Public Health
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 »
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 »
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has released a new Master Question List (MQL) for Synthetic Opioids.
The MQL serves as a reference guide as a means of aiding emergency responders and the research community by providing critical and vetted... Read More »
For a world where masks are among the new norms, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has launched the second phase of a $500,000 contest to develop creative, comfortable, and effective new mask designs for the public.
For this competition, BARDA is working with the... 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 »
U.S. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) announced Tuesday that they had introduced an amendment to the national defense bill that will strengthen and coordinate the federal government’s response to drug... Read More »
President Joe Biden signed the Ensuring Compliance Against Drug Diversion Act (H.R.1899) into law last week, codifying current drug regulations to make it harder for bad actors to create shell companies or transfer registration to evade crackdowns and continue distributing illegal... Read More »
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials said three men have been indicted for their alleged role in participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy that resulted in the seizure of over one ton of cocaine.
Jorge Aponte-Guzman, Nelson Agramonte-Minaya, and Carlos Maisonet-Lopez were... Read More »
In an effort to better crackdown on illegal drugs at the source, the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) announced $44.5 million in funding this week for state-level law enforcement agencies.
This money will specifically go toward these agencies’... Read More »
Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notified Moderna, Inc. that an assessment of an emergency use authorization request for its COVID-19 vaccine to be used on adolescents may not be completed before January 2022.
The delay was due to a stated necessity to evaluate recent... Read More »
A new partnership between the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and RIVANNA seeks to develop the company’s Accuro XV device for the release of a portable 3D fracture detection and diagnosis system without radiation.
The rapid-working system is based on ultrasound... Read More »
According to a new report from the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), the world is broken in its inequality, division, and lack of accountability, making a health emergency ecosystem incapable of ending the COVID-19 pandemic or preventing another.
The opportunity for reform is... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) announced the inclusion of HAVANA Act funding in the draft Department of Defense Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2022.
The bill authored by Collins authorizes the CIA Director and Secretary of State to provide additional financial support for American public... Read More »
Legislation from U.S. Reps. Lori Trahan (D-MA) and David B. McKinley (R-WV) will be considered in an upcoming hearing hosted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee, the legislators said Monday.
The Bolstering Infectious Outbreaks (BIO) Preparedness Workforce Act... Read More »
According to top line data from a Phase 2/3 study of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine among children ages 6-11, released this week, the company determined that two doses given a month apart produced a strong antibody response -- stronger, even, than those seen in adults.
Conducted in collaboration... Read More »
U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI), John Thune (R-SD), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Ben Sasse (R-NE) forwarded correspondence last week to President Joe Biden encouraging the United States to take the global lead regarding COVID-19 vaccinations and pandemic combating efforts.
“We urge you in the... Read More »
U.S. Rep. John Joyce (R-PA) has introduced a bill he said seeks to protect from foreign threats biomedical research conducted or funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH).
The Securing and Fortifying Everyday Biomedical Research Act (SAFE Biomedical Research Act - H.R. 5626) would ensure... Read More »
Fed up with the dangers of an unprepared and underfunded public health system, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) voiced support this week for a fiscal year 2022 bill that would increase Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funding by $1.85 billion.
The bill, released by the Labor, Health... Read More »
U.S. Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and David Schweikert (R-AZ) co-chairs of the Congressional Valley Fever Task Force joined Reps. Karen Bass (D-CA) and Tom O’Halleran (R-AZ) to introduce a bipartisan bill combating Valley Fever Wednesday.
Valley Fever is an infection caused by inhaling spores... Read More »
Through exercise of an option with Moderna, Inc., Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance will purchase another 176.5 million doses of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine in an effort to help low income countries over the course of the next year, through the COVAX Facility.
With this purchase, COVAX will have... Read More »
Moderna officials said the company is slated to build a messenger RNA (mRNA) facility in Africa, producing up to 500 million vaccine doses annually at the 50 microgram dose level.
“Since Moderna’s founding in 2010, our mission has been to make a transformative impact on human lives through... Read More »
Although its COVID-19 vaccine was never authorized for use in the United States, AstraZeneca submitted a request with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week seeking emergency use authorization (EUA) for its long-acting antibody (LAAB) combination for use against symptomatic... Read More »
Ending speculation, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) this week officially submitted data to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to request emergency use authorization (EUA) for a booster version of its COVID-19 vaccine among patients at least 18 years old.
Recent data showed that the J&J... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) completed Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), a nationwide vaccination campaign focused on Afghan evacuees temporarily housed at eight domestic military installations.
As part of the initiative, 49,000 evacuees have been immunized for measles, mumps, rubella... Read More »
The United States Department of Defense (DoD) awarded an agreement worth approximately $22 million to the biopharmaceutical developer Dynavax Technologies Corporation this week, giving it two and a half years to develop an adjuvanted recombinant plague vaccine.
That vaccine will be adjuvanted with... Read More »
According to an announcement from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week, two upcoming meetings of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) will be held next week to address the newest COVID-19 vaccine data.
These meetings will be... Read More »
Results of an interim analysis for the Phase 3 trial of molnupiravir, an investigational oral antiviral for COVID-19 produced by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, showed the drug capable of cutting hospitalization or death risk approximately in half.
For the purposes of the trial, over the... Read More »
Safe and effective: this was the verdict of Phase 3 trial results for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.’s REGEN-COV COVID-19 treatment, as published in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this week.
That trial reportedly met both its primary and secondary endpoints, inducing... Read More »
U.S. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), House Energy and Commerce Committee Republican Leader; Brett Guthrie (R-KY), Subcommittee on Health Republican Leader; and Morgan Griffith (R-VA) Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Republican Leader, have asked information on breakthrough cases of... Read More »
In a letter dispatched to Congress this week, 24 stakeholder organizations urged Congressional leaders to back the $16 billion funding level for pandemic preparedness advanced by the House Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this year.
That funding was attached as part of the Build Back Better... Read More »
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded $73 million in cooperative agreements to 10 academic institutions last week through its Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to foster more public health information technology... Read More »
At the United States-hosted Global COVID-19 Summit last week, world leaders recommitted to guaranteeing equitable vaccine access for all countries through COVAX, and pledged a mix of funds, doses and supply chain aid to ensure it.
“Science has made huge progress in the fight to save lives,... Read More »
The Mexican government approved biotechnology company INOVIO to begin a Phase 3 efficacy trial of its COVID-19 DNA vaccine candidate, INO-4800, this week alongside its partner Advaccine Biopharmaceuticals Suzhou Co., Ltd.
This Mexican trial is part of a larger, worldwide Phase 2/3 trial known as... Read More »
