billion to produce the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS).
The agreement would address low-rate initial production and full-rate production, touting IBCS’s open, modular, and scalable... Read More »
Former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Former Secretary of Energy under the Obama administration Ernest J. Moniz, co-founders of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said they applaud the position of world leaders that a nuclear war “cannot be won,” in a statement Monday.
The statement comes in... Read More »
Lockheed Martin officials are detailing the F-35 fighter jet program's progression, noting the continued expansion of its global footprint and operational capabilities enhancement.
"The F-35 joint enterprise team continues to provide unmatched combat capability to the 21st-century battlespace... Read More »
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) released news from the South African Phase 3b Sisonke study of its COVID-19 booster vaccine, which demonstrated 85 percent effectiveness against COVID-19 induced hospitalization, even in a region dominated by the omicron variant.
The results were preliminary, conducted by... Read More »
MilliporeSigma, based in Sheboygan, Wis., has secured a Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) pact to establish domestic nitrocellulose membrane production capacity.
The $136.7 million contract would enable MilliporeSigma to expand its industrial base to... Read More »
The Independent Allocation of Vaccines Group (IAVG), a manager of needs-based allocations for the global COVAX initiative, criticized rich nations last week for hoarding COVID-19 vaccines and issued steps to achieve a new goal of 70 percent immunization coverage by mid-2022.
“As the overall... Read More »
The United States authorized the first two pill-based treatments for COVID-19 last week, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granting emergency use authorization to both Pfizer Inc.’s paxlovid and Merck & Co. Inc.’s molnupiravir.
Taking the honor of first approval was paxlovid.... Read More »
The Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness will award up to $50 million in expanded support to SK bioscience as the company pursues a variant-proof vaccine candidate for sarbecoviruses, a group of viruses from which SARS-CoV-2 emerged.
“The rapid spread of the Omicron variant serves as a stark... Read More »
In an effort to close health disparities brought to light and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced this week that it has banded together with 15 digital health startups in the 2022 PandemicX Accelerator.
“PandemicX will... Read More »
In preliminary showings, a third dose of Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine increased antibody levels against the Omicron variant currently sweeping the world, painting the company’s strategy forward even as a years-long pandemic continues to evolve.
The report followed news that omicron, which... Read More »
The fight against COVID-19 earned another contender last week with the granting of an emergency use listing from the World Health Organization (WHO) to NVX-CoV2373, a vaccine created by Novavax and the first protein-based COVID-19 vaccine to earn that listing.
Better known as COVOVAX, as... Read More »
With recommendations from an independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) and positive antibody and safety showings from preliminary studies, Sanofi and GSK announced this week that their COVID-19 vaccine booster candidate will continue its Phase 3 trial.
So far, the DSMB has identified no... Read More »
U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) are touting the benefits of the Navy awarding a $70.8 million contract to Huntington Ingalls to purchase materials for construction of the LHA 9 ship, an America-class amphibious assault craft.
The ship will be built in Pascagoula,... Read More »
A new report released by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security this week determined that the failure to incorporate primary care providers into the frontline response to COVID-19 and the larger public health system could have improved care, testing, and vaccination acceptance.
In... Read More »
Results came in this week from a Phase 2/3 trial of Pfizer Inc.’s COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment, and the data showed a drug capable of cutting risks of hospitalization or death by 89 percent among high-risk adults, when given within a few days of their first symptoms.
The final data from... Read More »
Seeking broader protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants and other betacoronaviruses, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced this week that it would invest up to $4.5 million into development of a vaccine candidate based on Affinivax, Inc.’s Multiple Antigen Presenting... Read More »
On Friday, Moderna, maker of one of the FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines, announced it will amend its contract with Gavi, the vaccine alliance, to accelerate the supply of 20 million doses of the vaccine to COVAX by the end of the year.
The total number of vaccines supplied to COVAX in 2021 now... Read More »
Pfizer and BioNTech officials recently provided an update regarding the Omicron variant, noting results of an initial laboratory study demonstrating serum antibodies via BNT162b2 neutralize the variant after three doses.
“Although two doses of the vaccine may still offer protection against... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved this week an emergency use authorization (EUA) for AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, authorizing the use of monoclonal antibodies to reduce specific COVID-19 risk.
Evusheld is tixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab and administered together to... Read More »
The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense announced launched a public awareness campaign Wednesday to support the Apollo Program for Biodefense, a project that aims to eliminate pandemics in ten years and reduce other biological threats.
The campaign, similar in scope and importance to landing... Read More »
A new report from the Nuclear Threat Initiative has found that nations around the world remain “dangerously unprepared” to meet future epidemic and pandemic threats,
The report – the 2021 Global Health Security (GHS) Index -- measured the capacities of 195 countries to prepare for... Read More »
Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky division has received a Restricted Category Special Airworthiness Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its S-70M Black Hawk helicopter.
“With type certification, new production S-70M Black Hawk helicopters in the latest configuration are... Read More »
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Tuesday that it has awarded $22 million to nearly 30 organizations across the globe to combat antimicrobial resistance (AR) and other healthcare threats.
The CDC also established two new networks – the Global Action in Healthcare... Read More »
Officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security met with leading technology and cybersecurity industry executives to discuss how the federal government and the private sector work together better to tackle key cybersecurity challenges.
The meeting was attended by Homeland Security... Read More »
Members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee expressed support for a proposed initiative that would create an international organization aimed at detecting and preventing new biological threats, either unintentionally developed or intentionally introduced by rogue actors, like terrorists or... Read More »
With a new disease variant come further questions of vaccine viability and new tests, and this week, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced an expansion of a vaccine agreement with Gritstone bio Inc. to test its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine against the Omicron variant.... Read More »
Clinical stage biopharmaceutical company Heat Biologics, Inc. recently unveiled a new cellular vaccine platform that it says is designed to allow quicker manufacturing, greater stockpiling and customizability suited to combating a wide range of biological threats.
The emergence of the Omicron... Read More »
Preliminary results from a Phase 2 mix and match trial of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 booster vaccine are in, and they determined that administered six months after a vaccination routine of BioNTech and Pfizer’s BNT162b2, both antibody and T-cell responses rise.
The independent study,... Read More »
As part of a trial co-funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp. (MVC), researchers will mix and match COVID-19 boosters focusing on combinations of MVC’s vaccine candidate and others.
“As we strive to stay one step ahead of... Read More »
Last week, the board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, approved an initial investment of $155.7 million to support the introduction, acquisition, and delivery of malaria vaccines throughout eligible nations in sub-Saharan Africa between 2022 and 2025.
The public-private health organization hopes... Read More »
A new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center makes recommendations on modernizing the U.S. public healthcare systems in light of the challenges the country has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report, Public health Forward: Modernizing the U.S. Public Health System, outlines critical... Read More »
Battelle announced that it has secured a Large Sport Utility Vehicle (LSUV) design contract from the Department of State (DoS) to develop armored Ford Expeditions.
“Battelle is proud to bring its depth of engineering skills to DSS and other government agencies seeking armored vehicles... Read More »
