A UK biotech company developing a novel treatment for Covid-19 has welcomed NHS plans to make Covid-19 treatments available to patients as soon as possible. The CEO of NHS England, Sir Simon Stevens, recently highlighted the importance of therapeutic treatments to help the UK return to a more normal way… Read More
By David Berd, Chief Medical Officer, BioVaxys. It has been a little more than a year since COVID-19 was released on the world causing widespread respiratory illness, death and major disruptions in the world’s economies and in people’s daily lives. From the beginning of the pandemic, it was recognised that a… Read More
The rapid spread of the newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 virus variant B.1.1.7 in Great Britain and other countries shows changes in the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus can lead to new biological properties. Most of the approximately 12,000 mutations in the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that have been identified since… Read More
Against the backdrop of COVID-19 disruption, there has been good progress made with European IDMP data standards. Remco Munnik of Iperion Life Sciences Consultancy looks back at the main IDMP developments in 2020 – and looks ahead to a future better supported by data standardisation. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted… Read More
As mRNA has gone from the unknown to arguably one of the most discussed areas of science in our lifetimes, Lu Rahman looks at the story behind its role in the fight against COVID-19 and why we should thank those working to create vaccines. In less than the spaceof a… Read More
Novavax, the late-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation vaccines for serious infectious diseases, has finalised an agreement with the government of Canada to supply up to 76 million doses of NVX-CoV2373, the company’s recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine. Canada has committed to purchase 52 million doses of the vaccine with the option… Read More
Last spring, as healthcare providers and scientists around the world scrambled to treat a surge of patients infected with a virus that experts knew little about, one thing quickly became clear: SARS-CoV-2 strikes people differently. Faced with solving a mega-puzzle on a timer when minutes cost lives, clinical practice early… Read More
Measuring antibody affinity under physiologically relevant conditions in complex mixtures like serum remains challenging but is critically important to furthering our understanding of the immune response and protection window in patients and vaccinated individuals. Fluidic Analytics’ application note explains why current technologies provide only an incomplete understanding of the… Read More
Traditional approaches for vaccine discovery and development are being reimagined and accelerated - leveraging technologies in novel ways to streamline workflows and forging collaborations. Dr. Sanjay Garg and Dr. Anis H Khimani, discuss key learnings and best practices during COVID-19 vaccine research and how we can take these forward to… Read More
Says Lu Rahman, DDW Editor in Chief I’ll admit it’s pretty hard right now to come up with one, let alone multiple reasons to be cheerful. As I write this from my desk in the north of the UK, it’s bitterly cold, our schools have been closed (along with everywhere… Read More
ICON, provider of outsourced drug and device development and commercialisation services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries and government and public health organisations, has announced it provided clinical trial services to the Pfizer and BioNTech investigational COVID-19 vaccine programme. Pfizer and BioNTech announced positive efficacy results from a… Read More
Swissmedic, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products, has authorised the COVID-19 Moderna Vaccine in Switzerland. The authorisation is given according to the ordinary approvals procedure and is based on a rolling submission of data and the totality of scientific evidence shared by the company, including a data analysis from the… Read More
The COVID-19 vaccine developed by Moderna has been given regulatory approval for supply by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). This follows a thorough and rigorous assessment by the MHRA’s teams of scientists, including advice from the independent Commission on Human Medicines, which reviewed in depth all the… Read More
Novavax has executed an Advance Purchase Agreement with the Commonwealth of Australia for 51 million doses of NVX-CoV2373, Novavax’ COVID-19 vaccine candidate. This follows an agreement in principle that was announced in November 2020. NVX-CoV2373 is a recombinant protein vaccine adjuvanted with Novavax’ proprietary Matrix-M to enhance the immune response. Read More
The European Commission has granted a conditional marketing authorisation (CMA) for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine Moderna, allowing vaccination programs using the Moderna vaccine to be rolled out across the European Union. The authorisation is based upon the recommendation of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for use of the COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna… Read More
A new study funded by Cancer Research UK shows that the immune response to COVID-19 is the same in people with solid tumours compared to those without cancer. However, blood cancer patients varied in their ability to respond to the virus, with many unable to shake off the virus for… Read More
