virology

Since Covid-19 was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), the peak in total number of clinical trials for the virus was seen in the month of April 2020. There has since been a steady decrease in new clinical trial investigations, except for the months of December 2020 and March 2021. As […]

We know there are operational vulnerabilities in pharmaceutical research and in the drug discovery pipeline. Bringing new drugs to the market is slow and expensive, with high costs, failure rates and cycle times. With low reproducibility and inefficient processes delaying the path to approval, the current pandemic is prompting a fundamental reassessment of strategic priorities. […]

Moderna has announced that its Phase II/III study of its Covid-19 vaccine (mRNA-1273) in adolescents has met its primary immunogenicity endpoint, successfully bridging immune responses to the adult vaccination. In the study, no cases of Covid-19 were observed in participants who had received two doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. In addition, a vaccine efficacy […]

Malvern Panalytical, experts in high-precision analytical instruments, welcomed His Royal Highness The Earl of Wessex, Prince Edward, to its Worcestershire headquarters. Malvern Panalytical was selected for the Royal visit, amongst a small number of other Worcestershire businesses, primarily because of its scientific and technical contribution to the development of medicines and vaccines to treat and […]

The Covid-19 pandemic has promoted global efforts to develop antiviral treatments against SARS-CoV-2. During this process, the endemic operational vulnerabilities of the drug discovery process have been highlighted. The reality is: bringing new drugs to the market is associated with high costs, high failure rates and long cycle times…and this process is becoming slower and […]

Research laboratories have not fundamentally changed since the 1960s, says BMG LABTECH. Despite improvements in technology such as high-throughput screening and computational drug design, drug discovery is becoming slower and more expensive over time. Covid-19 highlighted operational vulnerabilities which are driving a fundamental reassessment of strategic priorities. In fact, says the company, researchers spend a […]

Covid-19 has highlighted the current operational vulnerabilities in pharmaceutical research and in the drug discovery pipeline. Bringing new drugs to the market is still a slow and expensive process, with far too high costs, failure rates and cycle times. With low reproducibility and inefficient processes delaying the path to approval, the pandemic is prompting a […]

A clinical trial testing the safety and efficacy of an investigational monoclonal antibody for treating people who are hospitalised with respiratory disease and low blood oxygen due to infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, has begun. The Phase II trial, called the Covid-19 anti-CD14 Treatment Trial (CaTT), is sponsored and funded by the […]

This is the latest episode of the free DDW podcast, titled Vaccine innovation in the age of Covid-19. It covers two narrated articles written for DDW and read aloud by Megan Thomas. These articles are titled: “Vaccine innovation in the age of Covid-19 & beyond” and “Creating vaccines: Why we should be celebrating the life […]

Viroclinics-DDL, a Contract Research Organisation (CRO) specialising in molecular diagnostic testing and assay development, and ENPICOM, a bioinformatics software engineering company, have announced the approval of a joint MIT Zuid subsidy (SME Innovation Stimulation Top Sectors South Holland) application. This R&D partnership project combines in vitro diagnostic and high-throughput sequencing expertise of Viroclinics-DDL and in […]