Research
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a series of recommendations regarding the federal COVID-19 response via the CARES Act, focusing on critical gaps and plans to address the gaps.
The GAO indicated the agency's recommendation concerning the importance of clear and... Read More »
A new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington establishes the danger of two new variants of COVID-19, warning of the possibility of a surge of deaths later this year, even despite the vaccine rollout.
According to the report, B.1.351 -- the... Read More »
Those residents of the European Union 18 years or older will now be able to get AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to prevent COVID-19, following a conditional marketing authorization granted by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The approval will allow AstraZeneca to begin working with the EU... Read More »
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, or CEPI, is awarding up to $140 million in funding to research institutions for clinical data on COVID-19 vaccines.
This initiative aims to fill in existing clinical research and development gaps to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines. The... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently joined Cactus League officials and affiliates in an exercise designed to review pre-incident preparedness measures and response plans.
For the second consecutive year, the tabletop exercise... Read More »
Novavax, Inc. demonstrated a strong showing of its COVID-19 vaccine last week, posting an 89.3 percent efficacy in a United Kingdom-based phase three trial, conducted in partnership with the UK government’s Vaccines Taskforce.
Notably, this vaccine was also pitted against variants of the... Read More »
The results of the phase three ENSEMBLE clinical trial have shown that Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 66 percent effective overall at preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 cases 28 days after vaccination.
The study also showed that the vaccine... Read More »
Combatting Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (CARB-X) awarded $5.3 million to Lumen Bioscience to develop a new immunotherapy to prevent diarrheal diseases caused by two specific pathogens -- Campylobacter jejuni and enterotoxigenic E. coli.
Diarrheal diseases are intestinal infections caused by... Read More »
The RTS,S/AS01E malaria vaccine is the focus of a new product transfer agreement between GSK, PATH, and Bharat Biotech (BBIL), which will see manufacturing, supply, and rights split between the three entities.
Under the arrangement, manufacturing of the RTS,S antigen and licensing rights to the... Read More »
A new agreement between Sanofi and BioNTech grants the latter access to Sanofi’s infrastructure to aid manufacturing of the COVID-19 vaccine BioNTech has co-developed with Pfizer, granting them the ability to make more than 125 million doses for Europe from summer on.
“Although vaccination... Read More »
Specialty vaccine company Valneva and Instituto Butantan signed an agreement to develop Valneva’s single-shot chikungunya vaccine, VLA1553, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
As part of the collaboration, Valneva will transfer its chikungunya vaccine technology to Instituto Butantan,... Read More »
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently indicated officers detected twice as many firearms per million passengers screened at airport security checkpoints nationwide in 2020 compared to 2019.
“I commend our officers for their commitment to TSA’s security mission by... Read More »
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lyme disease cases are growing in the United States, which released a new report showing annual cases are 10 times higher than what they were reported in 2018.
Some 476,000 people are now being diagnosed and treated for Lyme... Read More »
In new data released by Eli Lilly and Company, a cocktail of neutralizing antibodies bamlanivimab and etesevimab reduced COVID-19 related hospitalizations and deaths by 70 percent among more than 1,000 high-risk patients.
According to the report, which was based on the BLAZE-1 phase three... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has announced a $36.5 million funding opportunity for a new DHS Center of Excellence (COE).
The COE's focus would be Engineering Secure Environments from Targeted Attacks (ESE). DHS is soliciting center lead... Read More »
Although well-tolerated, Merck’s two COVID-19 vaccine candidates -- V590 and V591 -- have been discontinued due to immune responses well below those provided by natural infection or other vaccines.
“We are grateful to our collaborators who worked with us on these vaccine candidates and to... Read More »
A recent report from the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science finds that prescription use of opioids has fallen 60 percent since its peak in 2011.
Changes in clinical use, regulatory and reimbursement policies, and progressively more restrictive legislation have led to the reduced use, the... Read More »
The development and deployment of an effective vaccine for COVID-19 could be the turning point in the fight against the deadly pandemic, and companies involved in the process must make specific business and public health considerations simultaneously to help ensure a successful outcome, experts... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions and Humanigen have signed a contract development and manufacturing (CDMO) services agreement to accelerate the manufacturing of the drug lenzilumab.
Lenzilumab is an anti-human granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) monoclonal antibody designed to prevent... Read More »
In a manuscript posted to a preprint server, Moderna Inc. addressed Monday the results of in vitro neutralization studies of sera from people vaccinated against emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2, which produced lesser, though still protective, results.
Specifically, the variants being fretted over... Read More »
COVAX announced last week that a new purchase agreement with Pfizer-BioNTech will secure up to 40 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine for rollout, offering the potential to deliver at least 2 billion doses of vaccines, equitably, by year’s end.
“Today marks another milestone for COVAX:... Read More »
The Oklahoma Pandemic Center for Innovation and Excellence (OPCIE) officially opened in Stillwater, Okla., this week, presenting a new lab, genetic biorepository, and science lab to address public health concerns.
The facility is meant to serve as a frontline of defense against future... Read More »
Chalmers University of Technology researchers have determined that significant genetic transfer between bacteria in our ecosystems and humans may be linked to pathogenic bacteria in humans developing resistance to antibiotics.
"In recent years, we've seen that resistance genes spread to human... Read More »
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis has determined Department of Defense (DOD) efforts to develop a jam-resistant GPS capability for the military called M-code has been delayed, causing ripple effects.
Per the GAO, modernized satellites are in space, but receiver equipment needed... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will award nearly $20 million in funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act to increase data sharing between health information exchanges and immunization information systems.
“These CARES Act funds will... Read More »
ConserV Bioscience Limited (CBL) and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) agreed to collaborate this week in creating a universal coronavirus vaccine capable of protecting against coronavirus pathogens of human and animal origin, as well as new mutations, researchers said.
CBL, a... Read More »
The World Health Organization (WHO) hosted a virtual forum last week to identify knowledge gaps and set research priorities for vaccines against COVID-19.
At the forum – attended by more than 2,800 scientists from 130 countries – the participants discussed the safety and efficacy of existing... Read More »
With £2.5 million in funding from UK Research and Innovation, an arm of the government, the G2P-UK National Virology Consortium has been founded to study the threats posed by new SARS-CoV-2 variants increasingly cropping up across the world.
The effects of these mutations have yet to be fully... Read More »
The Departments of Defense (DoD) and Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded $69.3 million to CONTINUUS Pharmaceuticals Inc. last week to support the development of domestic production capability for critical medicines using integrated continuous manufacturing (ICM) technology.
ICM is a... Read More »
Northrop Grumman Corporation's Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS), which the company developed with the Army, would proceed with low rate initial production (LRIP).
The action stems from a successful Milestone C decision for the program, which the Department of... Read More »
The Rockefeller Foundation seeks to boost vaccination efforts in the United States with a $30 million new advance market commitment (AMC) with Thermo Fisher Scientific to procure and stock COVID-19 tests.
The investment will provide guaranteed demand to test manufacturers. In return, the stock... Read More »
The Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation has awarded two projects a total of $1.5 million to address homeland security threat detection and 3D mapping technologies.
The BIRD Homeland Security (HLS) program is a joint initiative funded by the Department of... Read More »
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) will be able to purchase more than 2 million additional COVID-19 antibody treatments due to modifications to an existing agreement with Eli Lilly and Company.
The therapeutic in question,... Read More »
As DiaSorin Molecular LLC works to create a combination diagnostic for differentiating between influenza A/B and COVID-19, it will receive funding, technical assistance, and the expertise of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
The announcement, made this week,... Read More »
A Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) and Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) report has determined a blueprint for identifying high-risk or illicit nuclear trade activities at scale.
Signals in the Noise: Preventing Nuclear Proliferation with Machine Learning & Publicly Available... Read More »
