Emerging Infectious Diseases
Tacking onto President Joe Biden’s call to make the United States an arsenal of vaccines for the world, Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE agreed to expand an arrangement with the U.S. government and provide another 500 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine for low and lower-middle-income... Read More »
As the CEO of American PAPR, a Brooklyn-based company that manufactures American-made personal protective equipment, Giles Kyser has hired lobbyists to make the case that the federal government should procure medical equipment whose raw materials are sourced and assembled in the United States.... Read More »
As more vaccine developers consider the potential of COVID-19 boosters, Johnson & Johnson announced this week that the latest data shows its own booster shot provides 94 percent protection when given two months after a first dose.
That represents a major improvement, providing as much as a... Read More »
Working in concert with the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Defense (DoD) last week awarded four contracts valued at a total of $647 million for the purchase of over-the-counter COVID-19 test kits.
Funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, these... Read More »
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) intends to invest $2.1 billion to improve infection prevention and control activities at the state, local and territorial levels, and better improve national capabilities to prepare for emerging infectious diseases.
These funds... Read More »
A group of lawmakers from Florida are encouraging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reverse its decision to ration monoclonal antibody (mAb) drugs for COVID-19 outpatient treatment.
The lawmakers said the HHS decision would result in Florida facing a deficit of doses. Sen.... Read More »
While buoyed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s advancement of the Build Back Better Act, and the offerings therein, the United States COVID-19 Global Vaccination Caucus chimed in last week to note that its offers for vaccine manufacturing are just a beginning.
The caucus consists of... Read More »
Leaders of several international organizations including the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization met with the CEOs of leading vaccine manufacturing companies to discuss way to improve low- and lower-middle income countries’... Read More »
According to new data from clinical trials highlighted by Moderna, Inc. this week, its debut COVID-19 vaccine, mRNA-1273, continues to be highly effective against COVID-19, providing 96 percent efficacy against hospitalization and 87 percent against infection.
The data -- from a study at Kaiser... Read More »
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Eli Lilly and Company have secured Department of Defense (DOD) contracts to produce additional doses of monoclonal antibodies to block the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2.
Authorities indicated the $3.2 billion total allotment is in coordination with the Department... Read More »
Vaccine equity is in need of a boost globally, and in Africa in particular, and unless that changes, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other health leaders said this week the COVID-19 pandemic may never end.
Cooperation is the key to ending the... Read More »
Through a contract with SIGA Technologies, Inc., the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has exercised a procurement option to obtain approximately $112.5 million worth of the oral TPOXX smallpox treatment this year.
TPOXX is an orally administered and IV formulation... Read More »
Gaithersburg, Md.-based Emergent BioSolutions Inc. and Canadian vaccine company Providence Therapeutics said on Tuesday they have entered into a $90 million, five-year development and manufacturing agreement to support Providence’s COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine candidate.
Already... Read More »
The Biden administration seeks an international summit on COVID-19 pandemic responses and to form a united global front for vaccination efforts, a proposal that could impact vaccine manufacturing, supply chains and even the upcoming United Nations General Assembly.
Closer to home, though, U.S.... Read More »
Novavax, Inc. began enrollment last week of the first participants for a Phase 1/2 clinical trial to assess the safety and immunogenicity of a combination vaccine formed from the company’s seasonal influenza and COVID-19 vaccines.
Each vaccine has already been tested in solo clinical trials up... Read More »
Under the terms of a new, multi-year agreement reached this week between Moderna and National Resilience, National Resilience will produce mRNA for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines at its Mississauga, Ontario facility.
“Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine has saved countless lives, and we’re excited... Read More »
In its latest Supply Forecast, the multilateral vaccine equity program COVAX announced expectations of 1.425 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines available this year, with 2 billion doses available for delivery in the first quarter of 2022 -- a milestone, but still a lagging figure.
Resulting from... Read More »
A group of lawmakers launched the COVID-19 Global Vaccination Caucus, which they said would advocate for vaccines as a means of ending the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) along with... Read More »
As part of a contract signed with Valneva SE last year, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) has decided to utilize an option that will increase supply of the company’s Japanese encephalitis vaccine, IXIARO, to a minimum of 200,000 doses.
Japanese encephalitis is a deadly infectious... Read More »
The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense last week applauded the Biden Administration’s work on a new $65.3 billion American Pandemic Preparedness Plan for investments to combat the next biological threat, though it argues that greater funding is necessary to make sufficient plans.
The White... Read More »
Thanks to collaborations with commercial and academic research partners alike, the Argonne National Laboratory has published new research showing the capabilities of artificial intelligence and simulation workflows to provide insight to the SARS-CoV-2 viral genome and potentially fuel drug... Read More »
Approximately 4,000 people from all over the world will be enrolled in a Phase 3 trial of a combined SK bioscience and GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine candidate beginning this week.
The trial will combine the SK COVID-19 vaccine candidate GBP510 with GSK’s pandemic... Read More »
The Department of Defense (DOD) has awarded $194.5 million across two contracts for COVID-19 test kits and pipette tips.
The awards, made in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), were funded via the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to support domestic industrial base... Read More »
U.S. Cotton, LLC has secured a $6.5 million Department of Defense (DOD) contract to increase domestic production of polyester-tipped swabs used in COVID-19 home test kits.
The effort, in accordance with the Department of Health and Human Services, would also aid COVID-19 mass testing... Read More »
Thinking up ways to better address future public health emergencies, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority’s (BARDA) Division of Research, Innovation and Ventures (DRIVe) has expanded a partner program focused on technology development to include digital health tools and... Read More »
Although a United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved prescription medication, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a warning last week that the drug ivermectin is not meant to be used for prevention or treatment of COVID-19.
Failing to heed that warning... Read More »
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) began a Phase 2 clinical trial last week to investigate any antibody response generated by an extra dose of authorized/approved COVID-19 vaccines among patients with autoimmune disease who experienced no response from a previous vaccine regimen.
The... Read More »
A new policy brief released this month by the advocacy group Pandemic Action Network (PAN) calls on world leaders to create a 100-day action plan toward creating a new financing mechanism at the United Nations General Assembly capable of bolstering pandemic preparedness by at least $10 billion... Read More »
INOVIO received the green light for phase three of its INNOVATE Phase 2/3 clinical trial of INO-4800 last week, allowing it to proceed with efficacy evaluation of its COVID-19 DNA vaccine candidate in Brazil.
Alongside its partner, Advaccine Biopharmaceuticals Suzhou Co., Ltd., INOVIO intends to... Read More »
The largest ever Lassa Fever study in West Africa secured the means of testing this week, thanks to a contract between the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Zalgen Labs LLC, which will supply antibody testing kits for up to 7,000 participants.
Zalgen, a biotechnology... Read More »
New data released by Johnson & Johnson this week showed that using its single-shot COVID-19 vaccine as a booster for the previously vaccinated could provide as much as a nine-fold increase in antibodies for patients at least 18 years old.
The news follows interim reports from July, published in... Read More »
Republican leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week queried the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Francis Collins, with more questions in the saga of the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology, its research and the origins of COVID-19.
Writers included... Read More »
A plasma-derived COVID-19 candidate from Emergent BioSolutions Inc. is part of a late-stage federal study that will test the therapy as a potential outpatient treatment for people who are at high risk of developing severe disease, including adults 55 and older and those who are... Read More »
Vaccination has begun for a Phase 2/3 trial of Bharat Biotech International Ltd’s (BBIL) Chikungunya vaccine candidate, through a partnership with the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) in Costa Rica.
The Costa Rican trial of BBV87, the official name for the candidate, marks the... Read More »
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) placed a call for partners this week to aid the organization in developing new sequencing-based, agnostic diagnostic tests better capable of detecting respiratory RNA viruses.
Potential partners will be able to help guide the... Read More »
