Emerging Infectious Diseases
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 »
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced Monday it was creating a new whole-of-government effort, the Initiative for Global Vaccine Access (Global VAX), to accelerate efforts worldwide to provide COVID-19 shots and overcome access barriers to vaccines, with a priority on... 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 »
This week, the World Health Assembly announced that it intends to jumpstart a process to draft and negotiate a global agreement to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.
The decision came with the ongoing -- and evolving -- COVID-19 pandemic firmly in mind and will utilize... Read More »
Results from non-human primate testing of a Soligenix, Inc.-developed Bivalent Thermostabilized Filovirus vaccine, released this week, suggested 100 percent protection provided against the Sudan ebolavirus among dosed non-human primates.
The single vial vaccine is meant to target both the... Read More »
Former U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks, a Republican who represented the 5th District of Indiana from 2013-2021, and former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Peggy Hamburg, who served as the agency’s 21st commissioner between 2009-2015, have joined the Bipartisan Commission on... Read More »
A 13-10 vote by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee (AMDAC) set the stage for recommending Emergency Use Authorization of the Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics oral COVID-19 antiviral molnupiravir this week.
The narrow backing followed a... Read More »
Moving quickly to address concerns raised by the Omicron COVID-19 variant, following its discovery last week, INOVIO announced it will evaluate two of its COVID-19 DNA vaccine candidates against the variant and has begun pre-clinical development of another specifically tailored to it.
Omicron... Read More »
Results of a study on molnupiravir, an investigational oral antiviral developed by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics for use against COVID-19, showed this week that the drug cuts the risk of hospitalization or death by approximately 3 percent.
The trial of 1,433 participants focused on those... Read More »
As the world continues to realign its approach and expectations in the wake of the emergence of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in South Africa last week, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) took the opportunity to renew calls for expanding U.S. vaccine aid to other nations.
“The emergence of... Read More »
Moderna announced last week a strategy for addressing the new Omicron variant of COVID-19, including a new booster vaccine and studies of boosters that have already anticipated its mutations.
The rushed strategy announcement came in the wake of closing borders and the World Health... Read More »
Federal agencies, Congress and the White House must jointly foster improved research and development for pandemic preparedness and response, experts said during a recent webinar hosted by the Capitol Hill Steering Committee on Pandemic Preparedness & Health Security.
“Over the last two... Read More »
The World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) recently reached a joint licensing agreement with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) for a non-exclusive COVID-19 serological antibody test.
The CSIC-developed test, to be... Read More »
In facing down a future of potential biological dangers, a new report from authors at NTI | bio recommended concrete action at the national and international level, from new oversight agencies to process overhauls and funding, to improve prevention and response.
In “Strengthening Global... Read More »
A new report from the CommuniVax Coalition has found that while progress has been made regarding equity in the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, more work is needed.
Led by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Department of Anthropology at... Read More »
Building on the success of its COVID-10 vaccine testing network to date, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced this week that it will expand its centralized testing capabilities to the development of vaccines for other epidemic and pandemic diseases.
CEPI’s... Read More »
With COVID-19 daily emphasizing how critical health care workers are to modern society, a collection of U.S. senators this week proposed a student loan repayment program to drive recruitment and retention in the field of public health.
The BIO Preparedness Workforce Act was introduced by U.S.... Read More »
A bicameral effort from United States Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) rebirthed the Flu Vaccine Act last week, which proposes a $1 billion investment into the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research of a universal flu vaccine.
Such a vaccine would theoretically... Read More »
A bipartisan group including U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AR) introduced legislation on Thursday that would bolster the country’s ability to respond to future public health emergencies.
The Bolstering Infectious Outbreak... Read More »
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) committed another $36.9 million to expand a contract with Clover Biopharmaceuticals and support the development of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, SCB-2019, for use as a booster.
The new injection of funding increases CEPI’s investment... Read More »
The Biden administration announced an agreement with Pfizer Inc. last week that will provide 10 million courses of the company’s COVID-19 oral antiviral Paxlovid, pending Emergency Use Authorization or approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“This promising... Read More »
The U.S. government added to its supplies of COVID-19 treatments this week with the announcement of $1 billion worth of new deals to bring GlaxoSmithKline plc and Vir Biotechnology, Inc.’s sotrovimab into its stocks.
The agreements were clinched after final data was released from the COMET-ICE... Read More »
According to updates from AstraZeneca, the company and its partners managed to provide 2 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to more than 170 countries within 11 months of its first approval and a little more than 18 months after AstraZeneca partnered with Oxford University on... Read More »
Dosing of the first volunteers for a Phase 1b clinical trial of Ebola vaccine candidate INO-4201 began this week to assess whether the vaccine could function as a booster for healthy, previously vaccinated patients.
The latest study followed positive results from pre-clinical and Phase 1 trials... Read More »
The United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) gained access to Pfizer Inc.’s COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment candidate PF-07321332 this week, enabling the organization to produce and distribute the drug to generic sub-licensers for greater global access.
MPP intends to increase... Read More »
Contained within the sprawling provisions of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act signed into law this week are production-minded provisions that will require federal agencies to focus long-term personal protective equipment (PPE) production on domestic companies.
These... Read More »
Ronapreve, a Roche and Regeneron-developed drug cocktail of casirivimab and imdevimab, gained marketing authorization from the European Commission last week for treatment of COVID-19 cases before hospitalization among adults and adolescents at least 12 years old.
Ronapreve can now be used in... Read More »
Data from the latest global survey on implementation of the Global Action Plan on addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) showed that more countries than ever are determined to fight AMR, but also major setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of the 163 countries that responded to the survey... Read More »
President Joe Biden on Nov. 12 announced he will nominate cardiologist Dr. Robert Califf to be the next commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a key role as the government continues to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Current Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock’s... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced this week that it will provide $143.5 million to expand community-based efforts at vaccination outreach, specifically to build vaccine confidence and break down barriers to COVID-19 vaccination.
“Today’s investments are part of... Read More »
A new effort by the COVAX Facility -- the COVAX Humanitarian Buffer -- received a shot in the arm this week through a new agreement with Johnson & Johnson, which will bring its single-shot COVID-19 vaccine to bear to help approximately 167 million displaced people around the world.
COVAX -- the... Read More »
The United States federal government exercised two options on contracts with Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics this week to purchase an additional 1.4 million courses of the investigational oral antiviral molnupiravir for use against COVID-19.
This deal will amount to approximately $1 billion... Read More »
