The recent approval of Novavax’s protein-based Covid-19 vaccine for adolescents aged 12-18 years will help its partner, the Serum Institute of India (SII) enter the adolescents’ market, according to GlobalData. Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine was granted emergency use authorisation by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) in… Read More
This most recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General examines the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination programme in England up to the end of October 2021, focusing on events up to the end of October 2021 and assessing whether the programme is well placed to meet its objectives… Read More
Dr Pirkko Muhonen, Senior Field Application Scientist, Nucleic Acid Therapeutics, at Thermo Fisher Scientific, shares what's next for RNA-based medicine post-pandemic with DDW. With SARS-CoV-2 circulating the globe and leading to over five million deaths worldwide1, all eyes are on the critical role messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines are playing in… Read More
Listen to this article on the DDW Podcast: The Covid-19 Host Genetics Initiative carried out one of the largest genome-wide association studies ever. It involved meta-analysis of nearly 50,000 Covid-19 patients and two million uninfected controls. Dr Hamdi Mbarek, Lead Analyst of the Qatari dataset explains how the initiative improved knowledge… Read More
Pharmaceutical companies must keep improving Covid-19 treatments in line with new variants without sidelining work in other areas of health, according to new data from YouGov and Informa Pharma Intelligence, a provider for the biopharma industry. The report This data, included in Informa Pharma’s ‘Q4… Read More
Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) and Charles River Laboratories International are launching a new project to uncover how different cells in the human immune system respond to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The research This new mouse model has been engineered… Read More
The first results of an early trial of a multivariant Covid-19 vaccine booster, launched in Manchester in September 2021, has shown it is driving a comprehensive immune response. The results US-based biotechnology company Gritstone bio, in collaboration with The University of Manchester and Manchester University… Read More
Marinomed Biotech, an Austrian biotech company, has announced results of the antiviral efficacy of iota-carrageenan (Carragelose) against the original SARS-CoV-2 strain and variants of concern (VOC), including the Delta variant. This has been published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. Collaboration The peer-reviewed study is… Read More
Novavax has been granted conditional marketing authorisation by the European Commission (EC) for Nuvaxovid Covid-19 vaccine. Context The vaccine is for active immunisation to prevent Covid-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 in individuals 18 years of age and older and the authorisation follows the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Committee for Medicinal… Read More
Research by the Riken Institute in Tokyo, published in the British journal Communications Biology, offers an explanation for Japan’s success in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic when compared with other countries. The research is a piece of the puzzle of why there remains relatively low rates of death and serious… Read More
New research from Qatar, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has found that the natural immunity from prior infection of Covid-19 has a 92% efficacy against reinfection of the Beta variant, and a 98% efficacy against reinfection of the Alpha variant. The study … Read More
Noorik Biopharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company repurposing micro-dose ambrisentan for the treatment of kidney, liver, and respiratory diseases, signed a contract with the Federal Government of Switzerland to develop ambrisentan as a treatment for patients with severe Covid-19. Why? The investment, under the Federal Funding Programme for Covid-19 Medicines initiative, will enable… Read More
Pfizer has announced results from an analysis of 2,246 adults enrolled in its Phase II/III EPIC-HR (Evaluation of Protease Inhibition for Covid-19 in High-Risk Patients) trial of its novel Covid-19 oral antiviral candidate Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir [PF-07321332] tablets and ritonavir tablets). The results These results show that Paxlovid significantly reduced the… Read More
Researchers from the University of Oxford have analysed the impact of the Omicron Covid-19 variant of concern on one of the immune responses generated by vaccination. The study Using blood samples from individuals who had previously received two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines as part… Read More
PerkinElmer has announced the research use only (RUO) launch of the NEXTFLEX Variant-Seq SARS-CoV-2 Kit v2 to accelerate the detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants, which will allow laboratories to increase sequencing throughput and make reliable variant identifications. What is NEXTFLEX? Using positive SARS-CoV-2 samples, the NEXTFLEX… Read More
According to a new study, scientists have found chewing gum laced with a plant-grown protein serves as a “trap” for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, reducing viral load in saliva and potentially tamping down transmission. The study The work, led by Henry Daniell at the University of Pennsylvania’s School… Read More
