An Oxford University trial, a world first, is looking at whether inoculating volunteers with doses of different combinations of two currently approved COVID-19 vaccines is effective.
UK based pharma group, GlaxoSmithKline, and German biotech, CureVac, have struck a €150m (US$180m) deal to jointly develop next generation mRNA vaccines for COVID-19; the goal is to address multi-variants with one vaccine.
Rows about vaccine supply and threats of export blocks don’t do anything to bring us closer to ending the COVID-19 pandemic, say campaigners pushing for vaccine equity on a global level.
The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced they will perform an accelerated assessment of the Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for Janssen’s investigational CAR-T therapy, ciltacabtagene...
The pharma giant had announced last week that it could deliver only 25% of the doses originally promised to the EU-27 for Q1 2021 due to production issues at one of its European factories. But it has now agreed to send 9m additional doses and will start...
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) today advised that AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine can be given conditional marketing authorization (CMA) in the EU to prevent COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2, in individuals 18 years of age and older.
The EU Commission has published a redacted version of the contract it signed with AstraZeneca on COVID-19 vaccine delivery in August last year, in a bid to show that the pharma giant is backtracking on its commitments.
The Commission has today put in place a measure that requires companies it has secured COVID-19 vaccine deals with to notify the authorities in member states about any intention to export vaccines produced in the EU.
German officials are not recommending the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine on people aged over 65, according to a report in the Financial Times.
Belgian health authorities announced today that they visited Novasep’s plant in that country to determine if expected delays in the deliveries of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to the EU are related to production issues at that site.
US President Biden’s team is using the US Defense Production Act (DPA) to launch a full scale “wartime effort” to address the supply chain shortages inherited from the Trump administration.
French company, Sanofi, says it will support the manufacturing and supply of BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, which is being co-developed with Pfizer, in a pledge to increase vaccine accessibility.
Advice published by the World Health Organization today says the two doses of the Moderna vaccine should be administered 28 days apart; but this interval can be extended up to 42 days if necessary.
AstraZeneca along with its scientific partners at the University of Oxford have rejected German media reports that their vaccine against COVID-19 has low efficacy in people aged over 65.
EU health commissioner, Stella Kyriakides, last night again expressed dissatisfaction with the responses the EU executive has received from AstraZeneca over the company's announcement there would be significant shortfalls in the supply of its COVID-19...
The British Medical Association (BMA), the trade union and professional body for doctors in the UK, is calling for the delay between Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine doses to be reduced from 12 weeks to six weeks.
Australia’s Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA) has provisionally approved the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine: making it the first available in the country.
The World Health Organization’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety says it has not seen any unexpected or untoward increase in fatalities in frail and elderly individuals who have received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
GSK has sold its GCLP-certified clinical bioanalytical laboratory located in Marburg, Germany to Canadian clinical research organization (CRO), Nexelis.
The team behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine says it is carefully assessing the impact of new variants from the UK, South Africa and Brazil on vaccine immunity.
The European Commission has set out steps to ramp up production of COVID-19 vaccines; tackle issues in the supply chain; and boost vaccination campaigns.
New York based, Neurogene, has announced a research collaboration with the University of Edinburgh for the development of a multiple-platform approach to diseases not addressable by conventional gene therapy.
Thermo Fisher Scientific will acquire San Diego molecular diagnostics company Mesa Biotech for approximately $450m in cash, with up to an additional $100m upon completion of certain milestones.
At the end of December, the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) updated its advice on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine: saying that those with unrelated allergies could receive it. But this announcement did not receive as...
The growing global pipeline of cell and gene therapy projects has prompted Thermo Fisher Scientific to invest again, with it announcing today that it had bought Henogen, Novasep’s viral vector manufacturing business based in Belgium, for about US$879.72m...
Therapies for cancer, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases and other drug markets are all siloed, despite new research emerging that shows potential connections between them. In order to create more effective therapeutics, we need to pull from research...
The European Commission had held discussions with French pharma company, Valneva, with a view to securing up to 60 million doses of its inactivated virus COVID-19 vaccine, VLA2001.
The EU Commission has obtained 300 million more doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, doubling the amount currently available to EU-27 countries.
The World Health Organization’s vaccine advisory group recommends the two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine should be delivered 21 to 28 days apart: although it adds that the maximum time period between doses could be up to six weeks in some situations.
The EU Commission has granted a conditional marketing authorization for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by US biotech, Moderna, the second COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the EU.
AstraZeneca officially announced today the Serum Institute of India had obtained emergency use authorization in India for its COVID-19 vaccine. It also confirmed the vaccine has been granted emergency use authorization in Argentina, Dominican Republic,...
The US FDA has emphasized it will not make any changes to the recommended dosing of authorized COVID-19 vaccines: saying any modifications would create a ‘significant risk’ of undermining vaccination efforts.
Preclinical contract research organization (CRO), Charles River Laboratories International, has announced the acquisition of an antibody discovery company, Distributed Bio, for US$83m in cash.
2020 has been an eventful year: but 2021 will also require skilful navigation. Here's some of the people who are stepping up to leading roles as we head into a new year.
Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services and Revance Therapeutics have announced a strategic commercial manufacturing agreement for the supply of DaxibotulinumtoxinA for Injection.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended authorization of the Pfizer/ BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine: paving the way for the first marketing authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine in Europe.
A US advisory panel has recommended the next two US priority population groups to receive the COVID-19 vaccine should be those 75 and older and essential workers.
It is known and expected that viruses constantly change through mutation leading to the emergence of new variants, but preliminary analysis in the UK suggests the new SARS-CoV-2 variant is significantly more transmissible than previous ones.
