Virology / vaccines

Sanofi has acquired Translate Bio as part of its endeavour to accelerate the application of mRNA to develop therapeutics and vaccines. Under the agreement, Sanofi will acquire all outstanding shares for a total equity value of approximately $3.2 billion (on a fully diluted basis). “Translate Bio adds an mRNA technology platform and strong capabilities to […]

Dr Patrick Courtney (SiLA consortium), Burkhard Schaefer (SiLA consortium/ASTM AnIML) and Oliver Peter, Senior Director, Senior Group Leader Biology Technologies and Lead Discovery, Biology, Idorsia Pharmaceuticals, look at the importance of automation in the face of global disease. As we write this, vaccines are being injected into arms at scale and pace in many countries […]

Vaccine development company Valneva has been awarded Breakthrough Therapy Designation for its single-shot chikungunya vaccine candidate, VLA1553, by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Breakthrough Therapy Designation intends to facilitate and expedite development and review of new drugs for serious or life-threatening conditions where preliminary clinical data demonstrates that the drug may have substantial […]

Moderna has announced new results from in vitro neutralisation studies of sera from individuals vaccinated with the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine showing activity against variants of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccination with the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine produced neutralising titres against all variants tested, including additional versions of the Beta variant (B.1.351, first identified in South Africa), three lineage variants […]

Lu Rahman looks at the growing role of real world evidence and its benefits in the fight against Covid-19. Real world evidence (RWE)  is nothing new. While clinical trials have a significant part to play  – and indeed remain the ultimate standard for advancing new drugs to markets – gathering observational data from clinical settings […]

News round-up by DDW’s Megan Thomas for 28 June – 2 July This week in news The last year and a half has accelerated the virology scene at a pace that was previously unseen, and not exclusively for Covid-19. Vaccines continue to be an unquestionably important part of how we move through the world and […]

Johnson & Johnson has announced data that demonstrated its single-shot Covid-19 vaccine generated strong, persistent activity against the rapidly spreading Delta variant and other highly prevalent SARS-CoV-2 viral variants. In addition, the data showed that the durability of the immune response lasted through at least eight months, the length of time evaluated to date. The […]

Two US Phase I clinical trials of a novel candidate malaria vaccine have found that the regimen conferred unprecedentedly high levels of durable protection when volunteers were later exposed to disease-causing malaria parasites. The vaccine combines live parasites with either of two widely used antimalarial drugs—an approach termed chemoprophylaxis vaccination. A Phase II clinical trial […]

Two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine induce lower levels of antibodies that are able to recognise and fight the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) than against other strains. These laboratory findings from the Francis Crick Institute and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre are published as a Research letter in […]

Sanofi will invest approximately €400 million annually in a vaccines mRNA Centre of Excellence. The centre will work to accelerate the development and delivery of next-generation vaccines by bringing together approximately 400 dedicated employees integrating end-to-end mRNA vaccine capabilities with dedicated R&D, digital, and chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC) teams across sites at Cambridge, MA […]