Virology / vaccines

Imophoron, the Bristol-based developer of a rapid-response vaccine platform, ADDomer, has secured £4 million in an oversubscribed fundraising round. Frederic Garzoni, CEO and Co-founder of Imophoron, said: “It has now been demonstrated how a pandemic cannot just threaten lives, but our society and economy as we know it. Imophoron is developing its ADDomer vaccine platform with Disease X capability – the ability […]

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)’s RTS,S malaria vaccine to be given to children living in sub-Saharan Africa who are at risk of contracting Malaria.  RTS,S is the first and only malaria vaccine to have been shown in pivotal long-term clinical trials to significantly reduce malaria in children. The vaccine is the result […]

In late December 2019, a cluster of unusual pneumonia cases – now known to be the first human cases of Covid-19 – were reported in Wuhan, China. Due to quick action from Dame Sarah Gilbert and her team, work on the response to the new virus began. Members of the public had the opportunity to […]

AstraZeneca has reached an agreement to collaborate with VaxEquity for the discovery, development and commercialisastion of the self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) therapeutics platform developed at Imperial College London.  The strategic, long-term research collaboration aims to optimise and validate VaxEquity’s saRNA platform and apply it to advance novel therapeutic programmes. AstraZeneca will support VaxEquity with research and development funding and should AstraZeneca advance any of the research programmes into its pipeline, VaxEquity could […]

A team of scientists at the MRC University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research has revealed key research into the natural human antiviral defences against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.   In the study, the scientists reveal that some people have a version of a gene, called OAS1, that potently inhibits SARS-CoV-2 and that […]

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded approximately $36.3 million to three academic institutions to conduct research to develop vaccines to protect against multiple types of coronaviruses and viral variants. The awards are intended to fuel vaccine research for a diverse family of […]

Following the news that Pfizer/BioNTech will apply for authorisation of their Covid-19 vaccine Comirnaty for children ages 5–11 after showing positive initial data from a trial at a lower dose in this age group; Philipp Rosenbaum, Senior Healthcare Analyst at GlobalData, offers his view.   He said: “It will be a delicate measure to broadly […]

Health Canada has approved Moderna’s New Drug Submission (NDS-CV) for Spikevax (elasomeran mRNA vaccine), it has granted full approval (Notice of Compliance or NOC) for Pfizer’s Comirnaty, and it has approved the AstraZeneca vaccine, which will be named Vaxzevria.  “Health Canada’s approval of our Covid-19 vaccine is an important milestone as it is our first full approval for Spikevax. I […]

Scientists from the University of Oxford and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research are building on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 to develop a vaccine to treat cancer.   Researchers have designed a two-dose therapeutic cancer vaccine using Oxford’s viral vector vaccine technology. When tested in mouse tumour models, the cancer vaccine increased the levels of anti-tumour T cells […]

A Phase I clinical trial of the world’s first multivariant Covid-19 vaccine has been launched by US pharmaceutical company Gritstone in collaboration with The University of Manchester UK and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.  Initially involving participants aged 60+, its creators say the drug, GRT-R910, can boost the immune response of first-generation Covid-19 vaccines to […]