April 15th, 2021 • 4h 13m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
Elites
Prince Phillip Virus Quote
1986 Book 'People as Animals'
“In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.”
Let Us Out!
Oregon Regional Rona Report
Our 450+ bed regional hospital
Note this hospital is in a High Risk Rona Zone because of all the supposed Rona cases, Oregon has four risk levels, Low, Medium, High and Extreme. We only recently came down from extreme, and it’ll be a long time before we come down again.
Hospital overall: 89%
• Total number of COVID-19+ admitted = 1262
• Total number of COVID-19+ recovered and discharged = 1118
• Total number of COVID-19+ deaths (at Salem Hospital) = 126
ICU about 93% full (target capacity)
ICU Report - Illuminadia
Hey Adam,
Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve sent a report. I just wanted to validate you by saying that the “stats” saying that the ICUs are 80% full are full of shit!
We’re running clinical trials right now with our devices for treating Covid and we had to stop. Know why? There are NO ICU PATIENTS. None. We had to shift our focus back to cancer. This is a great problem but those reports are so very fake.
Are there any burning questions you have? I’ve been awol because life suddenly got crazy but I’m here for anything you think I can clarify for you.
Great job as usual.
Nadia
Michigan Variant Cirisis
FUD. Fud. And more FUD. ABC News reports - MI cases soar, Whitmer to not issue new orders (see, she’s a good Democrat now that Biden’s in office).
The report goes on to talk about cases soaring, but only provides this tidbit:
Regardless of its efforts to inoculate its residents, the state has seen its daily confirmed COVID cases dramatically rise by 415% since Feb. 19 among people 20 to 29 years old, according to Michigan Medicine, formerly known as the University of Michigan Health System.
2/19/21: 7-day average = 845 (no breakdown by age)
4/9/21: 7-day average = 6429 (so almost 8x).
So why claim a 415% rise in infection among 20-29 year olds instead of reporting unlike the 8x overall rise, 20-29 year olds are only rising 4x. Because of course, we need to push this vaccine on the young before they figure out its unneeded.
Because someone dared to report that 40+% of Marines have declined the emergency use vaccine and cannot be forced until its an approved vaccine.
Always a good lesson in checking the facts as reinforced by No Agenda.
Hope you have a good break.
4/11/21 ABC News Story: https://abcnews.go.com/US/michigans-covid-cases-surge-alarming-levels-gov-gretchen/story?id=77003950
Corona Virus 2/19/21: https://www.clickondetroit.com/health/2021/02/19/coronavirus-in-michigan-heres-what-to-know-feb-19-2021/#//
Corona Virus 4/9/21: https://www.clickondetroit.com/health/2021/04/09/coronavirus-in-michigan-heres-what-to-know-april-9-2021/#//
Marines Decline Vaccine: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/09/politics/marines-coronavirus-vaccines/index.html
Karl
Vaccines and such
Vax distribution no one wants it
In an interesting turn of events, we can not give away these vaccines now. We have our vaccine
distribution person calling pharmacies asking if they want more vaccines. It went from the
pharmacies calling and begging us for more. Now it’s the opposite. Nobody wants the vaccine! It’s
hilarious.
However, the last time they asked me if I wanted mine I was able to say “I’m waiting till all of
those who need a vaccine get theirs first.” Now I’m worried they’re gonna ask me if I want one and
I’ll have to lie and say “don’t you remember, you already gave me one.”
Vax Invincible
A longish read, but interesting.
"As you may or may not know, I had Covid almost a year ago (4 days to my Covid-versary). And while my actual 10 days were probably considered mild (though looking back on it, there were a couple of very scary days), the “recovery’ has been year-long. In October, I thought I was through the worst of it, but Dec to March proved to be extremely difficult and my symptoms escalated – debilitating fatigue, severe brain fog, and still some shortness of breath. My general rule was to get all I could get done before noon, because after that I was about useless.
Last Thursday afternoon I received my vaccination. No biggie. Friday came without any real reaction. I had meetings all day and by 4 pm, once I was done, I thought, I’m going to need a nap. But a funny thing happened…I did a couple of chores and then a few more things, and the next thing I knew, it was 10 pm. I felt great. Still didn’t think much of it, I’ve had good days here and there, only to be followed by several really bad days.
But Saturday came and then Sunday and it was like I was fueled by Death Wish Coffee. My mind was not just clear, but racing with things to do, stuff to organize and create, and my physical energy matched it. Now we are at a full eight days of … well … being normal. Although it feels super-charged. I haven’t gone a full week of feeling good since Covid. My fingers are crossed that this is for real, not just for me, but for other long-haulers.
Anyone else have a similar experience? I know a few of us here have had Covid, but I’m not sure about long-haulers. I have a client whose symptoms are on par with mine, though more severe and I’ve encouraged him to check out the studies (and he’s now scheduled for his vaccine, I’m hoping he’ll have an experience similar to mine).
IBM Kids vax
Speaking with a client yesterday who informed me that his employer IBM has issued a mandate that
no-one is allowed to return to the office if that employee and the employee’s CHILDREN are
vaccinated.
These are school age children attending school, but shocking nonetheless.
We’ve just been locked down for another 4 weeks here in Ontario.
mRNA mutant 8x likely to contract after jab
This study from Israel just in:
If you got the mRNA vaccine, you're 8x as likely to get the Rona again via the mutants.
Also interesting: Johnson & Johnson being taken down by the FDA ... who owns Johnson & Johnson? Meanwhile, Pfizer & Moderna are both still making a mint.
Ministry of Truthiness
Freedom Pass
IBM and ss#
So a colleague of mine who works for IBM (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleytneil) just told us today that the Federal Government is running out of SS #'s and has tasked IBM to come up with a new plan. Not sure of the significance, but it could lead to a purge of dead ss #'s or a new way of notating people.
Sir Dodd of The Pears
Noodle Gun
Airline Quota Hiring
Hope you enjoy your vacation.
Regarding the pilot hiring quota controversy. There’s a huge pilot shortage looming. If they aren’t going to take nearly as many white male pilots (they are now 92% at United for example) they will be the snapped up elsewhere. The impact unfortunately will be that white male pilots have to train out of pocket for $200k while these quota people will see the airlines pay for it. BUT they will have to sign employment contracts which is akin to slavery where if they quit they owe $200k for probably ~10 years. Because of the Union seniority system you will not be able to leave the airline by that point. If you switched airlines you’d have to start over again with the first year salary. This really reduces union bargaining power but the unions will probably be quiet because it also prevents people from leaving the union. It’s very insidious and the airlines are doing it to debone the unions not because they are woke.
Realtor Wokeness
I’m a REALTOR, part of the Orlando Regional REALTORS Association (ORRA). Things have been pretty nuts since the National Association of REALTORs (NAR) decided to implement their “see something, say something” policy about REALTOR’s social media profiles (Code of Ethics: Article 10-5 which I’ve attached a screenshot of). That policy says if a REALTOR has ever posted anything offensive at all on their social media profiles, a client (buyer or seller) can report that REALTOR to NAR and have that agent barred from being a REALTOR. Which practically will end their business as a real estate professional.
Now, the Orlando REALTOR association is playing right along with this agenda, and is “challenging” their REALTORs to be more “diverse”. They want REALTORs to challenge their “implicit bias”. I’ve included a screenshot of the image that pops up when you first log into the Orlando based MLS that every single REALTOR sees. It’s impossible to turn these pop ups off if you want to use this MLS to find houses for your clients. The best part about this, is that they are so focused on being woke that they couldn’t take the time to proof read their copy and misspelled their own organization’s name.
It feels pretty terrible to have to go through and delete past instagram posts that I’ve made that discuss the political agenda of BLM and the Biden Admin because I’m worried that I’ll lose my entire income for my family. But every time I post something I feel in my head the national association of realtors saying in JCD’s voice “you will obey, you will obey, you will obey”
Freedomlist.io
AGL (Australia)
Airbnb
Amazon
Apple
Atlassian
Ben & Jerry’s (Unilever subsiduary)
BMW
Coca Cola
Colgate-Palmolive (Australia)
Delta Air Lines
Facebook
Gillette (Proctor & Gamble)
Goodyear (The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company)
Google
IBM
Lyft
Mastercard
McDonald’s
NAB (Australian bank)
NBA
Netflix
NFL
Nissan
Nike
Spotify
Telstra (Australia)
Uber
Unilever
Visa
Clips
VIDEO - (38) The Sum of All Fears 1080p - Dressler's speech - YouTube
VIDEO - (38) WE scandal engulfing Trudeau now spreads to the United States. - YouTube
VIDEO - How dangerous is India's 'double mutant' COVID-19 variant? | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 12:21
It is beginning to feel as though not a week can go by without scientists identifying a new variant of the coronavirus. Each time a new strain is announced, I feel myself becoming increasingly numb to the shock factor that the headline is supposed to trigger.
I have written extensively about variants originating in the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa and New York; this week, it is the turn of India.
In late March, India's National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), a division of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, announced that a new variant '' dubbed a ''double mutant'' '' had been identified in samples of saliva taken from people in Maharashtra, Delhi and Punjab. This comes on the back of a month that has seen a surge in cases of COVID-19 across India, with many states re-imposing curfews, restrictions and lockdown measures.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare says this new ''double mutant'' variant has not been found in sufficient numbers to account for the increase in COVID-19 cases across the country. That, rather, is thought to be due to large public gatherings such as weddings, the opening of cinema halls and gyms, as well as large political rallies in West Bengal where elections are due to be held soon.
Nevertheless, it is a ''variant of concern'' (VOC) and is being closely monitored. The genome sequencing carried out by a consortium of 10 labs in India, called the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG), has identified two important mutations in the new variant, giving it the unfortunate title of ''double mutant''.
First, the E484Q mutation, which is similar to the E484K mutation identified on the Brazilian and South African variants, can change parts of the coronavirus spike protein. The spike protein forms part of the coronavirus outer layer and is what the virus uses to make contact with human cells, bind to them, then enter and infect them.
The vaccines have been designed to create antibodies which target the spike protein of the virus specifically. The worry is that if a mutation changes the shape of the spike protein significantly then the antibodies may not be able to recognise and neutralise the virus effectively. Scientists are investigating whether this may be the case for the E484Q mutation.
The second is the L452R mutation, which has also been found in a variant thought to be responsible for outbreaks in California. Scientists believe this mutation increases the spike protein's ability to bind to human host cells, thereby increasing its infectivity. The study also suggests this mutation may aid the virus in evading the neutralising antibodies that both the vaccine and previous infection can produce, though this is still being investigated.
The combination of these two mutations would indeed make the variant a concern if it was to become the dominant variant across India.
Right now, however, all eyes are on the UK B117 variant, which possesses the N501Y mutation making it up to 60 percent more infective, and which has been found extensively in India as well. It has been identified in 125 countries worldwide and is now the dominant variant in the UK.
The NCDC said 81 percent of 401 samples sent for genome sequencing from Punjab were found to have the UK variant and there is real concern among scientists that this variant may not only become the dominant variant in India, but may be contributing to the increasing number of infections.
They are urging the Indian authorities to scale up genome sequencing to quickly identify new variants that can potentially be more dangerous, and then isolate individuals who are known to be infected as well as their close contacts. Although the situation in India's hospitals is much better now, memories of the intensity of the first wave loom large among healthcare workers. The country is at an important point in the pandemic '' one that will require decisive action by the government and a willingness by the Indian population to prevent a national surge in new cases.
While it is important that we keep analysing the virus for new mutations, especially those that may allow it to evade the vaccines, it is also important to know that mutations are common during viral replication and new variants are to be expected.
It is also good to know that the companies which make the vaccines will be able to ''tweak'' their vaccines to adjust for new variants, a process that will take a relatively short amount of time.
In fact, the UK has already announced potential booster shots for the autumn using vaccines that have been tweaked to be more effective against new variants, and this is likely to happen worldwide. We do it for the flu vaccine every year; it may become customary to do the same for the COVID-19 vaccine.
Progress Report: Pregnant and breastfeeding mothers can pass vaccine antibodies to babiesPregnant and lactating women were not included as a group in the trials for any of the vaccines (although some women became pregnant after the trials commenced). However, since vaccination programmes have begun, scientists have been able to determine that the vaccines are most likely safe for both pregnant and lactating women. The general advice to pregnant women is to take up the vaccine, especially if they work in a role that is public-facing or have an underlying health condition that puts them at risk of developing complications should they contract the coronavirus.
There has been some debate about how a pregnant woman's body might respond to having the vaccine at a time when their immune systems may be suppressed to stop it ''rejecting'' the baby.
A study by Harvard University, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, examined responses to vaccines in 131 women (84 pregnant, 31 lactating and 16 non-pregnant). They were given the full two doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and antibody levels were checked in maternal blood and breast milk before the study, at the time of the second dose and then again two to six weeks after the second dose.
In those women who were pregnant, baby umbilical cord blood was also tested after delivery for the presence of maternal antibodies triggered by the vaccine. The study also compared these antibody levels with a group of women who had previously been infected by COVID-19.
The results showed that women '' whether they were pregnant, breastfeeding or neither '' had similar levels of antibodies after the two vaccine doses.
Vaccine-generated antibodies were present in all umbilical cord blood and breast milk samples. The second dose increased specific antibodies, called immunoglobulin G (IgG). These form the basis of long-term protection against the virus; they are retained and reproduce rapidly when exposed to the real virus, neutralising it before it has a chance to take hold and cause a full-blown infection. Importantly, side effects from the vaccines were rare and equally reported in all three groups of women.
When vaccine-induced antibody levels were compared with those of women who had antibodies because of a previous infection of COVID-19, they were found to be higher. This means the vaccines are more likely to provide more robust and longer-lasting protection against coronavirus in the future compared with any protection gained through a previous infection.
The study does provide some reassurance to women who are pregnant or breastfeeding and worried about getting the vaccine. The sample size is relatively small and more research will be needed to back this study up, but it adds to the growing data proving the safety of the vaccines.
In the Doctor's Surgery: The mental health toll of the pandemic on healthcare workersMarch 23 marked a year since the first lockdown measures were introduced in the UK, where I work as a family doctor.
To mark this poignant anniversary, I was asked to appear on a television show to talk about my experiences as a doctor in the pandemic. I explained how part of my job had been managing patients with COVID-19 in the community, seeing them in clinics and visiting them in care homes. I talked about some of the difficult conversations I had had with relatives when their loved ones were dying from COVID-19 and treatment options were limited. It was something I was used to talking about, having been asked similar questions throughout the last 12 months.
The host of the television show then asked me how I was feeling. It took me a moment to actually reflect on the past year '' talking about the pandemic feels almost robotic now. I knew what I had been through, I knew how to describe it but I had not sat down with my own thoughts and tried to process what I had actually been through.
[Illustration by Muaz Kory/Al Jazeera]I was honest with the host; I told her I was tired and, although the vaccinations were bringing hope to many, my main concern now was catching up on all the non-COVID-19-related illnesses that had been forced to wait while we focussed on those dying from coronavirus.
After coming off air, I thought about all the healthcare workers across the world who were probably feeling the same as me. I had not really had the time to think about the range of emotions I have experienced since the pandemic began '' each day was busier than the last.
At the height of the pandemic, it was all-hands-on-deck and, then, the rollout of the vaccine meant working on days off and evenings to keep on top of the numbers. It was not until that moment, when I was asked how I was feeling, that I allowed myself the luxury of a moment of reflection.
When populations eventually emerge out of lockdown, healthcare workers are going to be faced with another type of pandemic: one that may be just as difficult to treat as the coronavirus pandemic has been so far.
Millions of people have missed out on vital surgery and treatment because of the pandemic, and there will also be a wave of mental health-related issues associated with the prolonged periods of lockdowns many countries have seen and livelihoods that have been lost.
When I think about jumping from one crisis to the next, I do get pangs of anxiety. As healthcare workers, some would say we have had to endure the worst of the pandemic: going into high-risk environments where the danger of contracting a deadly disease has been very real; taking care of sick patients who were dying at higher frequencies than any of us had ever come across before; and also the emotional toll that explaining this to their loved ones takes on us.
Some may say that we ought to be used to such things by now, but we are not. None of us was trained for the intensity of emotions that have come with this pandemic and we are all human.
My hope is that healthcare workers will get the support they need as case numbers come down and the pandemic loosens its grip on the world. But, I am a realist, and experience has taught me that appropriate mental health support for healthcare workers is often just lip service paid by governments who are keen to please the masses.
It is far more likely that the expectation on healthcare workers will be to immediately start work on the backlog of patients with non-COVID-related illnesses who are desperate for the care they deserve, even if it comes at the expense of our mental health.
And Now, Some Good News: Testing a new nasal spray vaccineRight now, the only way to get yourself vaccinated against the coronavirus is via an intramuscular injection that involves a needle.
But for those who hate needles, there may be some good news on the horizon. The team behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are trialling a nasal spray version of the vaccine. A nasal vaccine is not a new concept and many countries inoculate children against flu this way.
The team is currently recruiting 30 healthy volunteers aged 18 to 40 for a trial that aims to investigate the level of immune system responses generated by the vaccine using this delivery technique, as well as monitoring safety and for any adverse reactions. If shown to be safe and effective, larger trials are likely to follow and this may eventually lead to the availability of a COVID-19 vaccine that can be administered without the need for a needle.
[Illustration by Muaz Kory/Al Jazeera]Reader's Question: Is the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine really safe?On March 29, Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunisations recommended that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine should not be used in adults aged 55 and over while it investigates possible links between the vaccine and rare blood clots.
This comes after the European Medicines Agency cleared the vaccine as safe and said on March 18 it had found no evidence of a link.
However, Canadian health officials have said they will continue to advise people older than 55 to get the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine if offered, as they are at a higher risk of severe disease from COVID-19.
Most countries worldwide resumed the use of the vaccine after the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organisation said it was safe and effective. It is likely that Canada will reach the same conclusion, with Dr Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser at the Canadian health department, suggesting this was only a ''precautionary approach and we'll move forward as we get more information''.
The advice for now in the vast majority of countries is to take up the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine if this is the one offered to you, as its benefits outweigh the risks.
VIDEO - (37) Conservatives slam CNN after staffer admits network tried to oust Trump - YouTube
VIDEO - Moderna working to combine flu and coronavirus vaccines | Washington Examiner
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 11:40
| April 14, 2021 03:33 PM
Moderna said it's working on combining the flu vaccine with its COVID-19 vaccine.
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC's Squawk Box that the Massachusetts-based biotechnology company is developing a vaccine that will protect against both illnesses, reducing the number of booster shots recipients will have to get.
"This virus, as I've said before ... is not going to go away. It is not leaving the planet. We have to live with it, and we're living with it like we live with flu. ... And so, what we're trying to do at Moderna, actually, is to get a flu vaccine in the clinic this year and then combine our flu vaccines with COVID vaccines so that you only have to get one boost," he said Wednesday morning.
Bancel, who said he believes the root of vaccine hesitancy for many is the low efficacy rates of some flu shots, expressed optimism about the potential combined vaccine's ability to protect against both the flu and COVID-19.
SURGEON GENERAL UNDER TRUMP SUPPORTS JOHNSON & JOHNSON PAUSE
"We believe we can get a high-efficacy flu vaccine. As you know, the flu vaccines today, in good years, have 60% efficacy. In bad years, it's down to 30-40%, which is ... why many people don't take the flu shots," he said. "And we believe we should be able to get the high-efficacy flu vaccines combined in the same shot with a COVID variant, high efficacy, so that you can take one dose and then have a nice winter."
"What we're trying to do at Moderna ... combine our flu vaccine with our #COVID vaccines so that you only have to get one boost at your local CVS store that will protect you from the variant of concern for Covid and the seasonal flu strain," says $MRNA CEO @sbancel. pic.twitter.com/SxqfjCLwDD
'-- Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) April 14, 2021 The CEO's comments come as federal regulators are recommending a pause on the distribution of Johnson & Johnson's competing vaccine. Bancel said he thinks the decision is likely to increase public confidence in the Food and Drug Administration treating the vaccines' safety with appropriate seriousness.
''The FDA will not hesitate to be very cautious to analyze the data, to take the time required to do so, to protect the safety of the American people," he said.
The FDA, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called for the administration of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines to be suspended Tuesday morning, following the news that six recipients in the United States developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within approximately two weeks of vaccination.
As Johnson & Johnson's distribution is reduced, the administration of Moderna and Pfizer shots are increasing. Last month, Moderna's president revealed that there's a chance that teenagers could begin getting vaccinated before the start of the next school year.
"We've already completed enrollment in our teen COVE trial, which is adolescents 12 to 17," Dr. Stephen Hoge, the president of Moderna, said on March 17. "We expect to have data from that 12 to 17 teen COVE study, hopefully, perhaps by the summer so that we could be vaccinating adolescents going into the school year."
Pfizer, which was already approved for people age 16 and older, announced on Friday that it would ask federal regulators to authorize the administration of its coronavirus vaccines to children ages 12 to 15.
''Pending regulatory decision, our hope is to make this vaccine available to the 12-15-year-old age group before the start of the 2021 school year,'' according to Pfizer's Twitter account.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are approved for use in adults 18 and older.
More than 192 million doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered, and 122 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose, representing 36.8% of the population, according to the CDC. Approximately 31 million cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed throughout the U.S., and nearly 560,000 deaths have been attributed to the disease, the agency said.
VIDEO-James O'Keefe on Twitter: "BREAKING: Part 1 - @CNN Director ADMITS Network Engaged in 'Propaganda' to Remove Trump from Presidency '... 'Our Focus Was to Get Trump Out of Office' '... 'I Came to CNN Because I Wanted to Be a Part of That' M
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 23:42
James O'Keefe : BREAKING: Part 1 - @CNN Director ADMITS Network Engaged in 'Propaganda' to Remove Trump from Presidency '... 'Our Focu'... https://t.co/jti66L9CYr
Tue Apr 13 16:00:01 +0000 2021
VIDEO - Healthcare Made Easy | Amazon Care
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 21:03
Skip the waiting room and start a virtual primary or urgent care visit from the comfort of your home.
Experience a new kind of healthcareAmazon Care is healthcare built around you, your life, and your schedule.
Clinicians on your scheduleConnect in seconds, day or night, on weekends, and holidays.
Care that comes to you * At-home follow-up care for labs, tests, and treatment.
Prescriptions made easy * Contact-free prescriptions delivered right to your door.
Dedicated Care TeamsQuality time with your team of doctors, nurse practitioners, and registered nurses.
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''I'm worried something's wrong with me''Confidence that you can prepare for health risks with a trusted clinician by your side.
''My baby woke up with a fever of 102''Peace of mind when you know how to keep your child safe.
''Working from home is killing my back''Reassurance of knowing you can feel better '' and how to do it.
''I haven't slept well in months''Relief when you finally confront a nagging issue.
''I just feel'... off''Motivation to listen and respond to your body.
Your Care TeamAmazon Care works with Care Medical, an independent medical practice. Your Care Team is a dedicated group of licensed doctors, nurse practitioners, and registered nurses chosen to help you meet your health goals.
You'll continue to see familiar faces when you visit with us for your ongoing care.
Your clinicians have experience with adult and children's medicine with a focus on whole person care.
You can reconnect with your Care Team to answer your questions right from the app.
Get Amazon CareYou are an employee age 18+ who lives and works in Washington State.
You are enrolled in an Amazon-sponsored Aetna or Premera health plan.
Reach out to our team to learn more about offering Amazon Care as a benefit to your employees.
"I was delighted with my first experience using Amazon Care. Absolutely loved it!"
"Our call was for something fairly easy but the response rate, care and quick turnaround for an antibiotic was probably the best experience I have ever had re: medical concerns."
"Blown away with how fast, easy, and high quality the whole experience was. It truly raises the bar for healthcare services."
"I love it so much! I never hesitate to seek help or medical experts opinion anymore due to ease of use AND quality of care. I haven't been to urgent care since using Amazon Care."
VIDEO - Levi Strauss CEO Bergh: 'When it Comes to Gun Control, Gun Violence Is Ripping This Country Apart'
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 19:02
President and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co. Chip Bergh said Friday on CNN's ''Newsroom'' that his company is advocating for so-called gun control because ''gun violence is ripping this country apart.''
Bergh said, ''I've been a CEO now for about ten years. I can tell you that over that 10-year period of time, the role has changed dramatically. You know, the business roundtable, talk about stakeholder management and ensuring that we're driving value for all stakeholders. I have a large employee base globally. I've got communities where we work and serve the communities. So we've got a broad range of stakeholders. I really do believe, especially at Levi's, that I have a platform. We're committed to making change. This company has been around for 180 years. A big part of the reason I believe we've been around for 180 years is we've not been afraid to take a position on issues that are really, really important and not been afraid to stick our neck out on these tough issues.''
He continued, ''When it comes to gun control, gun violence is ripping this country apart. It's almost every single day you're hearing about another incident. So this is important to us as a country. I serve the U.S. Army. We're not trying to repeal the Second Amendment. We're just calling for legislation that will make our world a safer place.''
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
VIDEO - Trudeau comments on U.S. treasury secretary's push for minimum global corporate income tax | Watch News Videos Online
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:56
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented on Tuesday about U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's push for a minimum global corporate income tax, saying they were looking forward to discussions in the G7 and G20 on how they'd get through the coronavirus crisis stronger but also ensure international financial institutions and systems are the ''right ones'' for the coming decades.
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VIDEO - Mark Poloncarz announces a mandate requiring vaccination at Buffalo Bills games - WBEN Extras - Omny.fm
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:21
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Wed, 14 Apr 2021 14:59
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ð'¥ð'¥ð'¥ THAT'S WHAT I CALL ABIG BOOOOOMMMð'¥ð'¥ð'¥ð'¥
ðð'¥THE TRUTH ABOUT THE "SECRET OPERATION" EVERGREEN IS REPORTED ON TURKISH TELEVISION '¼'¼'¼'¼
ðENGLISH SUBTITLE ð
ð'¥HE SAYS THAT WAS THE BIGGEST BLOW THE DEEP STATE HAS EVER SUFFERED'¼
'¼SO FOLKS, SOMETHING BIG HAS BEEN AVERTED, THAT WOULD HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD'¼
ðIT WASN'T ABOUT CHILD TRAFFICKING'¼
'¼A SATANIC PLAN OF THE DEEP STATE WAS ABANDONED'¼
ðHE SAYS "THE CORONA PLANDEMIC" WILL BE ENDED AND TO CONTINUE CORONA, THAT WAS PLAN B'¼'¼
ð--¥IN THE CONTAINERS WAS THE NEXT "BIOWEAPONS" ATTACK ON HUMANITY, WHICH HAS PROBABLY BEEN IN THE PIPELINE FOR 30 YEARS AND FUNDED BY BILL GATES'¼'¼
ð--¥WITH THESE "BIOWEAPONS" THEY WANTED TO CHANGE/POISON THE CLIMATE AND THE SOIL (ARABLE LAND) WITH 5G..'¼
ð--¥THAT'S WHY BIILL GATES IS BUYING MILLIONS OF HECTARES OF FARMLAND ALL OVER THE WORLD, BECAUSE HE WANTED TO CONTROL THE FOOD CHAIN '¼'¼
ðGOD'S PLAN HAS WONð
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
VIDEO - 'Roll Up Your Sleeves': NBC special to include Michelle Obama, Matthew McConaughey
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 13:11
Nearly 100 million people across the U.S. have already received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine '-- and now Michelle Obama and a few famous friends will do their part to encourage the rest of the country to get their shots.
The former first lady, Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey and "Hamilton" creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda will appear in the hourlong special "Roll Up Your Sleeves," airing April 18 on NBC.
Michelle Obama, Matthew McConaughey and Lin-Manuel Miranda will all appear on NBC's hourlong vaccination special "Roll Up Your Sleeves," presented by Walgreens. TODAY Illustration / Reuters / Getty ImageThe special TV event aims to raise awareness and encourage the American public to get vaccinated so we can put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Watch TODAY All Day! Get the best news, information and inspiration from TODAY, all day long.
McConaughey will interview Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to the president, who will help viewers learn how to separate fact from fiction about the vaccines, according to a press release.
The special will also feature "comedy acts, informative packages, captivating real-life stories and heartwarming surprises."
''We are honored to present an hour of television devoted to increasing vaccinations in America and help end a cataclysmic pandemic,'' said Jen Neal, executive vice president, Live Events, Specials and E! News.
''The entertainment, comedic and music communities, along with First Lady Michelle Obama, have come together for the special, which will be inspirational, poignant and, at times, humorous. The overriding message: get vaccinated, end the pandemic and get your life and the life of the country back on track," added Neal.
"Roll Up Your Sleeves" airs at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday, April 18, on NBC.
Related:
Gina Vivinetto
Gina Vivinetto is a writer for TODAY.com. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, where she spends her free time hiking, reading and snuggling with her "Friends" box set. She and her wife, Molly, are the proud moms of two formerly stray cats, Sophie and Pierre, and a rescue dog named Gracie.
VIDEO - 'Rumble with Michael Moore: Ep. 182: EMERGENCY PODCAST SYSTEM '-- Shut Down Michigan! Send More Vaccine! Virus Out Of Control! on Apple Podcasts
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 13:10
The COVID-19 vaccine is out of control in Michigan. Governor Whitmer is afraid to order a shut down of the state after months of threats and attacks from the right-wing and the business community. The federal government is refusing to provide Michigan with extra supply of vaccine. And the fear is that many of the new cases are the aggressive U.K. variant. This is all preventable and will have ramifications outside of the state.Please call you Senators, House Members, the Michigan Governor and the White House! Tell them that Michigan businesses and schools must shut down! And more vaccine must be delivered to the state! Help us!
Call your Senators and House Member:
202-224-3121
202-225-3121
Contact the Michigan Governor's office:
https://somgovweb.state.mi.us/GovRelations/ContactGovernor.aspx
Contact the White House:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
---
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rumble-with-michael-moore/message
Top Podcasts In News Commentary See All
VIDEO - Pure Gaslighting: Implantable Chips In Jabs Which Monitor & Transmit To Smart Phone Or Other Device
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 13:02
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First published at 08:03 UTC on April 14th, 2021.
The gaslighting in this piece is breathtaking. 60 minutes at it again. Think about what it is they are saying throughout and then extrapolate that to reality. The claims it can't track you.... well in this one quite possibly. But do you think t'...
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The gaslighting in this piece is breathtaking. 60 minutes at it again. Think about what it is they are saying throughout and then extrapolate that to reality. The claims it can't track you.... well in this one quite possibly. But do you think this is the only type they have? That it won't be extended to include tracking? Any other type technology for their desired use? Then guess who's funding it? If you want to go down the rabbit hole, you can watch this here: https://banned.video/watch?id=6074a7f7a498cb1a9e915e66
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VIDEO-CNN Legal Analysts Shred Derek Chauvin's First Defense Witnesses | Crooks and Liars
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 12:39
Analysts on CNN reacted with shock on Tuesday at the first witnesses called by attorneys for former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of murdering George Floyd in 2020.
CNN's Laura Coates spoke out following the testimony of Michelle Moseng, a former paramedic who treated Floyd in 2019. Earlier in the morning, former officer Scott Creighton testified about Floyd's unrelated drug arrest in 2019.
"What is this?" Coates asked during a break in the trial. "That's my reaction. Is this the best that you have for what happened over the last two weeks? You've got your first witness who says that George Floyd was compliant. He's a former officer who actually had an encounter with George Floyd."
"You have a paramedic who says that his heart was normal, his respiratory system was normal, his EKG was normal," she continued. "All of this so far has actually corroborated the prosecution's case. So I'm wondering, is there a point you're going to defend Derek Chauvin or are we going to have a regurgitation of what the jury has already seen, which is very compelling evidence that George Floyd was the victim and the decedent in this case, not an aggressor and not a drug overdose victim?"
Former Police Chief Charles Ramsey agreed with Coates.
"I don't know if it's going to improve," he said. "If it doesn't then this is not going to last very long in terms of the defense presentation. But you've had two witnesses now that really didn't contribute anything and condradict what the prosecution has put on. And they're talking about past events that have absolutely nothing to do with May 25th of last year."
"I don't get it," Ramsey added. "If I was the defendant, I would be a little nervous right now."
VIDEO+Daily Caller on Twitter: ".@PressSec on White House efforts to strengthen vaccine confidence in "white conservative communities": "We've run PSAs on the Deadliest Catch, we're engaged with NASCAR and Country Music TV" https://t.co/yX51FkuSOH" / Twit
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 11:50
Daily Caller : .@PressSec on White House efforts to strengthen vaccine confidence in "white conservative communities":"We've run'... https://t.co/dpEeTYvsSR
Mon Apr 12 21:43:18 +0000 2021
VIDEO-Breaking911 on Twitter: "WATCH: Brooklyn Center resident blames the media for the BLM riots, gets into a shouting match with a CNN reporter "Y'all be twisting up the stories" ''All the press and all the extra shit y'all do... makes this worse" ht
Tue, 13 Apr 2021 03:10
Breaking911 : WATCH: Brooklyn Center resident blames the media for the BLM riots, gets into a shouting match with a CNN reporter'... https://t.co/mwkHHeJawa
Tue Apr 13 02:03:16 +0000 2021
VIDEO-Military programs aiming to end pandemics forever - 60 Minutes - CBS News
Mon, 12 Apr 2021 23:49
It might surprise you to learn that many of the innovations deployed to counter the coronavirus were once obscure Pentagon-funded projects to defend soldiers from contagious diseases and biological weapons. The life-saving vaccine developed in record time owes a debt to these programs. To learn more, we met the man who has been leading the rapid vaccine effort, retired Colonel Matt Hepburn. An army infectious disease physician, he spent years with the secretive defense advanced research projects agency or DARPA, working
on technology he hopes will ensure COVID-19 is the last pandemic.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: If we wanna say we can never let this happen again, we're gonna have to go even faster next time.
Eight years ago, Dr. Hepburn was recruited by DARPA.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: The DARPA director was very clear. "Your mission is to take pandemics off the table."
Bill Whitaker: It sounds impossible.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: Of course, and that was the beauty of the DARPA model. We challenge the research community to come up with solutions that may sound like science fiction. And we're very willing to take chances with high-risk investments that may not work. But if they do, we can completely transform the landscape.
Dr. Matt HepburnMore than 60 years ago, DARPA was born, after President Eisenhower was caught off guard when Russia launched the first satellite, "Sputnik", into orbit.
The small Defense Department agency was given a single purpose: prevent surprises like that from ever happening again. So Dr. Hepburn finds academics, companies, inventors working in garages -- and pushes them to deliver.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: What we don't do -- we don't say, "Okay, here's our problem. Here's your blank check. Come back to us in three to five years, we'll see how you do.
Bill Whitaker: You're on them?
Dr. Matt Hepburn: Active program management is what we call it. Okay? (LAUGH)
Dr. Hepburn showed us a few current projects, some sound like they're from an episode of "Star Trek." Consider a ship like the USS Theodore Roosevelt -- hobbled last year when 1,271 crew members tested positive for the coronavirus. What if everyone on board had their health monitored with this subdermal implant, now in late-stage testing. It's not some dreaded government microchip to track your every move, but a tissue-like gel engineered to continuously test your blood.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: It's a sensor.
Bill Whitaker: This tiny green thing in there?
Dr. Matt Hepburn: That tiny green thing in there, you put it underneath your skin and what that tells you is that there are chemical reactions going on inside the body and that signal means you are going to have symptoms tomorrow.
Bill Whitaker: Wow. There's an-- an actual transmitter in that--
Dr. Matt Hepburn: Yeah. It's like a "check engine" light.
Bill Whitaker: Check this sailor out before he infects other people?
Dr. Matt Hepburn: That's right.
Sailors would get the signal, then self-administer a blood draw and test themselves on site.
Bill Whitaker: Look at that.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: We can have that information in three to five minutes.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: As you truncate that time, as you diagnose and treat, what you do is you stop the infection in its tracks.
The coronavirus has infected more than 250,000 Defense Department personnel and their dependents around the world. With the death toll rising, the Pentagon has been jumpstarting programs that might save lives.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: This is a filter that you can put on a dialysis machine.
"Patient 16", a military spouse, was in the ICU, near death with organ failure and septic shock when she was entered into a Defense Department COVID-19 study. Her family allowed us to witness the experimental 4-day treatment.
Dr. Gaeta: She's liberated from veso-active medications and her septic shock resolved. We also see improvements in her markers of inflammation. Those are all positive prognostic signs.
Bill Whitaker: You pass someone's blood through this--
Dr. Matt Hepburn: You pass it through--
Bill Whitaker: --it takes the virus out
Dr. Matt Hepburn: Takes the virus out, and puts the blood back in.
Within days, Patient 16 made a full recovery. The FDA has authorized the filter for emergency use. So far, doctors have used it to treat nearly 300 critically ill patients.
Dr. Joel Moncur with correspondent Bill WhitakerDr. Joel Moncur: These are all of the COVID-19 autopsy samples that we've received-- since the pandemic began.
DARPA isn't the only Pentagon agency on the frontlines. Colonel Joel Moncur, directs the Joint Pathology Institute in D.C. He leads an elite group of medical detectives, who study tissue samples from soldiers and sailors infected with pathogens all over the world. Like the damaged lung of a recent COVID-19 victim.
Dr. Joel Moncur: This is something we call diffuse alveolar damage. And it really interferes with the ability for them to get enough oxygen in their lungs.
The institute's century-old repository, the world's largest, houses tens of millions of tissue blocks preserved in wax, thin-sliced for close observation on glass slides. This biomedical treasure trove is being digitized using artificial intelligence.
Dr. Joel Moncur: Amongst these are tissue samples from people who died from the Spanish flu pandemic.
Dr. Moncur is examining the current pandemic through the lens of the past. The 1918 Spanish Flu took more American soldiers' lives in World War I than were killed in combat. The military never forgot.
Bill Whitaker: This is from the 1918 pandemic. My god.
Dr. Joel Moncur: It is. And the scientific community needed to understand why it was so deadly. And this tissue was invaluable-- because it allowed us to characterize the virus at a genetic level-- and from there some incredible experiments happened that allowed the virus to actually be reconstructed.
In 2005, scientists at the tissue repository, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and the CDC, made headlines around the world when they resurrected the deadly 1918 virus. That's when Dr. James Crowe, an infectious disease researcher at Vanderbilt, joined the team. He went looking for survivors of the 1918 flu, hunting for live human antibodies -- the proteins manufactured by our bodies to fight disease.
Dr. James Crowe: And lo and behold, if we took blood cells out of these-- nearly 100-year-old people, they still had immune cells that were circulating in their body that had reacted to the 1918 influenza. That was one of those moments for me when I just said, "Wow, that-- that's very powerful and interesting."
Bill Whitaker: So you find the antibodies in survivors who are almost 100 years old or more. Then what?
Dr. James Crowe: Well, once we have the genetic sequence, which is the DNA sequence, it's a string of letters that encodes the antibody, essentially, we have the recipe to make it again. And-- now we have a drug substance that we can use to prevent or treat that infection.
Dr. Crowe and CDC scientists infected lab animals with the deadly 1918 virus and cured them.
Bill Whitaker: And what happened?
Dr. James Crowe: Well, the antibody, like a heat-seeking missile, floats around in the animal, finds the virus, latches onto the virus and inactivates. Stops it-- in its tracks -- for us, after we had done that, we realized, "Wow, your body is a library of everything you've ever seen. Then we started thinking, as medical researchers, we could find the cure to virtually anything that had ever occurred-- on the planet.
Dr. James CroweIn 2017, Dr. Crowe entered a DARPA grant competition to produce antibody antidotes fast enough to stop a pandemic. Dr. Matt Hepburn described the program at a TED Talk last year.
Dr. Matt Hepburn at Ted Talk: 20,000 doses in 60 days. Basically, we're talking about engineering antibodies that are so effective that you get near-immediate protection once they're administered and you interrupt transmission in those communities. If you can interrupt it then potentially you can head off the Pandemic."
Dr. James Crowe: When we first saw the grant call that was inviting people to respond (LAUGH) we thought it was ridiculous-- (LAUGH) We were getting antibodies in six to 24 months, which we thought was pretty spectacular. And-- and they put the call out for 60 days-- and we just said, "That can't be done."
Dr. Matt Hepburn: For us, at DARPA, if the experts are laughing at you and saying it's impossible, you're in the right space.
Bill Whitaker: So are you actually sitting there with, you know, 60 days? (MAKES NOISE) Set a, set a stopwatch
Dr. Matt Hepburn: Yes. We say, "Here's your money. But then here's the stopwatch. We're gonna do a capability demonstration." Jargon words, but what it means is, stopwatch and show us how fast you can go.
Don't be fooled by that smile, Dr. Hepburn is a hard taskmaster. Stopwatch in hand, he set up a simulated Zika virus outbreak. He gave Dr. Crowe $28 million and his first challenge: test every cell in a vial of survivor's blood and find a cure. They did, in 78 days.
Dr. James Crowe: We're used to getting all As. And, you know, Matt was kinda giving us a C for effort. We were preparing to do a simulated sprint number two. And in the middle of that COVID happened. And so DARPA turned to us and said, "No more simulations. This is real. We need you to deliver antibodies for COVID."
Dr. Crowe's team at Vanderbilt quarantined in the lab and worked 'round the clock to find lifesaving antibodies in the blood of COVID survivors.
Dr. James Crowe: We-- have to do experiments that are a little bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. We take their blood and we look through millions and millions of cells.
Dr. James Crowe: You have a library of immunity in your body to everything you've ever seen. So we have to look through those and find the ones for the particular virus of interest and pull them out.
Bill Whitaker: That's the needle in the haystack.
Dr. James Crowe: That's the needle, exactly.
Dr. Crowe's lab delivered an antibody treatment to drugmaker AstraZeneca in a record 25 days. Others funded by the government's pandemic response program also shattered Matt Hepburn's 60-day mark, including biotech company AbCellera, working with Eli Lilly and Regeneron, which was used to treat President Trump.
Dr. James Crowe: This is the new normal. It's gonna be 60 days from here on out.
Well not quite yet - currently, antibodies are grown in a bioreactor like one at this Defense Department Rapid Response Plant in Florida. It'll take three weeks for this to produce 7,500 doses.
Dr. James Crowe: And so-- a lot of scientists are trying to figure out, can this be done faster?
Dr. Crowe has successfully tested a faster way: RNA, the genetic tool DARPA helped pioneer that was used to make the coronavirus vaccine in record time. In the next outbreak -- RNA would allow factories like this to churn out millions of doses a day.
Dr. James Crowe: We would start from-- a blood sample from a survivor and be done with all of this and be giving you an injection of the cure within the 60 days.
With their promise of speed, immediate protection, and a cure, Dr. Hepburn says RNA antibodies could stop the next Wuhan-like outbreak cold.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: It's really beyond vaccines, That's our future. That's our next step.
Bill Whitaker: Shoot for the moon.
Dr. Matt Hepburn: Shoot for the moon.
Some Pentagon researchers are shooting higher. With the spread of dangerous new coronavirus variants, the Army's Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad is testing a revolutionary approach to stop them all.
Dr. Kayvon ModjarradDr. Kayvon Modjarrad: We're trying to not just make a vaccine for this virus, we're trying to make a vaccine for the whole family of coronaviruses. This is the core of our vaccine. We engineer the spike so that we can attach it to this protein.
If his concept, now in clinical trials, proves successful, Dr. Modjarrad says in five years a single vaccine could defeat all coronaviruses: that means many common colds, the deadly strain causing this pandemic and thousands of others.
Bill Whitaker: Is that at this point-- a dream?
Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad: This is not science fiction, this is science fact. We have the tools, we have the technology, to do this all right now.
Bill Whitaker: And you think we can, at some point, inoculate the world against these killer viruses.
Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad: Killer viruses that we haven't seen or even imagined, we'll be protected against.
Produced by Sam Hornblower. Broadcast associates, Emilio Almonte and Mabel Kabani.Edited by Matthew Danowski.
(C) 2021 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
VIDEO - Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer head says vaccine is a depopulation device no one has the isolated virus
Sun, 11 Apr 2021 22:00
First published at 05:13 UTC on April 7th, 2021.
March 31, 2021 'No one's got any virus' '' Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer head of research, says that well over a year after the 'virus' is supposed to have appeared no one has an isolated sample of it. THERE IS NO 'VIRUS'. Yeadon goes on to contemplate '...
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March 31, 2021 'No one's got any virus' '' Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer head of research, says that well over a year after the 'virus' is supposed to have appeared no one has an isolated sample of it. THERE IS NO 'VIRUS'. Yeadon goes on to contemplate that the 'vaccine' is a depopulation device: 'I can't think of a benign explanation why they are doing it.' A MUST-LISTEN! Original James Delingpole Podcas'ªt'¬ found here: https://delingpole.podbean.com/*There is a movement underway to fear people into vaccinations. Videos that contradict this movement are being deleted from the internet. So far, BitChute is one of the alternative sites to post videos to avoid censorship. -Subscribe now to DavidIcke here on BitChute!
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VIDEO - (4) Bernie's Tweets on Twitter: "Implementing the 'No jab, no job' policy, New Zealand PM outlines that private companies will also be 'obliged' to ensure employees are vaccinated. My body, my choice becomes My body, state choice. #CovidVa
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 15:03
Bernie's Tweets : Implementing the 'No jab, no job' policy, New Zealand PM outlines that private companies will also be 'obliged' to'... https://t.co/p7piiVylun
Sat Apr 10 08:02:52 +0000 2021
Dr Elect Tallyrand : @berniespofforth Much like the harridan @GovWhitmer; she speaks tyranny with a smile. Disgusting, evil, sadistic.
Sat Apr 10 15:03:10 +0000 2021
Andrew Willis : @berniespofforth The grinning face of the caring liberal left as they take away freedom and liberty by sleight if h'... https://t.co/Pj85mocmz5
Sat Apr 10 15:02:47 +0000 2021
hodl_tarantula ð´'' ¸SovereignHodl'r '£ : @berniespofforth Psycho psycho psycho
Sat Apr 10 15:01:52 +0000 2021
Louis Cypher : @berniespofforth Collectivist Insanity: Comply or Die. Very scrary and WRONG...!
Sat Apr 10 15:01:51 +0000 2021
The Corporate King ð : @berniespofforth https://t.co/Um9v1G8nXZ
Sat Apr 10 15:00:45 +0000 2021
Lucy : @berniespofforth THEY DONT have the same rights as we do here in America. No country does. We are the only ones th'... https://t.co/ij3WPh8u7B
Sat Apr 10 15:00:05 +0000 2021
Michele Dall'Ara @ Acta Agere Dischi : @berniespofforth feminism has always been and will always be ancillary to capitalism or to whatsoever totalitarian'... https://t.co/4yVmBbbHeQ
Sat Apr 10 14:59:30 +0000 2021
Éɯ1ÊÉ : @berniespofforth @pbhushan1 Typical communist..... You can do any amount of PR but ultimately the dictator stripes shows up.
Sat Apr 10 14:59:21 +0000 2021
Neil Timney : @berniespofforth People think she is great ð¤--showing true colours now
Sat Apr 10 14:59:07 +0000 2021
LifeMathMoney : @berniespofforth My body my choice.
Sat Apr 10 14:58:50 +0000 2021
Geoff Mawson : @berniespofforth When did New Zealand turn into a fascist state?
Sat Apr 10 14:58:00 +0000 2021
VIDEO-Moderna says its booster shot against COVID-19 variants is on the way | TheHill
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 05:50
Moderna may be able to provide booster shots for protection against COVID-19 variants by the end of the year.
Reuters reports Moderna's Chief Medical Officer Tal Zaks on Wednesday said the company should be able to supply booster shots by the end of 2021, adding that testing shows the boosters provide a confident level of protection against coronavirus variants.
Our country is in a historic fight against the Coronavirus. Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.
The National Institutes of Health began testing a booster shot from Moderna against a variant first found in South Africa that has given scientists some cause for concern compared with other strains.
The variant, B.1.351, appears to be more contagious than previous strains and could possibly evade some of the protections generated by therapeutics and vaccines, although preliminary evidence has shown current vaccines provide an adequate degree of protection against variants.
"Out of an abundance of caution, NIAID has continued its partnership with Moderna to evaluate this variant vaccine candidate should there be a need for an updated vaccine," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said last week.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the variant of coronavirus that originated in the United Kingdom, the B.1.1.7 variant, has become the dominant strain in the U.S. Experts believe the variant is more contagious and could be more deadly, but all three vaccines authorized in the U.S., including Moderna's, have shown to work effectively against the strain.
READ MORE STORIES FROM CHANGING AMERICA
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CORONAVIRUS IS EXPLODING IN MICHIGAN
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WHAT HAPPENS AFTER ONE DOSE OF PFIZER OR MODERNA VACCINE?
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STORIES
Did pharma overshoot digital sales rep calls? Study charts decline in effectiveness | FiercePharma
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 13:42
A year after the pandemic forced pharma reps to switch from in-person to digital sales calls, most visits are still virtual'--and the industry is seeing mixed results.
The good news is that in-person pharma sales calls are now in demand by physicians. Last month, 44% of healthcare professionals said face-to-face sales visits are their preferred option for pharma promotions, according to the latest study from healthcare consultancy ZoomRx.
Even more encouraging for reps is that the face-to-face visits are garnering positive prescription intent'--17% higher than before the pandemic began.
RELATED: Hey, pharma reps: Most docs still want contact amid COVID-19 pandemic, poll says
However, the bad news is that the opposite is true for digital interactions. Only 24% of doctors now prefer a virtual sales detail. Effectiveness, measured by Zoom Rx as physician likelihood to prescribe after a sales rep encounter, is also waning. It dipped to 50% in March, which is even lower than the pre-pandemic level, when six in 10 HCPs said sales rep meetings had a positive impact on prescribing the detailed product.
''We don't see any signs of rebound or recovery (in digital visit impact) over time. There was a dramatic decline in impact from March to June last year and then pretty much a steady state over the past eight months,'' Ty Harkness, manager at ZoomRx, said.
While the pharma industry should be commended for its quick response last year, he said, companies should now look to re-evaluate the mix of digital and in-person interactions. Around 80% of pharma sales rep visits are still digital, Zoom Rx found in its study analyzing more than 20,000 in-person and virtual sales rep interactions.
RELATED: In a COVID-19 twist, pharma's doc-rep relationships are actually improving: study
The silver lining is higher-value in-person interactions'--and potentially a reversal of the pre-pandemic stigma around face-to-face sales calls.
''It's a matter of meeting the needs of each situation,'' Harness said. ''If you can do that well'--like companies have done in selectively deploying in-person reps'--it really enhances the impact. The need is in better understanding each channel as needed for your customer and then deploying that purposefully.''
COVID-19 tracker: CDC panel reviews J&J vaccine data; Pfizer prices going up in Europe | FiercePharma
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 13:42
Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine is under review at an independent committee of the CDC, which is reviewing data and will make recommendations about how to proceed.
Plus, Wednesday headlines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
The world case count stood at more than 137 million on Wednesday morning, with more than 2.9 million reported deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University's COVID-19 dashboard.
Please read below for the latest updates. Daily COVID-19 tracker entries from Aug. 11 to Oct. 30 can be found here. Entries from April 21 through Aug. 11 are here. Entries from Jan. 30 through April 20 are here.
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 14 at 3:35 p.m.
A panel of CDC experts are reviewing the latest data for Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday afternoon and plan to issue updated recommendations about how to proceed. The panel is expected to finish its review at around 4:30 p.m. ET. Agenda
As Pfizer negotiates COVID-19 vaccine supply deals with Europe, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said the new doses will come with a higher price, Reuters reports. Borissov said the new doses will cost '¬19.5, up from '¬12 originally, according to the news service.
A new study found that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine induced stronger T-cell responses in older adults than the Pfizer vaccine, Financial Times reports. It was the first head-to-head study between the shots.
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 14 at 10:05 a.m.
The European Commission reportedly won't renew its contracts with Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca for their vaccines once they expire, Italian daily La Stampa reports, citing an official with the Italian health ministry. The report said the commission would rather focus on securing more doses that use mRNA technology, such as those from Pfizer and Moderna.
Moderna said its vaccine remained over 90% effective at protecting against COVID-19, and more than 95% effective against severe cases, up to six months after vaccination. The company said the high effectiveness kicked in two weeks after the second dose. Moderna cautioned that the results remain preliminary.
Moderna and Novavax shots will be added to a controversial U.K. study examining whether different vaccines could be used for first and second doses. The study, led by the Oxford Vaccine Group, will enroll people age 50 and older who've already had one dose. Researchers believe mixing the vaccines would allow for greater flexibility and a faster rollout.
Top U.S. health officials unanimously agreed during a meeting Monday evening to pause the use of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine following reports from six women of rare blood clots, the Washington Post reports. The officials felt more cases could be going unreported, and they feared some people may receive the wrong diagnosis and treatment and could die as a result, according to the report.
Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, said he believes the hold on Johnson & Johnson's vaccine will last for days or weeks, but not months. Fauci's comment comes ahead of the CDC's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) emergency meeting scheduled for Wednesday afternoon to discuss how to proceed with administering the vaccine.
Novavax announced that Greg Covino will step down as the company's chief financial officer due to personal reasons and will become an executive adviser. Chief Business Officer John Trizzino will serve as the vaccine developer's top finance officer in the interim.
India is asking Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to seek authorization for their COVID-19 vaccines in the country after the government said it would fast track their applications. Pfizer, which withdrew its application for emergency authorization in February, told Reuters that it would work toward bringing its shot to India.
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 13 at 4:50 p.m.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company will be able to supply the U.S. with its full 300 million doses two weeks ahead of schedule as production has accelerated. Pfizer can now supply the country with 220 million doses by the end of May, a 10% increase over previous forecasts, Bourla said.
The European Commission is asking Johnson & Johnson for more information regarding its ''completely unexpected'' decision to delay vaccine deliveries to the EU following reports of rare blood clots, an EU official told Reuters. The official said J&J confirmed at a meeting on Friday its intent to deliver 55 million doses to the EU by the end of June. For its part, J&J said it's reviewing the blood clot cases with European health authorities, Reuters reports.
More than 40 states have swiftly followed the call from federal health agencies to halt the use of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine because of rare blood clots among six women who were vaccinated, The New York Times reports. CVS and Walgreens also said they would immediately stop administering J&J's vaccine and reschedule appointments when able.
Rigel Pharmaceuticals announced positive results from its phase 2 trial evaluating hospitalized COVID-19 patients treated with fostamatinib, the company's oral spleen tyrosine kinase. Out of 59 patients in the trial, three treated with fostamatinib developed severe adverse events by day 29 compared with six in the placebo group. None of the patients treated with fostamatinib died compared with three deaths reported in the placebo group, Rigel said. The company said it plans to share the results with the FDA.
A vast study to determine whether Moderna's vaccine prevents the spread of COVID-19, and not just illness, is now underway and will eventually span 20 universities. The trial, backed by the National Institutes of Health, will follow 12,000 students over roughly five months to determine whether the shot protects them from becoming infected and transmitting the virus to close contacts.
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 13 at 10:05 a.m.
Federal health officials recommended an immediate pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine after six cases of rare blood clots were reported following vaccinations. The CDC's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) will hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to ''review these cases and assess their potential significance.'' Nearly 7 million doses of J&J's one-shot vaccine have been administered in the U.S. Story
Gilead Sciences said it will end its phase 3 trial studying its intravenous COVID-19 treatment remdesivir, marketed as Veklury, in high-risk non-hospitalized patients. Given the current landscape of the pandemic and challenges enrolling trial participants, the company said it doesn't see the need for a multiple-day IV infusion in a healthcare setting. Story
Novavax pushed back its timeline for hitting a monthly production goal of 150 million COVID-19 doses to the third quarter of this year, a spokeswoman told Reuters, citing supply shortages. The Maryland-based vaccine developer previously aimed to reach full production by mid-year.
AstraZeneca said it had a positive meeting with the European Commission last week following reports that the company had yet to respond to a letter sent by the Commission in March regarding low vaccine supplies. An AstraZeneca spokesperson told Reuters that the company responded within the required time frame.
White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci told BBC Radio 4 that the U.S. likely won't need AstraZeneca's vaccine given the supply of doses the nation has already secured from other companies. However, the infectious disease expert added that his comments were not a ''negative indictment'' of AstraZeneca's shot.
PolyPeptide Group, which makes supplies for Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine, said it plans to list a 40% stake on the Swiss stock exchange to help fund its growth. The company, controlled by Swedish billionaire Frederik Paulsen Jr., intends to list in the second quarter.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer should revert to lockdown measures to slow the virus' transmission as the state battles the worst outbreak in the country. Despite pleas from state officials, Walensky said shipping more vaccine doses to Michigan wouldn't be the best solution to curb its outbreak.
UPDATED: Monday, April 12 at 3:25 p.m.
An asthma drug with several suppliers, including AstraZeneca, could help reduce the recovery time for non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients by an average of three days, according to interim results from a UK clinical study led by Oxford University. Researchers studied the inhaled steroid, known as budesonide, helped people with severe symptoms such as cough and fever recover at home.
After the EMA announced a probable link between AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine and rare blood clots, countries that have authorized vaccinations are now faced with the tough decision regarding who should get the shots and who shouldn't. European nations like Germany and France have limited Vaxzevria's use to older residents over 60 and 55, respectively, while a vaccine advisory panel in the U.K. suggests offering a different vaccine to people under 30. The moves come despite the EMA's word that the vaccine's benefits still outweigh the risks.
Eli Lilly announced it will end its supply agreement with the U.S. for doses of its solo COVID-19 antibody treatment, bamlanivimab, after lab testing found it couldn't hold up as well against emerging variants. The company will now shift its focus to its combo treatment, which includes bamlanivimab and etesevimab. The modified deal will cancel the 350,865 doses of bamlanivimab that were supposed to be delivered by the end of March. Story
UPDATED: Monday, April 12 at 10:39 a.m.
Roche and Regeneron announced positive results of a phase 3 trial of its combo of casirivimab and imdevimab against COVID-19 infection among household contacts of infected individuals. The subcutaneously administered cocktail reduced the risk of symptomatic infections by 81% in those who were uninfected when they entered the trial. Those who became infected cleared symptoms within a week on the average compared to three weeks for those on placebo. The study, conducted jointly with the NIH, included 1,505 who lived in the same house as an individual who tested positive within the prior four days. In addition, among recently infected asymptomatic patients, the treatment reduced the risk of progressing to symptomatic COVID-19 by 31%. Story
The pharma industry in virus-ravaged India is requesting emergency approval to override a patent by Gilead Sciences and produce COVID-19 treatment Remdesivir. Seven companies in the country currently produce the drug but it's not enough to meet the domestic demand. India has prohibited export of the drug, just as it has done with COVID-19 vaccines manufactured there. The country is routinely reporting more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases daily. Story
In addition, India has approved Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. It's the third COVID vaccine to receive a nod and the first that's not produced domestically. Sputnik V already has deals in place with at least five vaccine manufacturers in India.
Rovi will produce bulk substance for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, expanding an agreement between the companies. Rovi currently provides fill-finish for the vaccine, receiving substance from a Lonza plant in Switzerland. A new production line at Rovi's plant in Granada, Spain, will make ingredients for up to 100 million vaccine doses a year.
Three vaccination centers in Colorado have stopped using the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, opting for shots by Pfizer and Moderna. The shift came after reports of side effects from J&J vaccine recipients including nausea, dizziness and fainting. Similar reports of side effects with the J&J vaccine in Atlanta, Georgia, led to the pause of a vaccination site. Officials said the side effects are consistent with those commonly experienced with vaccines and that the J&J shot is safe.
Due to the realtively low effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccines, China may have to increase doses or use them in concert with another shot, said Gao Fu, the director of China's CDC. In January, Brazil said that a phase 3 trial showed the efficacy rate of the jab from Sinovac was 50%. Sixty countries have approved shots from China, which will produce 3 billion doses this year.
Sanofi will spend $476 million over the next five years to create a vaccine production plant in Singapore that will employ 200 and primarily supply Asia. The facility will have more flexibility than Sanofi's current sites, with the capability to produce three to four different vaccines simultaneously. Story
AstraZeneca's phase 3 trial of diabetes drug Farxiga on patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who are at risk for serious complications failed to achieve statistical significance in measuring organ dysfunction and mortality. It was the first trial to evaluate a SGLT-2 inhibitor in at-risk COVID-19 patients.
UPDATED: Friday, April 9 at 2:44 p.m.
Pfizer and BioNTech have asked the United States to expand the emergency use approval of their COVID-19 vaccine to adolescents aged 12 to 15. Last month, in a clinical trial of that age group, the shot was shown to be safe and effective.
The European Union is pursuing a contract with Pfizer and BioNTech for the purchase of 1.8 billion doses of their COVID-19 vaccine to be delivered in 2022 and 2023, an EU source told Reuters. Half of the doses would be optional.
Germany is in talks with Russia for a supply deal of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, contingent upon the shot's endorsement from the European Medicines Agency and the ability of it to be delivered within the next few months.
Eli Lilly and Incyte didn't accomplish their primary objective in a phase 3 study of Olumiant plus standard of care for hospitalized COVID-19 patents. But Lilly is touting its rheumatoid arthritis treatment for reducing the risk of death by any cause by 38% in the trial. Researchers noted a benefit for patients on the medicine, regardless of how sick they were entering the treatment.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told The Economist how the pharma's quick and efficient response to the coronavirus pandemic has helped rebuild public confidence in the industry. He also spoke about how the pandemic has changed business in general and how the crisis will alter and improve operations in the future.
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine has been in the crosshairs of regulators for blood clotting issues. But now the Johnson & Johnson shot is receiving similar scrutiny after four serious clotting cases came to light, including one in a clinical trial which was fatal. Story
The Emergent BioSolutions Baltimore plant responsible for the loss of 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine faced FDA scrutiny last year, a new report shows. The April 2020 citation was for the lack of quality control procedures to prevent contamination or mix-ups. Story
HSBC and the Asian Development Bank will provide $300 million in loans to boost manufacturing capacity for COVID-19 vaccines in Asia. The initiative builds on a risk-sharing scheme the banks undertook in July of last year.
UPDATED: Friday, April 9 at 10:57 p.m.
Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine supply to the United States will drop significantly next week as the company deals with manufacturing problems. The company will supply just 700,000, according to the CDC. J&J refused to comment on the shortfall to The Wall Street Journal, but said it still expects to meet its pledge to provide 100 million doses to the U.S. by mid-year.
Following the lead of Germany, France has advised those under age 55 who have received one dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to get a second shot with the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. The recommendation comes even though this approach has not been tested. AZ's shot is a traditional vaccine, while Pfizer's and Moderna's are mRNA vaccines. Some experts say the vaccines should be complementary since they target the same spike protein of the virus.
Because of supply concerns from the Serum Institute of India, the African Union has halted its pursuit of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and will shift its attention to the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine. African countries will still accept AZ shots through the World Health Organization's COVAX effort. The AU said that the decision had nothing to do with blood clot concerns that have led several countries in Europe to limit use of the AZ shot. The Serum Institute has been forced to limit exports as India battles a coronavirus wave.
Biogen will pay $30 million to secure the rights to an experimental biosimilar version of Actemra, an anti-inflammatory drug with promise as a treatment for COVID-19. Actemra, which treats arthritis, generated $3.1 billion last year for Roche.
United States experts don't believe the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine will ever be used in the country despite the government's $1.2 billion investment in the shot. With U.S. vaccine supplies plentiful and safety concerns for the AZ shot cropping up in Europe, an administration adviser told CNN that he hoped AstraZeneca would not apply for emergency use authorization.
With the United States sitting on a stockpile of more than 20 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and the country not requiring them for domestic needs, many are urging the Biden administration to give them away to countries that face a dire need.
Depending on international drug shipments can be risky business, especially during a worldwide pandemic. Canada is among the countries feeling the pinch, and it has stepped up efforts to attract pharmaceutical companies. There's just one problem: Lots of other countries are doing the same, creating a bidding war. For example, to woo Sanofi to build a flu vaccine plant in Toronto''a deal that was announced last week''required a 50/50 investment split.
Johnson & Johnson will soon kick off clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine in India, which faces a vaccine shortage as it battles a coronavirus wave, reporting more than 100,000 new cases daily.
UPDATED: Thursday, April 8 at 2:25 p.m.
Among COVID-19 patients requiring supplemental oxygen but not ventilators, BeiGene's Brukinsa didn't top placebo at helping people survive longer before respiratory failure or paring down the number of days they spent on oxygen.
The Serum Institute of India has asked India's government for a $400 million boost to increase capacity to produce AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines. With India battling a severe coronavirus wave, most of the SII's recent vaccine output has stayed at home. But that has prevented the SII from meeting its agreement to supply doses of the AZ vaccine to the worldwide COVAX relief effort. A $400 million investment would allow the SII to increase COVID vaccine capacity from 70 million to more than 100 million by the end of May. Story
The FDA has issued its first emergency use authorization for a home-collected COVID-19 antibody test. Developed by Symbiotica, the test detects antibodies in a dried blood sample taken at home and mailed to a lab. The test will allow healthcare professionals to identify those who have developed an adaptive immune response from a prior COVID-19 infection. Story
The United States no longer distributes Eli Lilly's bamlanivimab because of doubts about its effectiveness against coronavirus variants. But the drug's original developer, AbCellera, believes it can still be a valuable ingredient when combined with other treatments. Research supports this claim, especially when combating early-stage COVID and its variants. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, April 8 at 11:08 p.m.
An Operation Warp Speed report from last June warned of problems at the Emergent BioSolutions plant that was recently cited for the contamination of up to 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The factory lacked trained staff and had a record of quality control problems, officials found. The New York Times obtained the government report. Former Emergent officials suspect the J&J lot was tainted because an employee moved from AstraZeneca's vaccine production area of the plant to J&J's without showering or taking other precautions.
A study of 33 adult participants showed antibody persistence through six months after receiving a second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Antibody decay was consistent with convalescent COVID-19 patients eight months after the onset of symptoms. Moderna will continue to monitor responses beyond six months.
A phase 3 study released by Eli Lilly and Incyte evaluating baricitinib plus standard of care for hospitalized COVID-19 patents did not meet its primary endpoint. Patients receiving baricitinib were 2.7 percent less likely than those receiving standard of care to progress to ventilation or death.
After a European Medicines Agency finding of a possible link between the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and blood clots, Australia has discontinued its use among people younger than age 50. Front-line workers under age 50 will be prioritized for the Pfizer vaccine. The Philippines has taken the same action for those under age 60.
Eleven people had adverse reactions and two were hospitalized after receiving the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 shot at a Dick's Sporting Goods vaccination center in Colorado. The site was closed with hundreds waiting in line after 1,700 had received doses. Reactions included dizziness and nausea.
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 7 at 3:55 p.m.
The NIAID has launched a phase 2 trial to determine if people who are highly allergic or who have mast cell disorder are at increased risk for systemic allergic reactions to the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines. Systemic reactions occur in parts of the body aside from where the vaccine is administered. Most of the allergic reactions to COVID-19 vaccines have occurred in people with an allergy history. The study will enroll 3,400 adults.
The U.K. will offer people under age 30 an alternative to the troubled AstraZeneca vaccine. The decision came after the British drug regulator revealed that 79 AZ vaccine recipients in the country had suffered blood clots, with 19 of them fatal. The regulator said it wasn't proof that the vaccine caused the clots but that the link was getting firmer. More than 20 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the U.K.
The European Medicines Agency will investigate to determine if clinical trials of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine meet ethical and scientific standards. Russia used military personnel and state employees in the trials, with some pressured to do so, according to Reuters. Approval of the jab in Europe could hinge on the findings.
The National Basketball Association has joined forces with Clear to use its Health Pass technology to keep the league's arenas COVID free. Roughly a third of the NBA's venues already use Clear's digital tools to screen fans and employees. Health Pass technology allows users to add COVID test results and vaccine records. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 7 at 10:35 a.m.
After an EMA official on Tuesday said there was a "clear" link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots, the European Medicines Agency released its own findings Wednesday. "Unusual blood clots with low blood platelets" should be listed as a very rare side effect on the vaccine's label, the agency said. Agency experts reviewed 62 cases cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and 24 cases of splanchnic vein thrombosis, including 18 deaths, in people following vaccination. The vaccine has been given to around 25 million people in Europe so far, and EMA concluded that the shot's overall benefits outweigh risks. Story
Emer Cooke, EMA's Exec. Director: ''It is important that both vaccinated people and #healthcareprofessionals are aware of the signs and symptoms of these unusual blood clotting disorders and can spot them quickly to minimise the risk.''
'-- EU Medicines Agency (@EMA_News) April 7, 2021Contracts signed between coronavirus vaccine manufacturers and the Trump administration prohibit the United States from sharing its surplus doses around the world, Vanity Fair reports. The provision has potential to be a PR nightmare for the U.S., which soon will have an enormous surplus while other countries face an urgent need for vaccines. The sharing ban, designed to ensure that manufacturers retain liability protection, is hindering efforts by the Biden administration to make America the world's major supplier of affordable, high-quality vaccines.
The Emergent BioSolutions plant in Baltimore, which was cited for a mix-up that resulted in the loss of up to 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine, has produced 150 million vaccine doses. The catch? None have been distributed because regulators have not certified the factory. In a new report, The New York Times details the plant's history of errors and compliance problems. Emergent received $163 million from the government to prepare it for high-volume production but the site was ill-equipped to take on the task, according to the report. In addition to the recent error with J&J vaccines, Emergent discarded up to 15 million doses of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine between October and January because of contamination or suspected contamination, according to the story.
AstraZeneca agreed to shift COVID-19 vaccine production out of Emergent's Baltimore Bayview plant, according to Biden administration adviser Andy Slavitt. The move prevents the kind of cross-contamination which resulted in the loss of up to 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID vaccine. J&J has taken over COVID vaccine production at the plant. Slavitt said the decision ''says absolutely nothing about our belief'' whether the AZ vaccine will be authorized in the U.S.
In Beijing, those who are vaccinated qualify for buy-one-get-one ice cream cones. This is just one of a variety of methods''some tantalizing, some threatening''that China is using to compel people to get their coronavirus shots. The tactics are working. This month vaccinations are averaging 4.8 million per day after averaging roughly 1 million daily last month.
Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla said that exports of COVID-19 vaccines could resume by June if the country's coronavirus situation improves. By halting exports last month, world relief effort COVAX has experienced a delay in delivery of up to 90 million vaccine doses.
A preclinical study shows that Ampio's Ampion, which is used to treat a variety of inflammatory conditions, inhibits a key inflammatory pathway in both COVID-19 and lupus nephritis.
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 6 at 2:45 p.m.
The European Medicines Agency will hold a press conference on Wednesday or Thursday to detail its review of blood clotting cases in AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine recipients. The EMA's top vaccine specialist said this week that a link has been established between the clotting events and the shot, but he also said the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risks.
A trial of the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine in children has been paused while the EMA investigates the link between the shot and rare blood clots.
R&D budgets soared in 2020 as pharmaceutical companies reacted to the coronavirus pandemic. Over the previous five years, the top 10 companies combined to spend roughly $70 billion, but last year that number swelled to $96 billion. Roche remained the top R&D spender last year, with Merck close behind. Here's a look at how the top 10 stacked up and how they spent their R&D funds. Story
Teva Canada has launched an effort to relieve caregiver stress with a raft of new resources and programs to support mental health. Virtual life coaching sessions and free access to a caregiver support app are among the new features designed to combat the problem, which has grown during the pandemic. Story
Backed by a $53.7 million deal with the U.S. government, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics will bump up production of its antigen and antibody COVID-19 tests more than threefold. Through April 2022, Ortho plans to produce 6.7 million COVID tests each month compared with its current rate of 1.8 million. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 6 at 10:58 a.m.
Novavax announced crossover arms for three clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine. Crossover will make sure to get active vaccines to participants in a phase 2b trial in South Africa, a phase 3 trial in the U.K. and a phase 3 trial in the U.S. and Mexico. Participants across all three trials will remain blinded to their courses of treatment to preserve the ability to assess efficacy. Later in the second quarter, Novavax expects to initiate pediatric and adolescent arms of the trials. Story
Catalent said it will use a new high-speed vial-filling line at its plant in Bloomington, Indiana, to manufacture Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine. The line will be dedicated to Moderna's use through June 2023. In September of last year, Catalent announced a $50 million investment into the new line. Last week, Moderna announced that it had reached its milestone of 100 million vaccine doses produced by the end of March.
The European Medicines Agency's head of vaccines, Marco Cavaleri, said there is a link between the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine and blood clots, but that the benefits of the shot still outweigh its risks. In addition, according to reports, the U.K. is considering restricting use of the AZ vaccine in younger people. But the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said no decision has been made. Story
The European Union has blocked shipments of 3.1 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine bound for Australia, a source told Reuters. Vaccinations in Australia are 83% behind schedule, lagging far behind those in the U.S. and U.K.
Walgreens will change its schedule for administering the Pfizer COVID-19 two-shot vaccine, delivering them the recommended three weeks apart instead of four. Separating the shots by four weeks had eased scheduling, the U.S. pharmacy claimed. The company all along has scheduled the Moderna vaccine the recommended four weeks apart. The CDC recommends a three-week gap for the Pfizer shot but also says it's acceptable to separate doses by six weeks.
UPDATED: Monday, April 5 at 3:58 p.m.
Panacea Biotech is the latest CDMO in India to agree to produce Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, signing up to produce 100 million shots annually. Other companies from India that have made deals to produce the Sputnik V shot include Virchow Biotech, Stelis, Gland and Hetero.
The U.K. will make rapid, routine coronavirus testing free and available to everyone as part of a plan to lift lockdowns by the end of June. Twice-a-week testing will begin on April 9 with results expected at home within 30 minutes. The country also is considering implementing COVID-19 passports as a requirement to enter public gatherings such as concerts and sports events. Story
An attempt by CSL Behring and Takeda to develop a plasma-derived COVID-19 treatment has failed to meet endpoints in a phase 3 clinical trial. Story
The Biden administration has ordered Johnson & Johnson to take control of an Emergent BioSolutions plant in Baltimore where human error resulted in the loss of up to 15 million doses of coronavirus vaccines. That mistake and revelations that the plant had a history of compliance problems forced the government-imposed takeover. Story
As a result of the J&J takeover of the Emergent plant in Baltimore, AstraZeneca will have to find a new manufacturing partner for its coronavirus vaccine in America. The U.S. will assist in the effort as AZ faces yet another stumbling block in its efforts to deliver on supply promises. Story
A research team led by the University of Pennsylvania has identified three FDA-approved drugs that have potential to be effective against COVID-19 because they inhibit the virus in respiratory cells. Pfizer's lung cancer drug Vizimpro, Hillstream's antibiotic salinomycin and Novartis' Sandimmune, which prevents rejection in organ transplant patients, are the drugs that have shown potential. The three emerged from a total of 3,059 compounds that were tested in kidney cells from monkeys and liver cells from humans. Story
Moderna's rapid development of a coronavirus vaccine brought sudden visibility to the company and with it came security concerns. In its annual proxy filing, Moderna reported that it spent more than $1 million to protect CEO St(C)phane Bancel. Story
UPDATED: Monday, April 5 at 11:38 a.m.
In response to Israel failing to pay for 2.5 million vaccine doses, Pfizer has halted shipment of 700,000 doses to the country. Israel's vaccination campaign sprinted ahead of other countries because it was willing to pay a higher price.
One dose of the Pfizer vaccine significantly reduced coronavirus cases in nursing homes according to a real-world study by Yale and the CDC. The research was deemed crucial because phase 3 trials have largely been conducted in populations that do not replicate those who live in nursing homes. The research, done at two Connecticut nursing homes during outbreaks, found that one dose of the vaccine provided similar protection to that experienced by young people. The study will continue to determine efficacy rates of those fully vaccinated with two doses.
Production of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine will begin this week in France, at a factory in Normandy, kicking off a flood of new vaccine production in the country. Later this spring, first-time manufacture of the Johnson & Johnson and CureVac shots will begin. Moderna production is already underway in the country. Overall, seven facilities in France will contribute to an expected output of 250 million vaccine doses this year.
Cadila Healthcare is seeking approval in India for a hepatitis C drug as a COVID-19 treatment after promising results of a late-stage trial. Those administered the drug tested negative for the virus by day seven 91% percent of the time, compared with 79% who were given the standard of care drug in a phase 3 trial.
Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine is the vaccine of choice to help protect the homeless, The Wall Street Journal reports. The one-shot vaccine is better suited for an often-transient population that has grown during the pandemic, advocates say.
AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX relief effort will be delayed to the Philippines because of a supply shortage. A WHO representative also has informed the country that when the shipment eventually arrives, it will probably be reduced from the expected 920,000 doses.
UPDATED: Friday, April 2 at 10:22 a.m.
The United States' top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said that the nation may not need the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine even if it receives FDA authorization. Fauci noted that contracts are already in place with other companies to vaccinate the population and to possibly provide booster shots in the fall.
The U.K. has identified 30 cases of blood clots after use of the AstraZeneca vaccine compared to none for the shot made by Pfizer and BioNTech. At the same time, British regulators said they believe the benefits of the AZ vaccine far outweigh the risks. In the U.K., 18.1 million doses of the AZ vaccine have been administered.
The FDA will allow the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to be stored at room temperature for 24 hours before it is administered as opposed to the previous guidance of 12 hours. In addition, a punctured vial is available for use for 12 hours versus the current six hours. The FDA also will allow a new vial size of 15 doses.
Despite reports to the contrary, India says it has not restricted export of COVID vaccines. The Ministry of External Affairs claims the country has sent 64 million vaccine doses to more than 80 countries. India has exported 35.7 million doses on a commercial basis, 18.2 million doses to the worldwide COVAX relief effort and 10.4 million by way of grants.
Sinovac Biotech said it has completed a third production line for its COVID-19 vaccine and now is capable of supplying 2 billion doses per year. The Chinese company says it has delivered more than 200 million doses to more than 20 countries. The vaccine has received approval in more than 30 countries. Story
Johnson & Johnson has expanded an ongoing vaccine trial to include adolescents ages 12 to 17. J&J is starting with those aged 16 to 17 in Spain and the U.K. Enrollment will continue in the United States, Netherlands, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Earlier this week, Pfizer and BioNTech reported successful results of a trial of their COVID vaccine on adolescents aged 12 to 15. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, April 1 at 3:57 p.m.
Workers at an Emergent BioSolutions' plant in Baltimore mixed up ingredients in manufacturing the bulk substance for the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, resulting in the loss of a batch of 15 million doses. None of the batch was distributed and Emergent reported the error. The facility has yet to be approved for vaccine production. Johnson & Johnson and the FDA are investigating. Story
The Associated Press reveals that Emergent's Baltimore plants have been flagged by the FDA for several quality control issues since 2017. Careless handling of rejected materials, failure to follow procedures to prevent contamination, data integrity concerns and a policy of not conducting routine compliance audits were among the items the FDA cited, according to the report.
The U.S. government has no intellectual property claim to Gilead's remdesivir, according to a Government Accountability Office report. The antiviral drug, whose development began in 2009, quickly found its place as a COVID-19 treatment, gaining FDA approval in October of last year. Since the pandemic began, advocacy groups have urged the government to enforce patents against companies that have received government support, but GAO found that Gilead has sole rights to the med. Story
The FDA is speeding to market a variety of kits and instruments that can be used to administer routine tests in homes and businesses. After large portions of populations have been vaccinated, these tools will be a vital next step in building public confidence as people return to schools, offices, communities and public venues. Story
Using the COVID Symptom Study smartphone app, a self-reporting platform developed a year ago, a research team has discovered an algorithm that can predict at a 70% accuracy rate who is susceptible to long COVID syndrome. The model was built from a pool of 4,000 people who began using the app before showing symptoms and then received a positive COVID diagnosis. Researchers found that women, the elderly and those with at least five early symptoms are most likely to develop long-term effects. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, April 1 at 11:19 a.m.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective for up to six months and is capable of tackling an aggressive variant first identified in South Africa. With the new data, Pfizer is eying a full FDA approval for the shot, which won an emergency authorization in December. Story
A Merck manufacturing facility in Durham, North Carolina, faces serious allegations from a former FDA inspector-turned-whistleblower. The whistleblower claims Merck destroyed evidence of possible violations prior to an inspection he conducted in 2018. He also condemns the FDA for failing to act. The plant has been tapped in the COVID-19 vaccine production push. Story
President Joe Biden is seeking help from groups as disparate as the NAACP and NASCAR to reach people who are most resistant to coronavirus vaccines. Vice president Kamala Harris held an online event on Wednesday urging churches, native tribal leaders, civil rights activists and sports leagues to assist in the vaccination campaign.
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 31 at 3:45 p.m.
Pfizer and BioNTech plan to test a freeze-dried version of their COVID-19 vaccine, which if proven safe could ease delivery of the shot to rural areas and low-income countries. A powdered formulation of the vaccine would allow transportation and storage at normal temperatures instead of the ultracold storage it now needs. If successful, the new form of the vaccine could be ready early next year, Pfizer told investors on an earning call last month.
France will lock down for four weeks, closing schools and businesses as it deals with a coronavirus wave. ''We did everything we could to make these decisions as late as possible, until they became strictly necessary, which is now,'' said president Emmanuel Macron. The policy is a reversal for Macron, who previously allowed restrictions to be implemented by local authorities. With the move, France follows Germany and Italy which have stepped up lockdowns over the last week. Story
More than 100 fully vaccinated people in Washington state have tested positive for the coronavirus, most with mild symptoms. The breakthrough cases, which are not uncommon with vaccines, account for less than .01% of those who have been inoculated. The state will investigate further to determine if those infected have contracted coronavirus variants.
Some Asian countries, which were counting on COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX global relief effort, are exploring other options. COVAX's primary supply source is India, but that country has restricted vaccine exports as it battles a severe wave of infections. Russia and China are beginning to answer the calls of needy nations.
Pharma's rapid response to the coronavirus pandemic has given the industry a much-needed public relations boost. But the trend could be short-lived, according to an opinion piece on Bloomberg. Lionel Laurent argues that companies guarding intellectual property rights and exacerbating the gulf between rich and poor nations are flirting with a PR nightmare.
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 31 at 11:18 a.m.
Amid a whirlwind of safety concerns over its COVID-19 vaccine, AstraZeneca named its vaccine Vaxzevria. It was previously known as the AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine. While the shot remains unaltered, the packaging and labeling will change. Covishield, the version of the vaccine created along with the Serum Institute of India, will retain its name. Story
A phase 3 trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents aged 12 to 15 showed 100% efficacy and robust antibody responses, exceeding those in an earlier test of participants aged 16 to 25. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he hopes emergency use authorization will be expanded to this age group and allow for vaccinations to begin before the school year. Last week Pfizer and BioNTech launched studies of the vaccine in children aged 6 months to 11 years.
T cells may hold the key to defending against coronavirus variants, according to a small lab study by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. An analysis of the blood of 30 participants who had recovered from COVID-19 showed that T-cell responses remained intact and could recognize virtually all mutations in the variants studied. Larger studies are needed to confirm the findings.
Following the lead of Berlin, several German regions have suspended use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for people under age 60. The move is in response to continued reports of cerebral blood clots, with 31 so far being reported in the country. Nine in Germany have died after taking the vaccine, all of them women.
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 30 at 3:40 p.m.
Pfizer will step up delivery of its COVID-19 vaccine to Canada, according to prime minister Justin Trudeau. The news comes a day after the country's drug watchdog urged provinces to halt vaccinations with the AstraZeneca shot for those under age 55. Pfizer will send 5 million more doses than previously scheduled by the end of June. The company was set to deliver 1 million doses weekly in May and June, but it now will provide 2 million doses weekly in June.
Drugmakers have inked unprecedented collaborations in response to the pandemic. Many attorneys interviewed by Bloomberg Law, however, don't expect the trend to continue into the future, citing intellectual property and other legal and logistical issues.
Riding high on Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine launch, CEO Stephane Bancel raked in $12.85 million in compensation last year, up from $8.9 million in 2019, according to a proxy filing. In addition to his salary of $950,000, Bancel received a $1.9 million bonus and stock options worth $9 million. In 2018, Bancel's package was a hefty $58.6 million, thanks to the company's $604 million public offering. Story
Johnson & Johnson's manufacturing partner for its COVID-19 vaccine, Emergent BioSolutions, is still awaiting regulatory clearance. The holdup has the potential to hinder supply, but there are indications that the approval is imminent. Story
In the coronavirus pandemic age, social media platforms such as TikTok are creating brand recognition and more broadly, new awareness of the pharmaceutical industry, especially in younger people. Some believe this is a turning point for the industry. Proactive companies may be in position to optimize it. Story
IBM and New York state have created a digit passport system which will allow businesses and venues to verify a person's vaccination status before allowing them entry. Users link their vaccination records to the Excelsior Pass app, which displays a QR code that can be scanned. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 30 at 10:51 a.m.
After setting what seemed an ambitious goal to deliver 2 billion doses of their COVID-19 vaccine this year, Pfizer and BioNTech are bumping the projection further. On Tuesday, BioNTech said the new target was 2.5 billion doses. The recent approval of its manufacturing facility in Marburg, Germany, and regulatory approvals for the six-dose vial have influenced the change. Story
Johnson & Johnson will begin supplying its COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union on April 19, the company announced. The EU has ordered 200 million doses of the single-shot vaccine, with an option for 200 million more.
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were highly effective in preventing infections among healthcare and other essential workers in a real-world study released by the CDC on Monday. Two weeks after receiving a second dose, the risk of infection was reduced by greater than 90%. Two weeks after receiving one dose, risk was reduced by 80%. The study included 3,950 participants in six states. Story
Celonic will manufacture at least 100 million doses of CureVac's mRNA COVID-19 vaccine at its plant in Heidelberg, Germany, providing bulk substance for 50 million doses by the end of this year. The vaccine has yet to gain regulatory approval, but CureVac said it has secured manufacturing resources in Europe capable of producing 300 million vaccine doses by the end of this year.
Berlin has suspended use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine among people under age 60 because of blood clots. The European Medicines Agency advised that the vaccine was safe on March 18, triggering a wave of countries reinstating its use after temporarily suspending it. Germany's medical regulator has said 31 cases of cerebral venous thrombosis have been reported by AZ vaccine recipients, with nine deaths. All but two of the cases were among women aged 20 to 63.
Manitoba and Quebec provinces have also stopped administering the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to people under age 55 after Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization and Health recommended halting its use because of reports of blood clots in Europe. Earlier this month, NACI urged that the AZ shot should not be provided to those 65 and older, then later reversed the guidance. Canada has ordered 22 million doses of the AZ vaccine and was set to receive an additional 1.5 million from the United States' surplus on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Mexico has received its first shipment from the United States' surplus stock of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines. The 1.5 million doses are part of a 2.7-million deal struck between the countries. Mexico has now received 12.3 million vaccine doses.
Michigan will inform recipients of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine that it was developed using a stem cell line from an aborted fetus. The new law is part of a broader bill concerning the distribution of federal coronavirus funds to the state. It has not been decided how the notification will be provided to J&J vaccine recipients. Michigan Right to Life president Barbara Listing applauded the change, saying the way the vaccine was developed was an ''ethical concern.''
Far-left protesters in Argentina gathered at mAbxience's vaccine plant in Buenos Aires, criticizing the slow rollout of vaccinations and preferential treatment. Protesters are urging the state to take control of the plant, which is producing vaccines for AstraZeneca. Another manufacturer in the AZ production line, Mexican lab Liomont, has been blamed for the supply problems.
With CDC warnings of ''impending doom'' of a potential fourth surge of the coronavirus pandemic, President Joe Biden called on local leaders to reinstate mask mandates. The warning came from CDC director Rochelle Walensky in an emotional announcement in which she said, ''I'm scared.'' New COVID cases in the U.S. are at 63,000 daily, an increase of 16% from two weeks earlier. Experts say the U.S. is in a race between the vaccination campaign and the spread of potentially more transmissible and lethal coronavirus variants.
UPDATED: Monday, March 29 at 3:30 p.m.
NeuroRx's drug Zyesami posted positive data in a phase 2/3 study in patients with critical COVID-19 and respiratory failure, the company said. Pitted against placebo, the drug showed benefits in recovery from respiratory failure. NeuroRx plans to submit the data to the FDA.
GlaxoSmithKline and Novavax have inked the pharma industry's latest COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing partnership, with the British drugmaker signing up to help produce 60 million doses for use in the U.K.
As the U.S. races to vaccinate its population and other countries wait for doses, President Joe Biden is facing calls to break pharmaceutical patents to increase access elsewhere. But one influential expert argues the measure wouldn't boost access. Meanwhile, other options are on the table, too. Story
Biden is planning to announce Monday that 90% of American adults will be eligible for COVID-19 vaccines in three weeks, CNN reports. The number of pharmacies giving shots is set to double.
UPDATED: Monday, March 29 at 10:38 a.m.
The European Medicines Agency has taken several measures which should speed COVID-19 vaccination efforts in Europe. In the Netherlands, the EMA has approved a Helix plant in Leiden which will produce the active substance for AstraZeneca's vaccine. In Germany, the EMA has signed off on a facility in Marburg which will manufacture the substance and finished product for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The EMA also will allow the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be stored at regular pharmaceutical refrigerator temperatures for up to two weeks. In addition, the EMA has approved new manufacturing lines at the Lonza plant in Visp, Switzerland, and has greenlighted other manufacturing processes which will bolster production capacity.
A phase 3 trial of Humanigen's lenzilumab in hospitalized COVID-19 patients has met its primary endpoint, which may clear the way for emergency approval from the FDA. The drug counters life-threatening complications that arise when the immune system reacts strongly to the virus. Shares of Humanigen jumped 64% in premarket trading, continuing a trend over the last year that has seen shares rise from less than $2 to more than $20. Story
Eli Lilly, Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline announced a phase 2 trial of their antibody cocktail showed a 70% reduction in high viral load at day seven for low-risk adult patients with mild to moderate COVID-19, meeting the study's primary endpoint.
Group 42 of the United Arab Emirates will produce the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine. Group 42's new fill-finish plant in Abu Dhabi will have the capacity to provide 200 million doses per year. Interim production of the vaccine is already underway in the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah per a joint venture between Sinopharm, Group 42 and Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries. That plant can produce 2 million doses monthly. The UAE approved the vaccine in December.
A Pfizer executive, who doubles as the chairman of the NVFG, the Netherlands association for pharmaceutical industry, said that pharmaceutical companies should have representation on the country's Outbreak Management Team, which advises the Dutch government on how to deal with epidemics. While acknowledging that the pharma industry has financial interests, Marc Kaptein told the NL Times that by not including its input, the country suffered ''a delay in the vaccination campaign at least."
Johnson & Johnson will provide 220 million doses of its single-shot COVID-19 vaccine to the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust starting in the third quarter of this year. The agreement includes an option for 180 million additional doses to be delivered by the end of 2022. Availability of the shot is contingent upon its approval by individual countries. J&J has nine manufacturing and supply partners across four continents including Aspen Pharmacare in South Africa, which will support vaccine shipments to the 55 members of the African Union. Story
The European Medicines Agency has issued a positive opinion for Celltrion's COVID-19 antibody treatment candidate, regdanvimab. The EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use recommends the drug for patients at a high risk for severe COVID-19. The EMA has issued a rolling review, which could speed its authorization. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency has already confirmed the effectiveness of the drug against COVID-19 variants.
The initial investigation of a packaging flaw which resulted in temporary suspension of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in two districts in China has found no safety concerns. Loose vial caps and stained bottles forced the halt of the shot's distribution in Hong Kong and Macao. The investigation has found no evidence of leakage. BioNTech and Fosun, which distribute the vaccine in China, have not turned up any systemic factors which could have caused the packaging errors. The investigation should be concluded within a week.
UPDATED: Friday, March 26 at 3:05 p.m.
So far in its U.S. rollout, Johnson & Johnson's vaccine has only been administered to 2.8 million people, according to CDC data. Distribution of the single-dose shot is set to expand next week, with 11 million doses on the way, Reuters reports.
After posting positive data in phase 3, GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology are submitting their dual-acting antibody to the FDA. Story
Pfizer has started testing its COVID-19 vaccine in children just as new data support using mRNA vaccines in pregnant women. Vaccinating children is seen as a key step in reaching herd immunity to beat back the pandemic. Story
UPDATED: Friday, March 26 at 10:42 a.m.
Novavax is struggling to secure raw materials for its COVID-19 vaccine and that shortfall has led to a delay in signing a supply contract with the European Union, Reuters reported. The company had planned to provide 100 million vaccine doses to the EU, with an option for another 100 million. One of Novavax's primary manufacturers, the Serum Institute of India, warned this month that a temporary U.S. ban on exports of raw materials could affect its vaccine production.
Moderna delayed shipment of 590,400 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Canada, explaining that it faced a ''backlog in its quality assurance process.'' The company said it was a minor holdup that shouldn't affect next week's scheduled delivery of 855,600 doses to the country, which is bracing for a third coronavirus wave as the British variant has broken out in some hot spots.
Thermo Fisher Scientific said Thursday it would chip in on production of Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine in Italy, Reuters reports. In an emailed statement to Reuters, the company said it was working as part of Pfizer and BioNTech's global manufacturing network and would assist with shots pegged to roll out in ''several markets.'' The company said it would provide fill-finish work at its facility in Monza, outside Milan, this year.
India's own battle against the coronavirus is having a ripple effect, hindering vaccination efforts in many countries around the world. The Serum Institute of India, the most prolific producer of vaccines on the planet, is cranking out 2.4 million COVID-19 shots per day but most of those are held back for domestic use to try to stunt a wave of new infections that's surged to 50,000 cases per day. As a result, many of the 70 countries that received shipments from the Serum Institute over the first 10 weeks of the year have seen the supply dry up.
President Joe Biden has not only adjusted his vaccination goal, he's doubled it, hoping to get 200 million vaccine doses into the arms of Americans by his 100th day in office, April 20. The U.S. reached Biden's previous goal'--100 million doses'--on March 18, which was his 58th day in office. The U.S. has administered 133 million doses so far and is averaging 2.5 million shots daily.
SGD Pharma of France, a supplier of glass vials, is up for sale by its owner, China Jianyin Investment. CJI is seeking more than $1.2 billion, a source told Reuters. SGD Pharma has five facilities in Europe and Asia, which produce more than 8 million bottles and vials daily. To attract COVID-19 business in 2020, the company advertised a daily manufacturing output of more than 400,000 vials from its location in Normandy, France.
Courtesy of embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Regeneron co-founder and president George Yancopoulos and a member of his family got preferential treatment in securing COVID-19 tests last March, when testing resources were scarce. The tests were performed after another member of the Yancopoulos family was infected by the virus. Story
Oxford is launching a phase 1 trial of a nasal spray COVID-19 vaccine, registering 30 volunteers aged 18-40. The spray will use the same ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 compound as the AstraZeenca shot. Because inhaled vaccines are more appealing to some than injections, finding an effective nasal spray would allow more to be vaccinated. Nasal vaccines are in use in U.K. schools to defend against the flu. Story
Russia's Sputnik V'--the only vaccine with its own Facebook page, YouTube channel and Twitter account'--is using all of these social media platforms to bolster its reputation. Fortune takes a look at the campaign.
UPDATED: Thursday, March 25 at 3:28 p.m.
Pfizer has begun testing its COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 6 months to 11 years. The shot is currently authorized for people 16 and older. The company has already initiated testing the vaccine in those aged 12 to 15. Children are at lower risk for contracting the disease and generally have milder symptoms. But because they can spread the virus, vaccinating children is a key stop to achieving herd immunity.
COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are effective in pregnant and lactating women, according to a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In the study of 84 women in Massachusetts, those who were vaccinated had ''strikingly'' higher antibody levels than pregnant women who had recovered from COVID-19 infections. The women also passed antibodies to their newborns and to lactating babies. The study is important because infected pregnant women have been found to have a higher risk for developing severe cases and for giving birth preterm.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have identified a potent new compound that can block viral replication in human cells and may eventually provide a new COVID-19 treatment. The discovery was made with the help of Kiira Ratia, who applied her study of SARS-CoV-1 to the current virus. The UIC researchers believe their lab-developed protease inhibitor XR8-24 is superior to FDA-approved remdesivir.
Denmark will extend its suspension of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for three weeks while it investigates reports of the shot causing blood clots. Two people died in the country after receiving AZ shots but no link has been established. Last week, when the European Medicines Agency endorsed the safety of the AZ vaccine, most countries that had suspended use of the shot resumed it.
It didn't take AstraZeneca long to respond to the NIAID's challenge of its trial results for its COVID-19 vaccine. On Wednesday, the company released new data showing efficacy figures comparable to those announced on Monday, when it showed 79% effectiveness against symptomac COVID and 100% effectiveness against severe COVID. The new data shows a 76% symptomatic efficacy rate, including 85% efficacy among those 65 and older. The 100% mark against severe cases remains intact. The NIAID contended that some outdated information skewed the results in favor of the vaccine. Story
Thermo Fisher has developed a device which can monitor airborne viruses, including the coronavirus. The AerosolSense Sampler is designed to help hospitals, schools, nursing homes, offices and other high-traffic areas get an early warning that a virus is present and allow them to take appropriate measures to keep their environments safe. Story
With the European Union struggling to vaccinate its populace and AstraZeneca failing to live up to vaccine supply promises, many in Europe are asking who is to blame. Adam Parsons of Sky News analyzes the issue with revealing quotes from diplomats and other insiders.
UPDATED: Thursday, March 25 at 11:28 a.m.
Due to the increase of coronavirus variants in the United States, Eli Lilly and the FDA have agreed to halt distribution of bamlanivimab, Endpoints News reports. Lilly will continue to supply the drug in combination with etesevimab, and Regeneron can proceed with its antibody cocktail. The decision comes a week after the FDA halted distribution of bamlanivimab to California, Nevada and Arizona due to prevalence of variants.
Merck KGaA's berzosertib has been shown to block the ability of the coronavirus to replicate, according to a study by the German drugmaker and UCLA. The treatment is currently used in combination with chemotherapy to treat ovarian and small-cell lung cancer. UCLA researchers screened 430 drugs and found berzosertib to be the most effective candidate versus COVID-19.
AstraZeneca said that of its 29 million COVID-19 vaccine doses found at a Catalent site in Italy, 16 million are bound for the European Union and 13 million are destined for four nations in the COVAX relief effort. Both companies said there was nothing unusual about the amount stockpiled. Story
Former Operation Warp Speed co-leader Moncef Slaoui has taken a leave of absence from all of his professional responsibilities and apologized after a sexual harassment claim forced his exit from GlaxoSmithKline's Galvani Bioelectronics. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 24 at 3:03 p.m.
With infections rising and domestic needs mounting, India is blocking exports of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from the company's manufacturing partner, the Serum Institute of India. The move will affect the World Health Organization's COVAX effort to supply shots to needy countries. Of the 60.5 million doses India has shipped, 17.7 million have gone to COVAX, which has an agreement in place to receive 1.1 billion doses from AZ and its partners.
On Wednesday, India reported 47,000 new coronavirus cases and a country-record 275 deaths. It's an alarming uptick from January when on many days the country reported fewer than 10,000 cases. The country has tightened restrictions and is conducting random testing at the Delhi airport and some rail stations. In addition, though it is not responsible for the current rise in cases, a new ''double mutation'' COVID variant has been discovered in the country.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has backed off an announced plan to lock the country down for five days around Easter. Business now can be open on Thursday and Saturday of the holiday weekend. The country has seen coronavirus cases increase steadily throughout this month, along with more evidence of spread of the British variant of the disease.
Former Operation Warp Speed co-leader Moncef Slaoui has been terminated from the board of GlaxoSmithKline's Galvani Bioelectronics for a sexual harassment claim. Slaoui, who received acclaim and criticism for his role in guiding the U.S. effort to speed vaccines to the market, has been under investigation by GSK since February when an accuser notified the company of an incident which occurred several years ago. GSK categorized the behavior as an abuse of leadership. Slaoui remains the chief scientific officer of startup Cenressa Pharmaceuticals. Story
Pfizer has begun testing an oral antiviral treatment which it hopes will be effective in neutralizing coronavirus in recently infected patients. The older protease inhibitor has been tested for years against HIV and hepatitis C. One advantage: The drug can be prescribed and taken at home as opposed to the current crop of available antibody treatments, which are administered in infusion clinics or hospitals. It follows similar efforts by Merck and Regeneron (molnupiravir) and Roche and Altea (AT-527). Story
CureVac's mRNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate registered strong results against the highly infectious South African variant when tested on mice. On Monday, CureVac announced it would expand a trial in Europe and Latin America to analyze the vaccine's efficacy against select variants. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 24 at 10:54 a.m.
Authorities in Italy have found 29 million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine stockpiled at a Catalent fill-finish facility in Anagni. The discovery was made after the European Union noticed a discrepancy between supply outputs reported by the company and the individual manufacturing facilities. According to the daily La Stampa, some of the discovered doses were produced by Halix in the Netherlands. The EU has been at odds with AZ over the company's failure to deliver on its promised 100 million vaccine doses in the first quarter. To date, Europe has received just 16.6 million doses as vaccination rates lag far behind those of the United States and the U.K.
The Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macao have suspended use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine because of a packaging flaw'--a vial cap defect. Fosun Pharma, which manufactures and distributes the shot in China, is investigating along with BioNTech. Of 585,000 doses in the batch in question, 150,000 vaccines have been distributed. A subsequent batch of 758,000 doses has been put on hold. Officials don't believe there is a safety issue, but they've suspended us of the vaccine as a precaution. Both territories received their first shots a month ago. With the news, Fosun's shares tumbled by nearly 5%.
With Moderna bringing its first product to market'--a COVID-19 vaccine'--it's been a transformational year for the company and its sudden-billionaire CEO St(C)phane Bancel, who told Forbes, ''In 2021 and 2022 Moderna is going to scale at a pace that has never happened before in biotech.'' Bancel discussed the future for the company and mRNA technology, which includes developing more COVID vaccines, a better flu shot and new ways to treat cancer and heart disease.
Australia is distributing its first batch of domestically produced COVID-19 vaccines after CSL Seqirus' fill-finish site in Melbourne released 830,000 doses of the AstraZeneca shot. In cold storage are 2.5 million doses undergoing final testing before their release. Manufacture of bulk substance began in November at CSL Behring's site in Broadmeadows.
U.S. regulators have cleared a Catalent plant in Bloomington, Indiana, to produce the single-shot COVID-19 vaccine for Johnson & Johnson. The approval will allow J&J to dramatically bump up production. The company pledged 20 million doses to the U.S. by the end of March, but it's delivered only 4.5 million. Story
Researchers at Michigan Medicine have found that flu shots may help derail the coronavirus. Of 27,000 patients, none tested positive for both viruses at the same time. While those who received flu shots were slightly less likely to contract the coronavirus, they were significantly less likely to develop severe cases of the disease.
In a pandemic-riddled year, German biopharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim accelerated efforts to research COVID-19 related therapies, spending more than $4.3 billion on R&D'--a record-high for the 136-year-old company. In its annual summary, BI posted $23.16 billion in revenue, a 3% increase from 2019.
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 23 at 3:32 p.m.
Texas will make all adult residents eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine, becoming the fourth state to do so, joining Alaska, Mississippi and West Virginia. The move takes effect on Monday, well ahead of President Joe Biden's May 1 target to open vaccinations to all adults.
With Europe entering a third wave of the coronavirus, Germany has intensified a lockdown centered around Easter. Shops will be closed for five days around the holiday weekend and restrictions have been extended to April 18. The move is a U-turn from earlier this month when the country relaxed restrictions.
Regeneron and Roche posted strong results in a phase 3 trial of their COVID-19 antibody combo. The treatment, a cocktail of casirivimab and imdevimab, lowered the risk of hospitalization or death in high-risk non-hospitalized patients by 70%. It also retained its potency against five major variants and at three different doses. It gained emergency use authorization in November. The new data will aid in the treatment's battle with Eli Lilly's combination of bamlanivimab and etesevimab, which also has received an EUA. Story
The high-profile missteps of COVID-19 vaccine producer AstraZeneca during the pandemic continue to dominate headlines. The most recent news of the company using outdated data in reporting trial results prompted even the most measured observers to use terms such as ''unprecedented'' and ''speechless'' to describe their astonishment. Here's a look at the AZ's problems from a PR perspective. Story
The Leiden, Netherlands, manufacturing facility at the center of a disagreement between the European Union and the U.K. is set to come online for coronavirus vaccine production and receive approval from the EU's regulatory agency, according to Rudd Dobber, the president of AZ's BioPharmaceuticals business. The EU threatened to block exports from the plant until AZ lived up to its supply shortfall in Europe. Story
Getting a home-delivered coronavirus test will soon be as easy as having a pizza brought to your front door. Food delivery service DoorDash will include COVID-19 test kits on its phone app. The company has partnered with Everlywell and Vault Health, two companies that have developed FDA-approved at-home test kits, which promise results in less than 48 hours. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 23 at 12:02 p.m.
The European Union and the U.K. are discussing a proposal to share exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine from a manufacturing facility in the Netherlands. This is an attempt to break a deadlock between the two. The EU has threatened to block exports of the vaccine until its supply obligations have been met. Both the EU and U.K. believe they have legal claims and that AstraZeneca has double booked its production.
AstraZeneca may have touted outdated information in reporting results of a trial of its COVID-19 vaccine, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The revelation touched off another controversy for the company, and AZ said it plans to submit new findings within 48 hours. Story
After the success of Pfizer and BioNTech in developing a COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer will attempt to use mRNA technology to develop other vaccines and will do it solo, CEO Albert Bourla told the Wall Street Journal. ''We are the best positioned company right now to take it to the next step because of our size and expertise,'' he said.
UPDATED: Monday, March 22 at 4:23 p.m.
The push to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines is affecting supplies of some critical medicines. Pfizer for instance has notified hospitals to expect supply interruptions on four of its products'--an antibiotic, a steroid and two testosterone treatments. All of them are biologic medicines that use some of the same ingredients and manufacturing capacity as the COVID vaccine.
The European Medicines Agency has advised against the use of ivermectin for prevention or treatment of coronavirus. In testing, the drug has shown ability to block replication of SARS-CoV-2, but at much higher doses than authorized. The drug is used in tablet form for treating worm infestations and as an ointment for skin conditions. It is also used for veterinary use for internal and external parasites. The EMA concluded that ivermectin use should be limited to clinical trials.
Egypt is nearing an agreement to produce the COVID-19 vaccine from Sinovac Biotech of China. Egypt hopes to become a center for manufacturing the vaccine for both local use and export to countries in Africa. Sinovac has supplied 160 million doses at home and around the world. Egypt has received less than 1 million vaccine doses, donated by China's state-run Sinopharm.
On a Twitter post, Russia has accused the European Union of ''bias'' against its COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V. The message came after the EU's internal market commissioner Thierry Breton said the bloc had ''absolutely no need'' for the vaccine. The spat comes after EU members Slovakia and Hungary issued emergency approval of Sputnik V, bypassing the EU. Tensions between Russia and the EU escalated after Europe's jailing of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny last month. Russia retaliated by sending home three diplomats from EU countries.
AstraZeneca expects the European Union's regulator to approve a factory in the Netherlands that could help ease the supply problems.
While some pharma companies were major players in the development of vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 and others weren't, the pandemic impacted all drugmakers who had to deal with sudden changes wrought by work-at-home orders and medical office closures. Those factors plus the usual pharma concerns about pricing and regulatory issues make for a year of tumult in the industry. Story
The FDA has approved a digital armband'--similar to a fitness wearable'--which can screen people for COVID-19. The AI-powered device by Tiger Tech Solutions uses light sensors to detect blood flow and within three to five minutes can determine if blood is clotting more freely than usual, which is a sign of coronavirus infection. Story
UPDATED: Monday, March 22 at 10:57 a.m.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union had the power to ban exports of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine if the drugmaker didn't meet its obligations in supply-strapped Europe. While only 12% of adults in Italy, Germany and France have been vaccinated, Britain has inoculated half of its adult population, per an announcement on Saturday. Pfizer weighed in as well, warning the EU not to block vaccine exports as it has its own supply deals to meet.
Daiichi Sankyo has kicked off a phase 1/2 trial of its mRNA coronavirus vaccine candidate in Japan. Earlier this month, Daiichi began producing COVID-19 vaccines for AstraZeneca. Daiichi has agreed to fill-finish 120 million doses for distribution in Japan. Story
In a phase 3 trial conducted in the United States, Peru and Chile, the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine was 79% effective preventing symptomatic coronavirus and 100% effective against severe cases, with no safety issues. The trial included 32,000 volunteers and moves the shot a step closer to approval in the United States. Story
CureVac will expand and modify its ongoing late-stage trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate to measure its effectiveness against emerging variants and its efficacy in the elderly. In the phase 2b/3 trial in Europe and Latin America, the rapid spread of new virus variants supports the need for further analysis to determine the efficacy of the vaccine against particular strains. For its phase 2a trial in older adults in Peru and Panama, CureVac has submitted an amendment to include a secondary objective for vaccine efficacy in 270 participants above the age of 60.
Russia continues to look to India to produce its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. Virchow Biotech is the latest company to agree to a supply deal, signing up to provide 200 million doses per year. The ramp up is expected to be complete by the end of the second quarter. Russia also has made similar deals with Indian manufacturers Stelis, Gland and Hetero. The four deals will provide for approximately 750 million doses this year. The vaccine has been registered in 51 countries.
UPDATED: Friday, March 19 at 2:48 p.m.
When the European Medicines Agency reiterated the safety of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on Thursday, nearly a dozen countries that had suspended use of the shot'--including Germany, France and Italy'--quickly resumed vaccinations. But some countries have been hesitant to follow suit and one of them, Finland, is defying the proclamation, suspending use of the AZ vaccine on Friday while it investigates two cases of recipients developing blood clots.
Meanwhile, Denmark, Sweden and Norway are in no rush to restart their AstraZeneca vaccine rollouts, saying the situation warrants more study.
On Friday, the U.S. was expected to pass the 100 million mark in coronavirus vaccine doses administered, comfortably outpacing the goal set by President Joe Biden, whose original target was to reach the benchmark by his 100th day in office. Friday is his 58th day. Biden said he would announce a new goal for the U.S. next week.
Along with partner Novartis, Incyte will give Jakafi another go as a treatment for COVID-19 patients. The drug, which is approved for use in polycythemia vera, myelofibrosis and graft-versus-host disease, failed to perform as hoped in a phase 3 trial but showed enough value in preventing death in severely ill patients in the U.S. to warrant access through a managed care program. Story
UPDATED: Friday, March 19 at 10:31 a.m.
U.S. neighbors Mexico and Canada will be the first recipients of America's unused stock of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines. Mexico will get 2.5 million doses and Canada will receive 1.5 million doses. More than 30 million doses of the AZ vaccine produced domestically are in warehouses while the shot awaits authorization from the FDA.
There are four primary sources of coronavirus vaccine production. Axios tabulated how many shots China (169 million), United States (136 million), Europe (96 million) and India (68 million) have produced. While the U.S. is set to send its first shipments abroad, exports have accounted for 60% of the stock produced by China and 65% by India.
With coronavirus cases rising in Germany and the country facing a desperate need for vaccines, health minister Jens Spahn said he would support a national supply deal with Russia for its Sputnik V vaccine even though it has not been approved by the European Union. ''I am actually very much in favor of us doing it nationally if the European Union does not do something,'' Spahn said. German chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with state leaders on Monday to establish new shutdown rules. This month in Germany, weekly cases per 100,000 have risen from 65 to 96.
With coronavirus cases rising in France, president Emmanuel Macron has imposed a month-long lockdown in Paris and other regions. Other restrictions will have to be reestablished after Macron relaxed them in late January in an attempt to stimulate the sagging economy.
Stelis Biopharma of India will produce 200 million doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. The deal comes on top of Gland Pharma of India agreeing this week to manufacture 252 million doses of the vaccine, which has been approved for use in 50 countries. Production for both deals will commence in the third quarter of this year.
The FDA has granted its first full approval to a coronavirus diagnostic kit. BioFire got the nod for its nasal swab test. The approval will make the path easier for similar products to get full clearance. More than 340 COVID-19 diagnostic tools have received emergency use authorization. Story
A new COVID-19 test, launched by Roche, will help researchers monitor emerging variants and track mutations that make the disease more transmissible and fatal. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, March 18 at 2:45 p.m.
Amid reports of blood clots and 15 countries halting its use, the European Medicines Agency has declared the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine ''safe and effective.'' The EMA said it couldn't ''definitively'' rule out a link between the shot and rare blood clots, so it's moving raise awareness of possible risks. Leaders in France and Italy said earlier this week that they would reinstate use of the vaccine if it was endorsed by the EMA. Story
The U.S. has halted distribution of Eli Lilly's COVID-19 antibody treatment bamlanivimab in Californa, Arizona and Nevada because of concerns over the spread of a variant. The policy extends only to sales of bamlanivimab alone. Lilly's combination of bamlanivimab and etesivimab remains available in all states. The news comes after the FDA ordered Lilly and Regeneron to monitor their antibody treatments' effectiveness against variants. Story
The pharma industry has traditionally scored poorly in public opinion polls, but that's changing thanks to its rapid response to the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, many pharma and biotech companies are looking for ways to optimize their corporate images, according to an expert in the field. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, March 18 at 10:45 a.m.A Sanofi exec said he hopes collaboration among major drugmakers will cast a better light on the drug industry, which is often criticized for its high prices. "I think it's showing to the world that sometimes this industry that can be, sometimes, a little bit differently perceived in the media ... what we have at the heart of this industry," EVP and vaccines chief Thomas Triomphe told Yahoo France. After its first COVID-19 vaccine candidate stalled in development, Sanofi signed up to fill-finish shots made by other companies. A Sanofi site in Germany services the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, while a plant in France does the same for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
A supply shortfall is threatening to push back the U.K.'s plan for COVID-19 vaccinations. The National Health Service warned local health organizations of reduced supplies in April. A shipment from the Serum Institute of India has been delayed for four weeks. Another batch of 1.7 million doses from Serum needs to be retested for stability. The plan to offer vaccines to people over age 50 on April 15 and to all adults by the end of July remains intact.
Merck KGaA plans to amp up production of single-use materials used in manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines. The German drugmaker will add a single-use assembly unit at its manufacturing site in Molsheim, France. The new capacity will come online in the fourth quarter of this year and will become the company's first facility in Europe to turn out the materials. The $30 million investment will include 350 new employees. Merck KGaA facilities in Danvers, Massachusetts, and Wuxi, China, are already manufacturing the materials.
Gland Pharma of India has agreed to supply 252 million doses of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine. Production is expected to begin the third quarter of this year. The vaccine has been approved in 22 countries. Another Indian firm, Hetero, will produce 100 million doses of the Sputnik shot.
An Oxford study shows that existing vaccines may protect against the Brazilian variant of the coronavirus more effectively than first believed. The study measured the level of antibodies that can neutralize variants and examined the performance of natural antibodies of those who had been infected with COVID-19 vs. vaccine-induced antibodies.
A former Pfizer executive co-authored a petition to the European Medicines Agency last fall demanding that COVID-19 vaccines be halted because they could cause infertility in women. Michael Yeadon, 60, a former Pfizer researcher and VP who co-founded a biotech later purchased by Novartis, was a driving force behind the movement. The petition, which cited no evidence and appeared Dec. 1 on a German website, failed to sway regulators who approved of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine weeks later, according to a Reuters special report.
Sudden onset hearing loss has occurred in some recipients of COVID-19 vaccines. The condition, which strikes 11 to 77 per 100,000 people yearly in the U.S., has been registered 14 times among the 31,000 entries in the new Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Many of the cases have come within the first two weeks of inoculation and the effects have been temporary. It's too soon for experts to establish a link.
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 17 at 4:12 p.m.
The World Health Organization reiterated its support for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, saying that its benefits outweigh risks. The WHO's Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety will continue to assess data.
Clofazimine, which was approved by the FDA in 1986 for the treatment of leprosy, significantly reduced viral load and shedding in hamsters, indicating it might be effective fighting COVID-19. The University of Hong Kong has launched a phase 2 study testing a combination of clofazimine and interferon beta on hospitalized patients. Story
Governments are intent on building up their vaccine and biologics infrastructure to insulate themselves from the kind of supply disruptions witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Stefan Oschmann, the CEO of Merck KGaA. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 17 at 9:45 a.m.
A double dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine was just 10.4% effective against mild-to-moderate infections with the B1351 variant identified in South Africa, a phase 1b-2 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found. Out of 750 people who received the vaccine, 19, or 2.5%, developed mild-to-moderate disease more than 14 days after the second dose, versus 23 infections among the 717-subject placebo arm. Of the 42 COVID-19 cases reported, 39, or nearly 93%, were caused by B1351.
Once COVID-19 moves "from a pandemic situation to an endemic situation," Pfizer sees "significant opportunity" for its vaccine "from a pricing perspective," Frank D'Amelio, CFO & executive VP of global supply, said at a Barclays virtual healthcare conference last week. Once the pandemic phase subsides, normal market conditions will start to kick in, and D'Amelio predicts Comirnaty's strong clinical profile will put it in high demand. Story
Catalent will expand its production capacity in Europe to manufacture the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. A plant in Anagni, Italy, will bring on a second production line in the fourth quarter of this year. Story
States are hustling to expand vaccine access after President Joe Biden last week said he would order them to make all adults eligible for the shot by May 1. Maine, Virginia and Wisconsin, as well as Washington D.C., have pledged to meet that deadline, while Colorado, Connecticut, Ohio, Michigan, Montana and Utah aim to expand access before then. Since December, the U.S. has delivered some 143 million vaccine doses to states and territories, the CDC says. It's now averaging about 2.4 million shots a day, more than double its distribution output in January.
President Biden said he is in talks with several countries about distributing surplus COVID-19 vaccines. He previously said he intends to ensure all Americans have access to vaccinations before shipping available stock overseas. Mexico has requested America's unused AstraZeneca shots; the shot isn't approved in the U.S. but is in use in Mexico.
Ships will duke it out with planes to deliver COVID-19 vaccines this year as air freight capacity is exhausted and shots make their way to Africa, Asia and South America, the head of pharmaceuticals at the container group Maersk told the Financial Times. By the middle of the year, Maersk's Hristo Petkov predicts half of all vaccine distribution will occur locally via trucks and short-haul flights, with ships and planes battling over the remaining half. Land and air have prevailed in the distribution push so far because the factories making those vaccines are mainly based in Europe, India and the U.S.'--close to early recipients.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said they will restart the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine if it is cleared by the European Medicines Agency. The countries are among 15 in Europe that have stopped administering the shot based on reports of blood clots.
Meanwhile, the EMA is expected to grant AstraZeneca's vaccine safety clearance Thursday. The investigation is still ongoing, but the agency remains "firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing Covid-19 ... outweigh the risks of these side effects," said Emer Cooke, executive director of the EMA.
Plus, France faces "a kind of third wave" of COVID-19 infections, Prime Minister Jean Castex said Tuesday, linking the surge to emerging virus variants. The country is grappling with widely reported mutants from the U.K., South Africa and Brazil, and also has concerns about a new variant in Brittany, which it classifies as a "variant under investigation." The variant doesn't seem to increase transmissibility or disease severity, according to a first analysis.
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 16 at 3:03 p.m.
The FDA has altered its emergency use authorizations for Eli Lilly and Regeneron's COVID-19 antibody drugs and is now requiring the companies to monitor emerging coronavirus variants and to potentially test their drugs against them. The guidance applies to Regeneron's combination of casirivimab and imdevimab and to Lilly's bamlanivimab and its combo treatment of bamlanivimab and etesevimab. All of the drugs are for patients with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19. Coronavirus variants, especially the South African strain, have shown increased resistance to antibody treatments. Story
Maryland-based Emergent BioSolutions will receive aid from the Canadian government as it expands its plant in Winnipeg. The factory already has the capability of manufacturing vaccines, including COVID-19 shots. The deal could provide Canada with its first domestic plant manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines. Story
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine is under relentless fire, but analysts from Jefferies believe the company is positioned well because of its pipeline of promising drugs and the strength of its oncology offerings. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 16 at 11:03 a.m.
Pfizer-BioNTech's total supply of COVID-19 vaccine doses to Europe will reach 200 million by the end of the second quarter, according to European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen. Reuters confirmed the figure with Pfizer. The shipments include 10 million doses, previously earmarked for later delivery, that will be expedited. Also in the second quarter, the EU expects to receive 55 million doses of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine and 35 million doses of the Moderna shot. Europe hopes to have 70% of its population vaccinated by the end of the summer.
AstraZeneca has modified an agreement with the United States to supply up to 500,000 additional doses of AZD7442, an experimental, long-acting antibody combination for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. This deal builds on an October contract to support late-stage development of the drug and an initial supply of 100,000 doses. AZ already had a pact with the DoD to supply 100,000 doses of the drug.
Moderna has dosed the first children in a phase 2/3 study of its mRNA vaccine. The study, conducted along with the NIH, includes kids between the ages of 6 months and 11 years in the United States and Canada. It will include approximately 6,750 participants.
The FDA has launched a website to track side effects from COVID-19 treatments that have received emergency use authorization. The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System is a public dashboard that will be updated weekly. In its debut week, the dashboard registered 8,627 reports with 5,000 determined to be serious and an additional 1,404 reporting a death. Story
Maryland-based Emergent BioSolutions will receive aid from Canada as it expands its plant in Winnipeg. The factory can already manufacture vaccines, including COVID-19 shots.
Sweden and Latvia joined a growing list of European countries that have suspended use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Sweden's move is pending a report from the European Medicines Agency, expected later this week. The European Union's three largest countries'--Germany, Italy and France'--discontinued use of the shot on Monday. Meanwhile, Venezuela said it would not authorize use of the AZ vaccine.
The World Health Organization's committee on vaccine safety will meet on Tuesday to discuss the AstraZeneca COVID-19 shot and reports of it causing blood clots. Meanwhile, WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan urged people not to panic, saying that the incidence of blood clots to AZ vaccine recipients has been ''less than what you would expect in the general population.''
AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot is on the ''hot seat" over delivery delays of its COVID-19 vaccine, according to France's industry minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher. The company originally agreed to provide 90 million doses to the European Union by the end of March but revised that number to 30 million last week.
UPDATED: Monday, March 15 at 3:10 p.m. PM
Problems continue to mount for AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine. On Monday, Germany became the largest country to join the growing list of those suspending use of the shot. The company has been beset with supply problems, especially in Europe. And confidence in the vaccine is declining with reports of it causing blood clots. Over the weekend, the company issued a statement defending the jab's safety. Story
In another bit of negative news regarding AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine supply shortfall in Europe, the company's revised goal of providing 30 million doses of the shot, which is 60 million fewer than originally promised, is not even assured. The new target hinges on the European Union's regulator approving supplies from a factory in the Netherlands, according to an internal document.
Results from a 30,000-person U.S. trial of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine are under review and if positive could clear the way for approval in a month, according to NIH director Francis Collins.
Moderna was quick to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Now it has started phase 1 testing of its next-gen mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, which would be refrigerator stable and easier to distribute and administer than its current shot.
Early commercial batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine had lower levels of mRNA than clinical batches, which prompted major concerns for regulators from the European Medicines Agency before the shot was approved. The information came by way of an EMA cyberattack which was leaked to journalists. While the production issue has been resolved, the incident demonstrates the complexities of quality assurance for mRNA vaccines. Story
After one failed attempt to develop a COVID-19 drug, Molecular Partners and Novartis have partnered again for another try. On Monday, they announced that ensovibep will be included in an NIH global phase 3 clinical trial, ACTIV-3, which evaluates therapies for the treatment of adults hospitalized with COVID-19. Story
Customers visiting Black-owned barbershops in New York, Chicago and the Raleigh-Durham area will get more than a haircut. They'll also get facemasks, hand sanitizer and information on how to join a treatment trial if they become infected with COVID-19. The marketing effort is by ACTIV, a public/private initiative created by the NIH to help overcome the community's distrust of the medical field, especially in regard to trials and experiments. Story
UPDATED: Monday, March 15 at 10:57 p.m. ET
The European Union will begin depending more on Pfizer and BioNTech for its COVID-19 vaccine supply, according to EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton. The news came shortly after AstraZeneca warned the EU of a supply shortfall. The company had originally pledged to deliver 90 million vaccine doses by the end of the first quarter but told the EU on Friday to expect only 30 million doses to arrive by the end of March.
With some countries refusing to administer the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, the company issued a strong written response defending its safety. Data from more than 17 million vaccine doses showed ''no evidence of increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia, in any defined age group, gender, batch or in any particular country,'' according to the release. The number of reported cases of DVT (15) and pulmonary embolism (22) is ''much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population of this size,'' added the release. Story
Three people in Norway have been hospitalized with blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The country was among seven in Europe which last week shut down vaccines with all or part of their available AZ stock. The European Medicines Agency will investigate.
Add Ireland and the Netherlands to the growing list of countries that have suspended use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Both countries took the action after reports of three vaccine recipients in Norway being hospitalized with blood clots. On Friday, Thailand became the first country outside of Europe to halt vaccinations. Ireland's chief medical officer Ronan Glynn said: ''We may be overreacting. ... Hopefully we will have data to reassure us in a few short days and we will be back up and running with this.''
The U.S. will continue to sit on its stockpile of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine amid pressure to send the supply overseas. The AZ shot has yet to be approved in the U.S. ''We have a small inventory of AZ so that, if approved, we can get the inventory out to the American people as quickly as possible,'' said COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients, in a press briefing. ''We're rightly focused on getting Americans vaccinated as soon as possible.''
Takeda announced a mutual agreement with IDT Biologika and Johnson & Johnson for the Germany-based CDMO to manufacture the J&J COVID-19 vaccine. Takeda had originally reserved IDT to produce its dengue fever vaccine, which is subject to regulatory approvals. The agreement with J&J extends over the next three months.
Novo Nordisk is in preliminary talks with the Danish government to establish local vaccine production. The news comes after prime minister Mette Frederiksen expressed concern over delays in the European Union in supplying COVID-19 vaccines. Novo Nordisk has production facilities in eight countries.
Molecular Partners AG and Novartis announced that its COVID-19 drug ensovibep will be included in an NIH global phase 3 clinical trial. ACTIV-3 evaluates various therapies for the treatment of adults hospitalized with COVID-19. Ensovibep binds the receptor-binding domain of the SARS-CoV2 spike protein to prevent entry into cells and may provide added protection against variant strains.
Facebook has launched a global campaign to help people get vaccinated. The Covid Information Center will appear in users' news feeds with a link to schedule an appointment. Facebook also will bring the information center to Instagram and is urging governments to expand their WhatsApp chatbots to help people register.
UPDATED: Friday, March 12 at 3:59 p.m. ET
AstraZeneca is set to request emergency use authorization from the United States for its COVID-19 vaccine. The request will come later this month or in early April, Reuters reports.
AstraZeneca has revised its estimate for delivery of its COVID-19 vaccine to Europe in the first quarter and the news isn't good. After originally agreeing to supply 90 million vaccine doses in the first quarter, the company on Friday said only 30 million will be possible. Story
In a related report, the European Union has been told not to expect supplies of the vaccine anytime soon from AZ's manufacturing facilities in the United States.
Also with regard to the AZ vaccine, Germany and a few other large European countries are expressing disappointment in countries that have suspended use of all or some of their vaccine supplies from the company.
Piloting Pfizer through its rapid and successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic has paid off for Albert Bourla. The Pfizer CEO collected more than $21 million last year, according to a proxy filing submitted Friday. The company is eyeing $15 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales this year. Story
Also on Bourla, the Pfizer chief said it was a ''question of weeks'' until kids ages 12-16 could start receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, pending approval from the FDA. Pfizer recently enrolled more than 2,000 children ages 12-15 in clinical trials. Further, praising the efforts of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure Pfizer vaccines, Bourla said the prime minister "called me 30 times.''
Analysts from Jefferies took a detailed look at how pharma companies have fared during the coronavirus pandemic and assessed their fitness to deal with another crisis. Some products, such as GlaxoSmithKline's Shingrix, suffered because older adults were hesitant to visit clinics. Others, like Sanofi's flu shots, thrived. Overall, companies best suited to a crisis are ones with a diversified portfolio of drugs. Story
Jefferies further lays out a case that companies could benefit from products that combat ''long COVID'' problems, including mental health, lung scarring, kidney disease and heart failure.
In phase 2 and 3 testing, Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine showed vastly different efficacy protection rates against the British (86%) and South African (49%) variants. But regardless of the strain, the vaccine was 100% effective in preventing severe forms of the disease. Of 10 people who developed severe COVID-19 cases, all were placebo recipients. Story
Altimmune has expanded its manufacturing agreement with Lonza to produce its AdCOVID intranasal vaccine candidate. Lonza's facility in Houston, Texas, will handle clinical and commercial production. The vaccine has been shown in early studies to activate mucosal immunity which could prevent infection and transmission of the disease.
UPDATED: Friday, March 12 at 11:18 a.m. ET
Thirty million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are sitting in a facility in Ohio while other countries are asking to use them, The New York Times reports. The AZ shot has yet to be approved in the U.S. There are discussions within the government about the risk of expiration as the shelf life of the AZ jab is six months. Possible solutions are to ship them to Europe or COVID-ravaged Brazil.
Pfizer and Moderna are scheduled to have delivered 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the U.S. each by the end of March. So how are they doing? As of Wednesday afternoon, Moderna had supplied 64 million doses while Pfizer had supplied 61 million. While deliveries lagged early in the year, they've stepped up dramatically. Over the last two weeks, both companies have provided 20 million weekly doses each. Continuing that trend would allow both to meet the goal.
Pfizer-BioNTech announced that real-world data from Israel shows that their COVID-19 vaccine is 94% effective in preventing asymptomatic infections, meaning it could significantly reduce transmission. The vaccine also was 97% effective in preventing severe disease and death. In addition, data shows better than 80% efficacy against the British variant of the coronavirus.
Sanofi and Translate Bio announced a phase 1/2 trial for their mRNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The companies expect results in the third quarter of this year. Story
Pfizer-BioNTech will supply Japan with 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine by June, a month before the Olympic Games are scheduled to begin in Tokyo. In May, Japan expects to receive 10 million doses per week from Pfizer, followed by increased amounts in June. This order will allow Japan to inoculate 50 million people, half the country's population. The International Olympic Committee has said it will not jump the line to vaccinate athletes.
Daiichi Sankyo has begun manufacturing the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in Japan, filling vials and packaging them for shipment. AZ has agreed to supply Japan with 120 million vaccine doses, 30 of which will be provided through Daiichi Sankyo and KM Biologics. Production of the other 90 million doses will be handled by JCR Pharmaceuticals.
ApiJect Systems announced that Raymond J. Guidotti is its new Chief Operating Officer. He brings 30 years of pharma experience, most recently at Thermo Fisher, to the company that specializes in vaccine production.
UPDATED: Thursday, March 11 at 4:24 p.m. ET
Europe has approved the Johnson & Johnson single-shot COVID-19 vaccine, accepting the recommendation of the European Medicines Agency from earlier in the day. It is the fourth coronavirus vaccine endorsed by the EU, joining the two-shot vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca.
Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline announced that a trial evaluating VIR-7831 as a therapy for early treatment of high-risk COVID-19 patients has been stopped due to profound efficacy. Based on 85% success, the companies will apply for emergency use authorization from the FDA. Story
A Merck facility in Durham, N.C. will produce bulk substance for manufacture of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and will receive $105.4 million from the U.S. government for upgrades. The two pharma giants entered into a ''wartime'' agreement last week allowing J&J to increase vaccine production. Story
Seven countries in Europe have halted distribution of some or all of their AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine supplies. Austria started the wave after a clotting issue turned up in one recipient. Then Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg stopped using vaccines from the same batch. Denmark and Norway followed suit, halting all AZ vaccinations. This is the latest in a series of negative reports about the vaccine which has been plagued by supply shortfalls in Europe and questions about its safety and effectiveness, which have led to unused stock in some countries. Story
In a related story, the European Medicines Agency found no linkage between two people in Austria who became ill after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. One of the people, 49, died 10 days after receiving the shot.
There are differing public perceptions about the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine: one in the U.K. and another in the rest of Europe. A poll by YouGov found that 81% of Brits believe the AZ vaccine is safe, even more so than the Pfizer shot (79%). In Germany (43%) and France (33%) however, faith in the AZ jab is much lower. Developed at Oxford, the AZ shot was rolled out in England as a source of public pride. But supply issues, reports of side effects and doubts about the vaccine's effectiveness among the elderly and safety have chipped away at its reputation in some areas of Europe. Story
Researchers in the U.K. have identified a key inflammatory protein which could be linked to severe COVID-19. In an analysis of more than 500 COVID-19 patients, researchers identified a cytokine (GM-CSF) which was present at higher levels in those who progressed to critical conditions. The protein also was found to be nearly 10 times higher in those who died. Researchers believe this discovery could help detect those most at risk and provide a target for new treatments.
Pfizer will wait until the ''pandemic supply phase'' is over before considering production of its COVID-19 vaccine outside of Europe and the United States. The statement from the company came after a Reuters report that Pfizer told India that it would produce its shot there if assured of regulatory clearance and freedom on pricing and exports.
We've yet to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, but Abbott is planning for the next one. The company is launching a Pandemic Defense Coalition to detect and track emerging viruses and dangerous mutations. The network will include centers with expertise in lab testing, genetic sequencing and public health. Since the team plans to publish their findings, other scientists will be able to determine if new viruses pose threats.
Jubilant has agreed to terms with Eli Lilly to produce bamlanivimab, a treatment for COVID-19 which recently was granted emergency use approval from the FDA. The drug will be manufactured in Seattle by Jubilant's subsidiary, Jubilant HollisterStier.
The governors of Colorado and Oregon have asked the FDA to allow COVID-19 vaccine pooling. The strategy combines leftovers from different vials of the same type of vaccine, stretching the supply. The FDA advises against the practice, citing contamination and infection risks. The governors argue the benefits outweigh the risks.
Novartis has invested $23.8 million in its manufacturing site in Kundl, Austria, which will produce COVID-19 vaccines for CureVac. The facility will pump out 50 million doses by the end of this year and up to 200 million in 2022. It also will add up to 100 employees as part of the ramp up.
On the anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the coronavirus pandemic, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla wrote in an open letter posted on the company's website. Bourla recognized the surge of optimism that has accompanied vaccine rollouts but also stressed the importance of maintaining social distance and wearing masks until herd immunity is achieved.
UPDATED: Thursday, March 11 at 11:21 a.m. ET
Europe's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) issued a positive opinion, recommending that the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine be approved. Data from the Ensemble study showed the single-shot vaccine was 85% effective in preventing severe disease. The vaccine was authorized by the FDA for use in the United States on Feb. 27. Europe has approved vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca.
Phase 3 testing of Roche's Actemra (tocilizumab) as an add-on to Gilead Sciences' remdesivir'--now sold as Veklury in the U.S.'--failed to top Veklury alone in patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. Roche's Genentech unit will continue to evaluate data from this study and others using Actemra on coronavirus patients with pneumonia. Story
Denmark has suspended use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for 14 days after reports of blood clots and one death. The precautionary measure will give experts time to determine whether the incidents are linked to the vaccine. Shots from the same batch were suspended last week in Austria after the death of one woman. But the European Medicines Agency ruled out the vaccine as a cause. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg also have stopped using the batch.
Los Angeles informed residents of a slowdown in the administration of COVID-19 vaccines, blaming a shortage of shots from Johnson & Johnson. The warning comes as people with underlying health conditions become eligible on Monday. The scarcity is a statewide problem, said Gov. Gavin Newsom, who added that he expects a steadier and stronger stream of deliveries by ''next month.''
Cancer patients who receive one Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine have little protection against the disease, according to a study in the U.K. After a second shot, however, the patients had the same level of protection as those who are cancer-free. Among 151 people with solid cancers (lung, breast, bowel), 39% were protected three weeks after receiving one Pfizer shot. Among 54 people with blood cancers, just 13% were protected. This compares to a 97% protection rate for those without cancer.
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 10 at 3:14 p.m. ET
Thermo Fisher will pour more than $600 million into capital investment which will help the CDMO meet COVID-19 demand in the short term and more than double production capacity in the long term. Thermo Fisher will add at least 1,500 new employees as part of the expansion. The upgrades, at 11 Thermo Fisher facilities in the Americas, Europe and Asia, will be complete by the end of 2022. Story
The British variant of COVID-19 has been detected in 31 of 39 wastewater treatment plants in Houston, suggesting the more transmissible variant is spreading quickly. The samples are from Feb. 22. When the same tests were done on Feb. 8, the U.K. variant was detected at just 21 of the plants. ''It's actively spreading in our city,'' said Houston's chief medical officer David Persee. The news comes amid Texas relaxing coronavirus safety measures.
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 10 at 10:55 p.m. ET
The United States has agreed to purchase 100 million additional COVID-19 vaccines from Johnson & Johnson. President Joe Biden will announce the deal on Wednesday afternoon, according to media reports, which brings U.S. supply to 800 million doses, more than enough for the U.S. to vaccinate its entire adult population. The U.S. had already locked down enough to do so with last month's deals for 200 million doses from Moderna and Pfizer. Story
Eli Lilly's antibody combination of bamlanivimab and etesevimab reduced hospitalizations and death by 87% in high-risk patients recently diagnosed with COVID-19. The results, from a phase 3 study in 769 patients, showed an improvement on the 70% figure in a previous test of a 2800 mg/2800 mg mixture. The most recent study used a 700 mg bamlanivimab/1400 mg etesevimab blend. Combining both studies, there were 13 COVID-19 related deaths in patients receiving placebo and none in patients who received either antibody concoction. Story
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said Johnson & Johnson has warned of manufacturing problems with the company's COVID-19 vaccine, which was endorsed for use in the country last week. Canada has ordered 10 million doses of J&J's single-shot vaccine. More than 5% of the country's 38 million people have been vaccinated so far. Earlier this week, the European Union got the same warning from J&J.
Pfizer-BioNTech could have the capacity to make 3 billion doses of its two-shot COVID-19 vaccine by next year, according to BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin. The two companies are scheduled to produce 2 billion doses this year, which includes a contract to provide 500 million doses to the European Union.
VBI Vaccines is launching a phase 1/2 study in Canada of its COVID-19 vaccine, VB-2902. The company also announced a partnership with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop vaccine candidates to combat SARS-CoV-2 variants. CEPI will provide $33 million to advance VBI-2905 specifically against the South African strain. VBI develops enveloped virus-like particle (eVLP) vaccines. The company is based in Massachusetts, with research operations in Canada and a manufacturing site in Israel.
The British variant of COVID-19 is between 30% to 100% more lethal than previous strains, according to researchers. The study compared death rates among those in Britain infected with the variant, known as B.1.1.7, against those infected with other strains. In a group of 54,906 COVID-19 patients, there were 227 deaths among those infected with the variant as opposed to 141 deaths among the same number of patients with other strains. Researchers also discovered that the variant is 40% to 70% more transmissible.
World Trade Organization members opened talks on Wednesday on a joint proposal by South Africa and India to waive intellectual property rights on certain COVID-19 technologies. The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations opposes the proposal, contending that supply bottlenecks and the scarcity of raw materials are preventing pharma companies from increasing capacity. In a letter to President Joe Biden, members of PhRMA also urged him to oppose the push.
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 9 at 3:47 p.m. ET
In a letter to President Joe Biden, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America has requested that he oppose a push to suspend critical provisions of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. In October, India and South Africa requested the World Health Organization to suspend TRIPS during the coronavirus pandemic. PhRMA contends that there is no evidence that intellectual property protections are hindering the global response to the pandemic.
The FDA has approved Cue Health's cartridge-based nasal swab test that can be done completely at home without a prescription. The kit includes a battery-powered cartridge reader that connects to a smartphone app. Results are available in 20 minutes. The company said it expects to be able to produce 100,000 tests per day by the summer. Story
Johnson & Johnson revealed that trials for its COVID-19 vaccine, which was recently approved for use in the United States, had largely been done virtually through IQVIA. The virtual tests began in September. Contract research organizations have been offering siteless trials since the first wave of the pandemic last year. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 9 at 10:14 a.m. ET
How much money will the makers of the three COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the U.S. make from their shots? Fox Business breaks it down. Pfizer and BioNTech will generate $15 billion in revenues this year from sales of 1.3 billion doses. Moderna expects to supply 1 billion doses in 2021 and 1.4 billion in 2022 for a total haul of $18.4 billion. Johnson & Johnson is on track to supply 1 billion doses of its single-shot vaccine in 2021 for $10 billion in revenue.
The COVID-19 vaccine by AstraZeneca will soon be under review by the FDA. But approval could be complicated by testing data that's inconclusive. An ongoing phase 3 study in the U.S. and South America could answer many of the questions about the vaccine's effectiveness in the elderly, which dosing regimen works best and how the shot performs against variants. On Friday, AZ executive Ruud Dobber told CBS News that the company will seek emergency use authorization in the U.S. in ''the next few weeks.''
Europe has been beset by supply problems for coronavirus vaccines. Now comes word that the European Union may be facing similar issues from Johnson & Johnson, which has warned the bloc of problems that may impact supply in the second quarter, an EU official told Reuters. The J&J vaccine is expected to be endorsed for use in Europe later this week. The company has agreed to supply the EU with 200 million doses this year. Story
The COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech is effective against the more infectious Brazilian strain of the virus, according to a lab study. The pharmaceutical companies and the University of Texas took blood samples from people who had received the Pfizer vaccine and put them in contact with an artificially created P1 Brazilian virus. The samples from vaccinated people negated the virus. The variant has surged through Brazil, reinfecting people who previously had the virus. The Pfizer vaccine has also performed well in tests vs. the variants from Great Britain and South Africa. Story
As it deals with a brutal second wave of coronavirus deaths, Brazil is seeking to buy AstraZeneca vaccines from other countries and is pressing Pfizer for early delivery of its vaccine. Studies have shown both vaccines are effective against Brazil's more infectious P1 strain of the virus. Less than 4% of the country has been inoculated.
Greece and Norway joined a growing list of European countries offering the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to the elderly. In light of recent studies, Greece reversed a previous ruling restricting use of the AZ shot for those age 65 and older. Norway did the same on Tuesday. Last week, France, Germany, Sweden and Hungary endorsed the AZ shot for the elderly.
UPDATED: Monday, March 8 at 4:04 p.m. ET
While promoting its coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik V, through social media, Russia also has mounted a campaign to undermine confidence in Western COVID-19 vaccines, according to the State Department. Meanwhile, the Sputnik V Twitter account, which reaches the world with cheeky commentary, notched verified status last week. Story
After several missteps in its COVID-19 research efforts, Merck got some positive news in a trial of molnupiravir. The antiviral drug, developed along with Ridgeback, has hit secondary objectives in a new trial, showing a reduction in positive viral culture. Story
CytoDyn's leronlimab has missed all primary and secondary endpoints in a phase 3 trial of its COVID-19 drug. But by focusing on a subset of severely ill patients on ventilators, CytoDyn found an improved chance of survival and a reduction in the length of hospital stays. Story
UPDATED: Monday, March 8 at 11:04 a.m. ET
Baxter BioPharma Solutions will help manufacture and supply 60 million to 90 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine this year from its plant in Bloomington, Ind. The companies announced the agreement on Monday. Baxter will help with the fill-and-finish portion of the manufacturing process.
At least one in five Europeans would refuse the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, according to an opinion poll by YouGov. Trust in the two other vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, is much higher, according to the poll. In Germany, for example, 27% of people said they would turn down the AZ vaccine and wait for another, compared to a 12% refusal rate for the Moderna vaccine and 6% for the Pfizer-BioNTech shot. Last week, several European countries, including France, Hungary and Germany, allowed the elderly to receive the AZ vaccine after initially limiting its use.
Austria has suspended the use of a batch of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as it investigates the death of one woman and the illness of another. Both were nurses working in a clinic in Zwettl. A 49-year-old nurse died from coagulation disorders. The other, 35, suffered a pulmonary embolism. The vaccine was deemed safe in clinical trials.
Ivermectin, a drug to combat parasitic worms and head lice, should not be used to prevent or treat COVID-19, according to the FDA. Some people have experimented with another form of the drug, commonly given to horses, and have been hospitalized. Misinformation has allowed some unproven COVID-19 treatments to gain traction, including hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug touted by former President Donald Trump.
Bharat Biotech has begun phase 1 testing of its second COVID-19 vaccine, a single-dose nasal spray. Bharat has already developed Covaxin, a two-shot vaccine that has posted 82% efficacy in a phase 3 trial. Intranasal vaccines have attracted attention because they are easily administered and can be used quickly to cover a large population.
Antibody-drug developer Prestige BioLogics will build a vaccine production center for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. The construction will begin this month and be complete by the end of the year. ''The pandemic is increasing concerns about virus infections in the future while raising expectations about related vaccines,'' Prestige CEO Park So-yeon told Korea Biomedical Review.
UPDATED: Friday, March 5 at 3:52 p.m. ET
There's a debate within the Catholic Church over the morality of taking the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. This week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said it's "acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses" when others aren't available. The USCCB favors the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but said that considering the global pain caused by COVID-19, "being vaccinated can be an act of charity that serves the common good." However, one bishop, David Kagan of North Dakota, has prohibited those in his diocese from taking the J&J shot.
Manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines around the world could soon be feeling the pinch of the United States' move to lock up raw materials and supplies for Pfizer. The Serum Institute of India, the world's largest producer of vaccines, and the World Health Organization are warning of supply bottlenecks that could slow production. Story
A Pfizer plant in Kansas has a long history of quality and sanitary issues, but is lined up to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines for the company. The FDA has repeatedly flagged the factory for violations, most recently in January of 2020 when mold and bacteria were discovered in areas that were supposed to be sterile. Pfizer maintains that the problems have been remedied. Story
Wells Fargo will give employees up to eight hours of paid time off to take care of COVID-19 vaccine appointments, the company announced. The bank also will provide free coronavirus testing at its 25 largest hubs, while other employees required to report to the office can request free at home-testing kits.
UPDATED: Friday, March 5 at 11:15 a.m. ET
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has postponed a visit to Israel because he and his delegation are not fully immunized against the coronavirus, according to an Israeli TV report. Bourla, 59, has said he would not cut the line for a vaccine. Last week, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the Pfizer visit and suggested the possibility of Pfizer building a plant in the country. With elections upcoming, Netanyahu had touted his relationship with the company as key to Israel's successful vaccination push.
Australia has asked the European Commission to review Italy's decision to block the export of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to its country, a move that was signed off on by the EU because of AZ's failure to meet contracted supplies. While Australian prime minister Scott Morrison requested the review, he also said he could appreciate the decision by Italy where ''people are dying at the rate of 300 a day." Italy has had 99,000 COVID-19 deaths compared to 900 for Australia. Meanwhile other European countries are offering various levels of support for Italy's move.
Pakistan will rely solely on free COVID-19 vaccines donated by friendly countries. World relief effort COVAX will deliver 16 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Pakistan by the end of June. China has already supplied half of a 1 million dose commitment of Sinophram vaccines. Pakistan has administered 275,000 of those doses to health professionals.
Hungary joined the growing list of European countries allowing the elderly to take the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The country will permit those older than 60 to get the shot. Hungary has been aggressive in its efforts to vaccinate, accepting shipments of China's Sinopharm and Russia's Sputnik V vaccines even though neither have been approved by the European Union.
Germany will allow people 65 and older to receive the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. It is a reversal in a country that was one of the first in Europe to restrict use of the AZ vaccine among the elderly. But new data has supported the effectiveness of the AZ shot, compelling countries to reconsider.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is effective against the Brazilian coronavirus variant, P1, and will not need to be modified to protect against it, according to a study at Oxford cited by Reuters. Earlier results showed that the AZ vaccine was less effective against the South African variant, which is similar to P1. Brazil is suffering through a brutal second coronavirus wave. On Wednesday, the country recorded its daily record of 1,910 deaths.
Takeda has filed a request with Japan's health ministry to approve Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine. Takeda is Moderna's partner for study, importation and distribution of the vaccine in Japan. The country has already approved and begun administering vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
Oxford has closed a trial for colchicine, an anti-inflammatory medicine used to combat gout which had been named as a possible treatment for COVID-19. The study provided no convincing evidence that the drug was effective in hospitalized coronavirus patients.
A day after mayor Mike Duggan said that Detroit was ''gonna protect Detroiters with a 95% vaccine,'' the city has declined 6,200 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. A spokesman explained later that Detroit has enough vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer to more than cover all of the upcoming week's appointments. He added that J&J vaccines would be accepted in the next round and that the city would set up a separate site for J&J vaccinations with patients having the option to decline.
As the world battles the coronavirus pandemic, not only are vaccines a precious commodity, so are syringes. In a typical year, 16 billion syringes are used in the world, with only 5% to 10% used for vaccinations. But the global pandemic has brought the need for 8 to 10 billion syringes alone.
Some people are reporting delayed reactions to Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, according to the New York Times. The reactions, roughly a week later, can be confused with an infection and include swelling, itchiness, soreness and discoloration.
UPDATED: Thursday, March 4 at 4:03 p.m. ET
A shipment of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines bound for Australia has been blocked by Italy and the European Union because of the company's failure to meet contractual commitments with Europe. With AZ requesting to export 250,000 doses of the vaccine from a Catalent plant in Anagni, Italy refused and the EU backed the decision.
A large clinical trial by NIH investigating the effectiveness of two monoclonal antibody treatments for hospitalized COVID-19 patients has been halted. One of the studies was for VIR-7831, from Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline. The other was a review of BRII-196 and BRII-198 from Brii Biosciences. Both phase 2/3 trials were closed due to futility. Another trial of BRII-196 and BRI-198 will continue with patients who are not hospitalized.
The Government Accounting Office is working with the FDA to solve its growing backlog of inspections, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Conducting only inspections deemed ''mission critical,'' the FDA failed to complete more than 1,000 planned inspections last year. Story
Long-haul coronavirus patients are those who experience lingering symptoms for months. But there is some evidence that these patients improve after receiving vaccines. Information is limited and the data is anecdotal but if the pattern holds, it could help experts discover why symptoms persist in some and could offer a path to relief.
UPDATED: Thursday, March 4 at 10:28 a.m. ET
An enormous international database, funded by Google, launched today to track coronavirus cases. The repository at Global.health is more detailed than Johns Hopkins' COVID-19 dashboard, collecting 40 variables on subjects, such as the date symptoms first appeared, the date of their first positive test and travel history. The data will help researchers discover how rapidly new variants spread, whether vaccines protect against them and how long immunity to the virus lasts.
Pfizer will send 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Brazil as the country battles a severe outbreak. With vaccine supplies stretched thin and a homegrown variant surging, Brazil is posting daily records for coronavirus deaths. Contrary to far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's lead, S£o Paolo state has issued a partial lockdown.
CureVac has enlisted the help of Novartis to produce its COVID-19 vaccine. Novartis will manufacture the mRNA and bulk drug product at its site in Austria. Delivery is set to start in the summer of 2021 toward a goal of 50 million doses by the end of this year and an additional 200 million doses in 2022. Other vaccine manufacturing partners CureVac has recruited in Europe include Bayer, Fareva, Wacker and Rentschler. Story
The European Medicines Agency has started a rolling review of the Sputnik V adenovirus COVID-19 vaccine developed by Russia's Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology. A rolling review allows data to arrive as it becomes available and accelerates the approval process.
Two people with preexisting conditions died within days of receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, triggering an investigation by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. A 63-year-old nursing home patient with cerebrovascular disease died Tuesday after developing a fever and then being hospitalized with symptoms of blood poisoning and pneumonia. A man in his 50s with a cardiac disorder died on Wednesday after suffering multiple heart attacks a day after receiving the shot. South Korea has vaccinated more than 85,000 with the AZ shot since kicking off the campaign last week.
Partnerships involving drug companies and private foundations have received little scrutiny during the coronavirus pandemic, the BMJ argues. One example is Wellcome Trust, one of the world's top funders of health research, which holds investments in companies such as Roche and Novartis, which stand to benefit from those funding efforts. The same potential for conflicts of interest exists with the Gates Foundation, the journal said.
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 3 at 3:52 p.m. ET
Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious diseases expert, said that the U.S. will continue as planned to vaccinate Americans with both doses of COVID-19 shots from Pfizer and Moderna. There has been a push to quickly vaccinate as many people as possible with one shot. ''We're telling people (two shots) is what you should do,'' Fauci told the Washington Post. He said it would be a "messaging challenge" to change course now.
Developing vaccines was the first major step in combating the coronavirus pandemic. Now comes the next and perhaps more daunting challenge: producing and delivering vaccines to the world. Fierce Pharma breaks down the supply-chain efforts of the five vaccine companies leading the charge. Story
The coronavirus pandemic has been a game-changer for Novavax. Entering last year, the company had $80 million in cash and a ''financial operating horizon'' of six months, according to its CEO. Fast forward to today and Novavax is a major player on the world stage. By midyear, Novavax expects to have the FDA endorsement of its COVID-19 vaccine and the capacity to produce 2 billion annual doses after building a global network of manufacturing sites and partners in 10 countries. Story
Government funding to the tune of $269 million will help Merck upgrade and leverage two of its manufacturing plants in the United States to produce Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine. Some of the funds were secured by way of the Defense Production Act, which helped the Biden administration facilitate the unusual alliance between the pharma giants. Story
An NIH trial of an experimental COVID-19 antibody treatment from GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology has been halted because of concerns over its effectiveness. Other tests for the dual-action monoclonal antibody drug remain active, while the NIH study closes enrollment and lets the ''data mature.'' Vir shares fell 30% with the news, while GSK's remained stable. Story
Merck isn't giving up on its COVID-19 medicine, MK-7100. Last week, it was reported that the FDA asked for more data beyond a phase 3 study. Merck is preparing the drug for another go-round. The company picked up the drug when it acquired Oncolmmune late last year and then signed a $365 million deal to provide it to the U.S. Story
German health minister Jens Spahn said that the country's health watchdog is set to recommend that the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine can be given to people older than 65. Germany's policy of limiting the AZ vaccine to those aged 18-64 has led to a slow uptake of available doses and unused vials. Early this week, France signed off on the AZ shot for those 65 and older. A recent study in Britain concluded that the AZ vaccine is just as effective as the shot from Pfizer-BioNTech.
Polish biotech Mabion has announced a framework agreement to produce antigen for Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine. It is an initial step toward a potential manufacturing deal between the two which would make Mabion the first Polish firm engaged in supplying coronavirus vaccines to the world.
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 3 at 12:10 p.m. ET
The Biden administration used the Defense Production Act to broker the manufacturing partnership between Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co., NPR reports. The unusual deal between the pharma giants had been discussed but the administration applied some ''implicit'' incentive for them to cooperate, according to the report.
The first round of allocations of the COVID-19 vaccine by COVAX were published. The team will ship 237 million doses of the AstraZeneca shot to 142 middle- and low-income countries by the end of May. The Serum Institute of India is the production partner for AZ. The largest allocations will go to Pakistan (14.6 million doses), Nigeria (13.7 million doses), Indonesia (11.7 million doses), Bangladesh (10.9 million doses) and Brazil (9.1 million doses). COVAX will publish a more detailed breakdown of first-round delivery timelines later this week.
In the largest trial ever conducted in India, Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, has shown 81% interim efficacy. Of 25,800 participants, there were 43 virus cases, seven in participants who had been vaccinated. India had already approved Covaxin in January without the phase 3 data, raising questions about its effectiveness. The country has seen a recent surge in cases.
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 2 at 3:22 p.m. ET
The European Union is showing fractures as some members are going outside the bloc in attempts to secure coronavirus vaccines. Leaders from Austria and Denmark, both critical of the EU's response to the pandemic, will visit Israel this week to discuss options for future vaccine production and supply. Other countries such as Slovakia and Hungary have turned to Russia and China, respectively, for shots that have not been approved in Europe. Only 5.5% percent of the EU's population of 447 million have received a first shot. The EU's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use will meet virtually on March 11 to evaluate Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine.
Johnson & Johnson will team up with pharma competitor Merck & Co. in an effort to boost production of its COVID-19 vaccine. The Biden administration helped arrange the partnership, according to the Washington Post. Merck will provide two manufacturing facilities in the U.S., one for making the vaccine substance and the other to fill vials. The move gets Merck back into the COVID game after it abandoned two efforts to develop vaccines. Story
The FDA is signing off on coronavirus tests that can be performed or started at home. The two most recently authorized tests are from Quidel and Eurofins. Quidel's antigen test requires a prescription and can be completed entirely from home. The over-the-counter kit from Eurofins includes a swab and mailing materials, promising a 48-hour turnaround. These are the fourth and fifth at-home tests approved by the FDA since November. Story
An antibody treatment for COVID-19 patients from Cerecor has completed a successful phase 2 trial, showing a 50% reduction in mortality at 28- and 60-day timepoints. Efficacy results were highest in patients older than 60. The small Maryland-based biopharma company will meet with the FDA to discuss a potential path to emergency use authorization. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 2 at 10:51 a.m. ET
A COVID-19 vaccine from Novavax could be available as early as May, according to CEO Stanley Erck, provided that the FDA allows data from a U.K. phase 3 trial that showed the shot had 89% efficacy. Speaking on CNBC, Erck said that the U.K. regulators will likely review the shot in April. A phase 3 trial that includes 30,000 participants in the U.S. is ongoing. Story
The first shipments of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccines have begun to arrive in low- and middle-income countries through the COVAX worldwide initiative, the drugmaker announced on Tuesday. Working with manufacturing giant Serum Institute of India, AZ sent vaccines to Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire last week, with shipments to follow to Philippines, Mongolia, Indonesia, Fiji and Moldova. The effort will include 142 countries.
In Britain, vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca are ''highly effective'' in reducing coronavirus infections and severe illness among the elderly, according to Public Health England. For those 80 and older, a single dose of either vaccine reduced hospital stays of three to four weeks by more than 80 percent. After 35 days of receiving the shot, protection from COVID-19 is actually slightly better with the AZ shot.
In France, AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine will be available to people ages 65-74 who have health issues that make them vulnerable to the virus, said health minister Olivier Veran. Previously the AZ shot was available in France only to those aged 50-64 with health concerns. People ages 75 and older remain eligible for only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
In Canada, the National Advisory Committee has recommended that the recently endorsed AstraZeneca vaccine not be given to those 65 and older, even after Health Canada authorized its use last week for all adults. The committee recommended that the AZ vaccine should instead be provided to essential workers. Health Canada's chief advisor Supriya Sharma countered that more information is forthcoming that shows the efficacy rate of the AZ shot may actually be higher than those for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
After weeks of steady decline in COVID-19 cases in the U.S., the trend broke last week, fueling concern of a looming variant wave. According to Bernstein analysts, the break is likely overstated because of a backlog in reporting due to the storm in Texas and a reversion to the mean after a shortened holiday week. Perhaps a better trend indicator was that hospital occupancy continued to decline at the same rate, the analysts wrote. The Bernstein team still warns that the threat of a variant wave is real, but can be neutralized by the expected vaccine supply increase this month.
Hydroxychloroquine, the anti-inflammatory drug once touted by former President Donald Trump, should not be used as a preventative measure against the coronavirus and has no real impact on those already infected, said the World Health Organization. The ''strong recommendation,'' from a WHO expert panel, was based on six trials including 6,000 participants both with and without exposure to COVID-19.
UPDATED: Monday, March 1 at 3:05 p.m. ET
Amid J&J's coronavirus vaccine rollout, the company and health officials are setting out to convince Americans about the shot's value. CEO Alex Gorsky and former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb took to the media to explain the value of the J&J vaccine and why efficacy rates of the shot had little chance to measure up to those of Pfizer and Moderna, which were tested under much different circumstances. On CNBC, Gorsky said, ''Our data actually includes these most challenging, pernicious, virulent strains and what we saw was an 85% effectiveness rate in the severe disease.'' Story
With the goal of delivering 20 million doses by the end of March and 100 million by the end of June, Johnson & Johnson is seeking manufacturing partnerships to increase supply, CEO Alex Gorsky told Bloomberg. J&J's manufacturing network extends to Europe, Asia and Africa. The company hopes to have eight facilities operating by midyear. ''One of our facilities was literally a parking lot 12 months ago,'' Gorsky said. ''Today it's one of the most advanced biopharmaceutical vaccine manufacturing facilities in the world. We're learning along the way.'' Story
By cashing in its 7.65% stake in Moderna at an undisclosed point last year, AstraZeneca made approximately $1 billion, the British pharma revealed in its annual report. Over the years, amid several strategic collaborations, AZ had invested more than $290 million in Moderna. When Moderna's value surged with the development and rollout of its COVID-19 vaccine, AZ was positioned to profit. During the year, Moderna's share price swelled from just under $20 to $160. Story
Flowserve, a manufacturer of industrial and environmental machinery, is providing pumps, valves and seals to Pfizer for its production of the COVID-19 vaccine. During engineering runs of vaccine production, Pfizer needed immediate support to replace a mechanical mixer seal on its production line. Flowserve will supply Pfizer with more than 200 Worcester cryogenic ball valves that can handle the extreme temperature requirements needed during the manufacturing process.
UPDATED: Monday, March 1 at 10:32 a.m. ET
Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine scored emergency authorization from the FDA for individuals 18 and older. It's the third coronavirus vaccine approved by the U.S. after regulators signed off on shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna in December. The nod "expands the availability of vaccines, the best medical prevention method for COVID-19 , to help us in the fight against this pandemic, which has claimed over a half a million lives in the United States,'' acting FDA commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement. Story
Johnson & Johnson will test its coronavirus vaccine in children and infants. The news emerged from a briefing document from Friday's FDA advisory committee meeting, which led to approval of the vaccine. J&J will first test the vaccine in children age 13-17, then move on to adolescents and newborns. Those studies will be followed by testing of pregnant women and those who are immunocompromised. Dr. Ofer Levy of Harvard's Boston Children's Hospital and the FDA advisory committee said news of testing infants ''turned my head.''
Europe's drug regulator has provisionally approved Regeneron's antibody drug for COVID-19 patients who do not require oxygen. The monoclonal antibody therapy was authorized for emergency use in the U.S. in November and was administered to former President Donald Trump.
The Serum Institute of India is under audit by Europe's drug regulator before allowing AstraZeneca to produce COVID-19 vaccines there for import to the EU, a source told Reuters. This comes after reports last month of the U.K. doing the same at Serum. The EU generally is supplied by local facilities, but production problems have reduced deliveries of the AZ vaccine. The European Medicines Agency has been auditing the Serum plant for a week and could be done in March.
Prime ministers of three German states said Sunday that unused COVID-19 vaccinations from AstraZeneca should be offered to people ages 18-64. Germany has opened vaccinations only for front-line and essential workers and people 65 and older. But with many rejecting the AZ shot and only 15% of the AZ supply used, there is a push to relax the prioritization scheme.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is in discussion with COVID-19 vaccine producers Pfizer and Moderna to open plants in his country. ''I am negotiating with them to build plants in Israel that will turn Israel into an international center in the fight against coronavirus,'' he said. ''I want to be in a situation where the Right, the Left, Arabs, Jews '... I want them all to get vaccinated and I want to ensure they have the vaccines they require in the future.''
McKesson, selected by the U.S. government as the distributor for frozen and refrigerated coronavirus vaccines and the supply kits to administer them, has begun distributing recently authorized Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. McKesson has four distribution centers in the U.S. The government makes all decisions on how many doses McKesson will distribute. McKesson did the same for the Moderna vaccine rollout in December. It also provided the ancillary supply kits for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but not the ultra-cold storage and distribution.
A Chinese state-backed hacking group has been targeting two Indian vaccine makers according to cyber intelligence firm Cyfirma. The hacking group, Stone Panda, has identified vulnerabilities in the IT infrastructure and supply chain software of Bharat Biotech and the Serum Institute of India. China and India are rivals in their effort to supply COVID-19 vaccinations domestically and worldwide. SII is producing the AstraZeneca vaccine for many countries and soon will begin manufacturing Novavax shots.
UPDATED: Friday, Feb. 26 at 3:57 p.m. ET
The FDA will allow the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech to be stored above subzero temperatures for up to two weeks. The move will simplify delivery of the vaccine, which previously needed to be kept at minus 112 to minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit. It also will allow for more access to the shot in rural areas of the U.S. and in lesser-developed countries, which often lack cold storage equipment. Story
Merck's deal to supply its experimental COVID-19 drug, MK-7110, has been voided after U.S. regulators asked the German drugmaker for additional data beyond a phase 3 study. In its annual report, Merck had already said it no longer expects to supply the U.S. with the treatment for patients hospitalized with severe cases of the virus. Merck inherited the drug when it acquired Oncolmmune late last year and then signed up to supply it to the U.S. Story
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot responded to criticism that the drugmaker is lagging in delivering promised supplies of COVID-19 vaccines. Speaking remotely at a European Parliament hearing, Soriot said AZ would deliver 40 million doses to Europe by the end of the first quarter and is working to increase production. ''Whether you manufacture cars, planes or indeed vaccines, you often have issues with manufacturing,'' he said. ''Typically in our industry we have years to refine the process. Here we didn't have that time, we didn't have that luxury. We had six months.''
Add another COVID-19 vaccine to Canada's list of approved shots. With the authorization of AstraZeneca's jab, Canada has three approved vaccines, along with those from Pfizer and Moderna. By the end of March, Canada will now have 6.5 million doses to distribute among its population of 38 million. While some countries, including France, have limited the AZ vaccine to those under 65, Canada will allow it for the elderly.
Doctors Without Borders has made an appeal to Johnson & Johnson to make its first shipments of COVID-19 vaccine to COVAX for low- and middle-income countries. The J&J shot is on the verge of approval in the U.S. Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticized the distribution of vaccines as ''wildly uneven and unfair,'' saying 10 of the world's countries have administered 75 percent of the shots, while 130 countries have yet to receive a single dose.
Albany Molecular Research has joined a list of manufacturers who produce lipid excipients for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The bulking agent surrounds and protects the active ingredient.
A coronavirus variant first discovered in California is more contagious than earlier forms of the virus, according to two studies. This strain produces twice as many viral particles and may be more resistant to vaccines. Since its discovery in late December, researchers have found traces of the variant in 45 states and several other countries, but it's only spread significantly in California.
UPDATED: Friday, Feb. 26 at 11:38 p.m. ET
Regeneron received a thumbs up for its COVID-19 antibody treatment from the Independent Data Monitoring Committee in an ongoing late-stage trial and will follow its recommendation to stop enrolling patents in the placebo group. The committee found that the drug reduces rates of hospitalization and fatalities.
During an interview on CNBC, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, now a board member at Pfizer, explained how the company is researching two methods to provide protection against emerging coronavirus variants. The first is a booster shot using the current vaccine formula, while the second approach involves modifying the existing vaccine to provide stronger immunity against mutations.
With Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine on the verge of approval in the U.S., the Washington Post poses the question: Which vaccine is the best, Pfizer's, Moderna's or J&J's? The consensus answer from experts: The vaccine you can get first. While efficacy rates in clinical trials do not favor the single-shot J&J vaccine, the difference isn't enough to compensate for the value of getting any of the shots first. The more people who get vaccinated, ''the lower everybody's risk becomes, regardless of which vaccine you get,'' said Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease doctor at the Boston Medical Center.
The United States has agreed to buy a minimum of 100,000 doses of Eli Lilly's antibody treatment. The drug recently received emergency authorization for recently diagnosed, mild to moderate COVID-19 patients who are at a high risk of progressing to severe disease. The government will pay $210 million for this order, with an option to purchase 1.1 million more doses by the end of November. The U.S. is providing antibodies at no out-of-pocket cost to patients, though healthcare facilities may charge an administration fee. Story
Regeneron and Roche announced that the European Medicines Agency has issued a positive opinion on their antibody treatment for COVID-19 patients who do not require oxygen. This is a key step in the approval process. While Regeneron is handling development and delivery of the drug in the U.S., Roche is doing the same internationally.
UPDATED: Thursday, Feb. 25 at 4:15 p.m. ET
Moderna has already secured $18.4 billion in advance purchase agreements for COVID-19 vaccines this year, the company reported. The figure is a substantial increase on what the company reported last month ($11.7 billion) for its 2021 advance purchase agreements. Moderna's effort to rapidly produce and deliver vaccines has been a game-changer for the Cambridge, Mass. company. In all of 2019 Moderna generated $60 million in revenue. In the final quarter of 2020 alone, it racked up $571 million. Story
AstraZeneca will ''make use of its global capacity,'' said a company spokesman, to supply Europe with 180 million doses of promised coronavirus vaccine. The British-Swedish drug company has received sharp criticism from the EU for failing to meet delivery milestones and issuing warnings that more manufacturing problems could lead to shortfalls in the second quarter. AZ plans to fulfill its pact with the EU with equal parts contributions from its European and overseas supply lines. Story
''Mission Possible'' is a movie-length product placement that chronicles how Pfizer and BioNTech developed their COVID-19 vaccine and brought it to the market. National Geographic's branded content group was granted near-unfettered access to produce the film, which premieres on its network on March 11, the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization's declaration of the pandemic. Story
South Korea drugmaker SK Bioscience will launch an initial public offering next month, expecting to raise $900 million, much of which has been earmarked for factory expansion and vaccine R&D. The move comes shortly after SK Bioscience agreed to produce 40 million COVID-19 vaccines for Novavax. Story
Altimmune has developed a single-dose, needle-free, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine soon to enter phase 1 testing, the company said in a release. The Maryland-based drugmaker touts AdCOVID as a treatment that targets the virus at its point of entry. It is designed to stimulate a broader immune response, both systemically and locally. Mucosal immunity in the nasal cavity is believed to be crucial in blocking transmission of the virus.
UPDATED: Thursday, Feb. 25 at 11:25 a.m. ET
A study of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine in Israel shows the shot is highly effective, cutting cases by 94% across all age groups. Conducted by the Clait Research Institute, this was the first real-world study of this scale, differentiating it from the controlled conditions found in clinical trials. Clait compared results for 600,000 participants who had received the shot with 600,000 people who had not. The result was nearly identical to the two-dose efficacy rate (95%) registered in trials last year. Story
The U.S. will undertake a review of supply chains after President Joe Biden issued an executive order designed to bolster domestic production of critical goods including pharmaceuticals. The move is designed to build self-reliance and resilience for an economy that has been stressed by the coronavirus pandemic. Few details emerged on how it will impact the pharmaceutical industry but it could be a step toward ''onshoring'' drug manufacturing, an initiative that was stoked by pandemic-related lockdowns and geopolitical tension, which created supply-chain uncertainty.
The U.S. should approve the AstraZeneca vaccine as soon as possible, said Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital. Speaking on CNBC, Hotez said that due to the threat of overseas variants, Americans should not get complacent about the nation's 57% drop in cases. ''We're all high-fiving ourselves because the numbers are going down,'' Hotez said. ''I'm saying we are in the eye of the hurricane and the next big wave is coming.''
An online scam selling fake COVID-19 vaccines has landed three men from the Baltimore area in jail. The website announced in capital letters, ''You may be able to buy a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of time,'' and offered shots priced at $30 each from Moderna. This is just one of many schemes that have emerged since the start of the pandemic. The Department of Homeland Security has seized roughly $33 million in proceeds and analyzed nearly 80,000 COVID-19 dominion names, according to an agency spokeswoman.
With the addition of a COVID-19 antibody treatment from South Korea drugmaker Celltrion, Europe's regulator now has three such antibody therapies under review. Earlier this month, the European Medicines Agency began evaluating antibody drugs from Eli Lilly and Regeneron. After Celltrion's antibody drug was shown to cut recovery time, South Korea conditionally approved it in November.
Actresses Angela Bassett and Rosie Perez, rapper Daveed Diggs and CNN medical expert Sanjay Gupta will appear in radio, TV and social media advertisements urging people to get coronavirus vaccines. The campaign is designed to combat hesitancy about the safety of vaccines, with an emphasis on reaching Black and Hispanic Americans, who have been more impacted by the virus.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 2:07 p.m. ET
Johnson & Johnson's vaccine is safe and effective, FDA staffers said in briefing documents released ahead of Friday's advisory committee meeting. The documents confirmed that J&J's single-dose shot was 66.1% effective at preventing infection at least 28 days after vaccination, with ''no specific safety concerns identified that would preclude issuance" of an emergency authorization. Besides preventing infection altogether, the shot was 85% effective at staving off severe disease and helped keep patients out of the hospital. Story
The World Health Organization's equitable vaccine distribution scheme Covax kicked off its global rollout with the delivery of 600,000 AstraZeneca doses to Ghana. AZ's manufacturing partner Serum Institute of India is tackling production for the effort, which is co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). Covax deliveries to Abidjan and Cote d'Ivoire are also expected this week. The facility hopes to deliver at least 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses by year-end.
Germany has administered a slim 15% of the AstraZeneca vaccines it has on tap, the country's health ministry said. The shot has faced skepticism from the German public after trial results placed the vaccine's efficacy below competitors'. Meanwhile, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman has said that shot is safe and effective, calling for the public to put its faith in the shot.
Contract research organization PPD, heavily involved in trials for COVID-19 vaccines'--including Moderna's authorized mRNA shot'--saw income jump to $1.36 billion in the fourth quarter, marking a 30.3% increase over the $1.04 billion it pulled during the same period in 2019. Clinical development services, up up 28.3% on the year-ago period, and laboratory services, up 40.1%, helped drive that growth. Overall, PPD raked in $4.68 billion for the year, up 16.1% from 2019, despite withdrawing its guidance in 2020's first quarter as COVID-19 hamstrung the CRO industry. Story
The Philippines is offering to send more healthcare workers to Germany and the U.K. in exchange for vaccine doses, but the U.K. has declined and Germany has yet to respond, Reuters reports. The Philippines limits the number of healthcare workers deployed overseas to 5,000 a year, but it would be willing to lift the cap to trade for COVID shots, Alice Visperas, director of the Filipino labor ministry's international affairs bureau, said. The U.K. says it isn't interested, but reiterated its pledge to donate surplus vaccines to other countries in the future.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 11:02 a.m. ET
The European Union could face supply shortages of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine extending into the second quarter of this year.The company warned EU officials of continuing problems at a factory in Belgium that is producing the shot. But EU president Ursula von der Leyen said she's optimistic that supply shortfalls can be remedied. AZ remains hopeful that it can compensate for any shortfall by the third quarter. Overall, AZ's total supply to the EU by late June could reach 130 million doses, far short of the promised 300 million. Story
The FDA will approve Pfizer and BioNTech's request to store their COVID-19 vaccine at standard pharmacy temperatures instead of ultra-cold freezers, according to the New York Times. The move modifies guidance, issued when emergency authorization was granted for the shot in December, which required it to be stored at temperatures between -80 and -60 degrees Celcius.
The NIH will study how pregnant COVID-19 patients metabolize and tolerate remdesivir. The Gilead Sciences antiviral drug, approved last summer for coronavirus patients with pneumonia who required oxygen, has since gained wider use. The study will take place in 17 U.S. cities and will compare remdesivir use in pregnant and non-pregnant patients of reproductive age who are hospitalized with COVID-19.
The case history of a deceased U.K. COVID-19 patient who had received chemotherapy for lymphoma has given experts a better idea of how coronavirus variants may arise in people with compromised immune systems. The study reveals how selective pressures bring about viral mutations, according to Ravindra Gupta of Cambridge University's medical team. The case ''has been transformative of understanding what's going on with this disease,'' Gupta told Scientific American.
In response to reports of Germans refusing AstraZeneca's COVID-19 shot because of side effects'--and vials of it going to waste as a result'--EU president Ursula von der Leyen said she would take the vaccine ''without a second thought, just like Moderna's and BioNTech/Pfizer's products.'' Her remarks, to the Augsburger Allgemeine, come amid growing frustration over the lagging pace of AZ's vaccine supply to the EU and suggestions, denied by the company, that the British-Swedish company has given supply preference to the U.K., where more than a quarter of the population has been vaccinated.
The HHS will no longer allocate doses of COVID-19 antibody drugs from Eli Lilly and Regeneron because scarcity is no longer an issue. The drugs will remain free, according to a release from the American Hospital Association, and can now be ordered directly from AmerisourceBergen, the sole distributor of antibody drugs.
China's fourth domestically-developed COVID-19 vaccine may soon be available. Sinopharm and CanSinoBIO have registered their vaccine for authorization. The treatment was previously approved for emergency use last July for those with a higher infection risk. It is the second Sinopharm vaccine. The first was approved in December. China has yet to approve any overseas vaccines for domestic use.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 4:32 p.m. ET
Pfizer is eyeing price hikes for its COVID-19 vaccine after the pandemic, according to a top company executive. On an earnings call this month, CFO Frank D'Amelio said Pfizer is ''going to get more on price'' after what he termed the ''pandemic pricing environment.'' Pfizer, which was first to the market in the COVID-19 vaccine race, is charging the U.S. $19.50 per dose. By comparison, Pfizer's pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar 13 fetches more than $200 per dose on the private market. Story
According to a study by Merck KGaA, the coronavirus pandemic has put increased stress on unpaid caregivers. Surveying 9,000 people in 12 countries, Merck found that caregivers are facing added physical, mental and financial burdens. The pandemic has forced 20% of caregivers into first-time roles. Caregivers are spending 23 hours per week on average tending to their loved ones, an increase of more than seven hours from before the pandemic. In addition, 22% say they've had to reduce their paid hours due to caregiving responsibilities. Story
The FDA told vaccine makers on Monday that large clinical trials to assess the effectiveness of authorized shots against coronavirus variants are not necessary. New guidance from the FDA suggests smaller trials ''that compare a recipient's immune response to virus variants induced by the modified vaccine against the immune response to the authorized vaccine'' are sufficient to determine the effectiveness of the modified vaccine.
The coronavirus pandemic may force Novartis India to lay off roughly 170 people. The proposed cuts would be to the pharmaceutical segment of Novartis, a senior executive told The Times of India. The India arm of the Swiss drug giant reported a net loss in the fourth quarter of last year after posting profits in the same quarter of 2019.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 11:12 a.m. ET
Pfizer and Moderna will tell Congress today of their plans to increase supplies of their respective COVID-19 vaccines for the United States. Thanks to manufacturing overhauls, Pfizer expects by mid-March to be delivering 13 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine per week. The increase puts Pfizer on track to provide 120 million doses by the end of March and meet its pledge of 300 million by the end of July. Moderna is on a similar trajectory, expecting to have delivered 100 million doses by the end of March on its way to 300 million by the end of July. In addition, Johnson & Johnson, whose single-shot vaccine is set for review Friday by the FDA, is prepared to deliver 20 million doses by the end of March. Story
Aridis has updated its investigational COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment, AR-711, to neutralize emerging variants of the virus. The new version, AR-713, will begin clinical trials in the second half of this year. AR-711 is an inhaled drug for COVID-19 patients who are not hospitalized. According to Aridis, AR-713 has been shown to neutralize the South African variant as well as the Brazilian and Japanese strain, while also negating the original COVID-19 strain and its U.K. variant.
COVID-19 patients in Europe who do not need oxygen support may later this year be treated with remdesivir, Gilead's antiviral drug. The European Medicines Agency is evaluating data from Gilead and could issue an opinion by the summer. Europe approved the drug last July for coronavirus patients 12 and older who had pneumonia and required oxygen. Earlier this month, Gilead predicted sales of $3 billion for the drug this year.
The FDA has issued new recommendations for drugmakers to address the impact of emerging COVID-19 variants on their products. In a press conference FDA commissioner Janet Woodcock said, ''We need to identify efficient ways to modify the products that are either in the pipeline or are EUA products to address these variants.'' Woodcock emphasized that treatments must be monitored to ensure that if performance is altered, the FDA and manufacturers are made aware.
With supplies lacking and amid public resistance to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Germany is adjusting its inoculation strategy. With the reopening of schools, which have been closed since November, teachers will get priority access to the AZ shot. Next in line are police officers and members of the army. This comes after many front-line health workers refused the AZ shot amid reports of side-effects. Germany has administered 5 million vaccine doses, which accounts for 6% of its population, lagging behind the U.K. and U.S.
Clover Biopharmaceuticals has raised $230 million in a round of oversubscribed Series C financing, which brings the China-based company's total capital raised in the last 12 months to more than $400 million. In part, the proceeds will support Clover's continued development of its COVID-19 vaccine and production planning for potentially hundreds of millions of doses this year. Clover will initiate a global phase 2/3 efficacy trial for its vaccine in the first half of this year. Story
UPDATED: Monday, Feb. 22 at 3:35 p.m. ET
Sanofi signed a deal to manufacture Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine. The plant in France will produce 12 million doses of the J&J vaccine per month. The deal comes after another Sanofi agreement to make 100 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this year. Story
Also from Sanofi, the company has not given up on its own effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Sanofi and its partner GlaxoSmithKline said they are starting a phase 2 study of their second try at a shot, which combines Sanofi's recombinant protein-based vaccine with GSK's adjuvant. After weak early results forced them to retool, this version offers an ''improved antigen formulation," the company said. If the trial is successful, it would clear the way for phase 3 testing in the spring and production of doses before year-end. In another partnership, Sanofi and Translate Bio are working on an mRNA vaccine that's set to enter testing next month. Story
Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks was paid $23.7 million last year, an 11% increase on his 2019 compensation, according to a recent proxy filing. The figure likely places Ricks among the world's highest-paid pharma execs for 2020. His lucrative package reflects a successful year for the Indianapolis-based pharma, which earned emergency authorization for multiple COVID-19 therapies in addition to notching first-time approvals for cancer drug Retevmo and mealtime insulin Lyumjev. In the fourth quarter last year, Lilly rang up $871 million in antibody revenue. Story
Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine is ranked No. 2 on the Fierce Pharma list of the 10 most-anticipated drug launches of 2021. The list is ranked by predicted global sales for 2026 as compiled by Evaluate. The only drug ranking ahead of Novavax's vaccine is aducanumab, an Alzheimer's therapy from Biogen that is estimated to score $4.8 billion in sales in 2026. Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine sales are expected to hit $2.73 billion the same year. In January, Novavax reported 89% efficacy in a phase 3 trial in the U.K. Results in South Africa (60%) were less encouraging, but those were chalked up to the emergence of the coronavirus variant there. Novavax believes that its approach, delivering adjuvanted fragments of the spike protein made in insect cells, is well suited to the evolving virus, and analysts agree. Story
The Serum Institute of India has been instructed by government officials to meet domestic demand for its COVID-19 vaccine'--produced under license from AstraZeneca'--before supplying doses of the shot overseas. The announcement by Serum CEO Adar Poonawalla suggests that foreign countries are likely to face supply delays, just days after news emerged that U.K. officials were auditing the company's manufacturing ahead of potential vaccine imports. The AstraZeneca shot was approved this month by the World Health Organization, clearing the way for supplies to low- and middle-income countries. Story
UPDATED: Monday, Feb. 22 at 10:50 a.m. ET
Within the next few weeks, Pfizer will double its coronavirus vaccine supply to the U.S., said CEO Albert Bourla. Speaking Friday afternoon after President Joe Biden toured Pfizer's factory in Portage, Michigan, Bourla said improvements at the plant had reduced the time needed to produce its shot to 60 days from 110 days. As of Feb. 17, Pfizer had supplied the U.S. with 40 million doses. Pfizer's current supply rate is 5 million per week. The company has promised 300 million doses to the U.S. by the end of July.
FDA review documents due for release this week will give the agency's infectious disease panel feedback for their upcoming review of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The document release'--and Friday's advisory committee meeting and vote'--are key steps in the approval process. Late last year, vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna each gained emergency authorization one day after their respective FDA reviews. This time, though, could be more complicated because the panel will also assess the J&J vaccine's efficacy against new virus variants. The J&J shot has advantages: It doesn't have to be stored at ultra-cold temperatures, and one dose is required instead of two. But the vaccine has shown less potency against the South African variant.
In Belgium, cargo volume at Brussels Airport was up 21% percent in January due largely to its role as an export hub for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Since the end of November, airlines leaving Brussels have flown Pfizer vaccines to more than 40 destinations, some as far away as Tokyo, per an announcement last week by DHL and All Nippon Airways. The cargo increase at Brussels has helped the facility compensate for a sharp decline in passenger traffic, which was down 84% compared to January of last month.
Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the U.S. may never reach herd immunity. Speaking Sunday on ''Face the Nation,'' Gottlieb said that the drop in infections across the country this month is an encouraging sign that will likely continue. But when asked about vaccinating children, he said, ''I don't really think we're ever going to reach full herd immunity. This isn't going to be like measles or smallpox, which just sort of goes away. COVID is going to continue to circulate at a low level.'' As of Feb. 18, the rolling average for new infections had fallen 43% in the U.S. in two weeks.
Novavax announced it had wrapped up enrollment in Prevent-19, its phase 3 vaccine study in the U.S. and Mexico. The trial in 30,000 participants emphasizes diversity, including LatinX (20%), African American (13%), Native American (6%), Asian American (5%) and adults 65 years and older (13%) participating.
Dynavax and the Serum Institute of India announced they had dosed their first patients in a clinical trial of their partnered COVID-19 vaccine, adjuvanted with CpG 1018. The phase 1 portion will enroll 39 healthy volunteers, with 216 subjects on tap for phase 2. CpG 1018 is used in Heplisav-B, a hepatitis B vaccine which provides an increased vaccine immune response.
Vaccines use in Scotland reduced the risk of hospitalization by as much as 94% after four weeks of the first shot, a real-world study found. Experts compared people who have received a first dose against those who hadn't. Those vaccinated with the AstraZeneca jab had a reduced hospitalization risk of 94%, while those who received the Pfizer vaccine saw an 85% reduction. In the high-risk 80-plus age group, hospital admission was reduced by 81% four weeks of receiving the shot.
UPDATED: Friday, Feb. 19 at 4:15 p.m. ET
New studies show that people who have had the coronavirus should still be vaccinated. One dose of vaccine can stoke antibodies, vanquishing the virus and even some of its potent variants. The latest study, which analyzed blood samples of those who have had COVID-19, indicate that they would have trouble fending off the B.1.351 strain from South Africa. But one dose of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine boosted antibodies by a thousandfold.
In a Harris Poll survey this month, 62% of Americans gave the pharmaceutical industry a positive rating as opposed to 32% the same time last year. The poll shows pharma's typically poor reputation has improved during the pandemic as companies worked proactively and collaboratively to develop vaccines and rush them to market. Respondents rate the industry on a scale of 1-7; In January of 2020, only 32% assigned a rating of 5, 6 or 7. This month 62% did so. Story
Other pharma companies have beaten Novavax to the punch in rolling out COVID-19 shots. But the Maryland drugmaker landed a roundhouse blow on Thursday, agreeing to supply 1.1 billion doses of its yet-to-be authorized COVID-19 vaccine. Novavax made the deal with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and COVAX, which are working on equitable worldwide distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Novavax will itself provide vaccines for high-income markets while the Serum Institute of India will supply other countries under a no-cost license. Story
The coronavirus pandemic was the dominant theme in the pharmaceutical industry in 2020. But GlobalData's review of the top 10 companies by market cap revealed that the fortunes of many were not tied to their COVID-19 performance. While AbbVie had the largest market cap increase (44.3%) over the course of the year, despite a lack of COVID-19 products, big-time vaccine providers Pfizer and AstraZeneca failed to beat their pre-COVID market valuations. Other companies, however, such as Eli Lilly, Roche and Johnson & Johnson, parlayed their COVID successes into market cap growth. Story
Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan saw his pay decrease from $11.61 million to $11.44 million in 2020, due largely to a pandemic-driven shortfall in sales. Narasimhan's base salary increased by 5.5% last year, but a bigger decline in his annual bonus accounted for the overall compensation drop. Story
Pfizer provided data to the FDA showing its coronavirus vaccine can be stored at higher temperatures than previously known, which would allow pharmacies greater flexibility in managing their vaccine supplies. Now, the vaccine must be stored at temperatures between -80 and -60 degrees Celsius for up to six months'--temperatures that require special, ultracold freezers. But Pfizer's new data show it can withstand storage at temperatures of -25 to -15 degrees Celsius, meaning standard pharmaceutical freezers would be suitable'--provided the agency approves a label change.
The United Kingdom's National Health Service established a social media effort designed to bolster confidence in the nation's coronavirus vaccine push. On Friday, social media users gained access to an array of Facebook frames and Instagram GIFs that show ''I've had my vaccine'' or ''I will get my vaccine.'' The messages will be available in 13 languages by Feb. 22.
German health officials are emphasizing the safety of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine amid reports that thousands of essential workers are rejecting the shot because they're afraid of side-effects. Like most European countries, Germany does not offer a choice of vaccine. As a result, many are skipping appointments and several hundred vials have gone unused.
President Joe Biden will travel to Michigan on Friday to tour a Pfizer manufacturing facility that's cranking out COVID-19 vaccines. Biden is expected to discuss with Pfizer officials how employing the Defense Production Act can help the company quickly produce and distribute more vaccines. Pfizer has committed to supply 100 million doses by the end of March and a total of 300 million by the end of July.
South Korea announced it will spend $237.1 million to develop COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. The goal is to have a local vaccine developed by early next year. ''Even though we will start COVID-19 vaccination soon, we have to secure our capacity to prepare (for) new infectious diseases in the long term,'' said health and welfare minister Kwon Deok-cheol.
UPDATED: Thursday, Feb. 18 at 4:13 p.m. ET
Typical side effects of COVID-19 vaccines are fever, fatigue, nausea and headaches. But there is fear in some European countries that the effects are more prevalent with the AstraZeneca vaccine, the last of three to be authorized in Europe. In France, health authorities have ordered administration of the shot to be staggered to limit the potential impact on healthcare services. In Germany, some essential workers have refused the shot. In two regions in Sweden, vaccinations have been put on hold. Story
Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine trial in pregnant women will include approximately 4,000 participants in the U.S. Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mozambique, South Africa, Spain and the U.K. The women must be 18 years or older and 24 to 34 weeks into their pregnancy. The first doses have already been administered in the U.S. The study will assess the safety in infants of vaccinated pregnant women and potential transfer of antibodies to infants.
Approval of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is expected in early March, but there will be only a ''few million'' doses available right away, according to coronavirus response coordinator Jeffrey Zients. Johnson & Johnson's contract with the government calls for 100 million doses to be delivered by the end of June. White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci expressed his disappointment at the low numbers, but also said that he expects a significant increase from J&J in the spring. Story
The Belgian plant blamed for AstraZeneca's vaccine delivery shortfalls in Europe has undergone recent changes. Last month, Thermo Fisher acquired it as part of a $878.2-million buyout of Novasep's viral vector manufacturing business, just a few months after Novasep identified the site for production of the adenovirus vector for AstraZeneca's vaccine. Now, production capacity at the plant has "drastically" increased, EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton said. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, Feb. 18 at 11:26 a.m. ET
After two Canadian researchers recommended officials delay the second dose of Pfizer's vaccine, Pfizer responded, saying it has not evaluated alternative dosing regimens and that it's up to health authorities to decide. Some countries, facing supply shortages, are considering dosing patterns that vary from how the vaccines were tested in trials. In their letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers also cited the first-dose efficacy of Moderna's vaccine (92.1%). They added that while there is uncertainty about the duration of protection with a single dose, a second dose a month later provides ''little added benefit in the short term.''
In another Pfizer study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists developed an engineered virus that contained the same mutations carried on the spike portion of the COVID-19 variant found in South Africa. Researchers tested the engineered virus against the blood from those given the vaccine and found a two-thirds reduction in neutralizing antibodies compared with its effect on the original version of the virus. Story
Johnson & Johnson has only a few million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine in its inventory, White House officials said. The company has committed to providing 100 million doses by the end of June, part of an agreement with the U.S. federal government. The pact carries an option for the U.S. to buy 200 million more doses. An FDA panel will review the J&J vaccine on Feb. 26. Story
Developing and selling coronavirus drugs and vaccines has produced a windfall for some in the drug industry, but the success isn't always reflected in their stock prices. For example, giants like Pfizer and Gilead are down roughly 20% from their pandemic highs, placing them in contrast to smaller vaccine developers like BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax, whose share prices have performed much better. The Wall Street Journal explains why.
German health officials are battling a perception that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 shot is a ''second-class vaccine.'' Concern has been fueled by reports of fevers and headaches from those who have been inoculated. After EU regulators gave the AZ shot a limited approval, Germany has provided the vaccine only to those under age 65.
French drugmaker Valneva's COVID vaccine likely won't score an approval until the final quarter of 2021, the company says, but many investors are still betting on the company. Why the optimism? Valneva is the only drugmaker in Europe or the U.S. working on an inactivated shot which stimulates an immune response by injecting a coronavirus sample that has been killed, a route used in the development of many other vaccines. As a result, Valneva's shot has simpler storage requirements.
Billionaire Bill Gates said that vaccines developed by Novavax and Johnson & Johnson, which have yet to be approved in the U.S., will still be essential in the coronavirus fight, despite their weaker performance against a new variant of the virus identified in South Africa. Gates, whose foundation has donated millions of dollars to coronavirus research and treatment, told CNBC that ''there is reduced efficacy, although Novavax and Johnson & Johnson still retain a lot of capability against those variants.''
Avigan, an antiviral drug from Fujifilm, has little benefit for COVID-19 patients once their symptoms become serious. Nine clinical trials revealed that the drug, known generically as favipiravir, helped patients in the early stages of their hospitalization but didn't reduce mortality among those with mild to moderate cases.
The RECOVERY Trial, the world's largest clinical trial for coronavirus treatments, has expanded internationally with the addition of Indonesia and Nepal. The trial, which was launched in the U.K., has enrolled more than 36,000 patients and produced results that have already altered clinical care, reducing the risk of those hospitalized.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 4:31 p.m. ET
Alongside Pfizer, which has pledged 200 million more vaccine doses to the EU, Moderna will provide an additional 150 million doses to be delivered in the third and fourth quarters of this year. This brings Moderna's supply commitment to the EU up to 310 million doses by the end of 2021. Story
Inconsistent manufacturing of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine for clinical trials against the South African variant may account for the trial's results, according to a note from SVB Leerink analysts on Wednesday. The analysts wondered if the FDA would raise concerns over manufacturing during the vaccine's U.S. review. Story
A factory in Mexico will not be able to produce AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine until early April, the country's foreign minister said. Shipments of the active ingredient used to make the vaccine have already arrived, but a complex certification process has held up production. Mexico has already begun receiving the first of 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India.
In a trial of Roche's Actemra, most patients were also on the steroid dexamethasone, which has itself shown a mortality benefit in COVID-19. With the combination of Actemra and dexamethasone, the risk of progressing to a ventilator was reduced.
The Gaza Strip will receive 1,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine after Israel approved the transfer. These are the first vaccines to reach Gaza, which has a population of two million. The Palestinian territory has reported 53,000 coronavirus cases, including 538 deaths.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 11:48 a.m. ET
FDA authorization of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would be a critical step in the United States' battle against the pandemic, and it could be a step nearer as a key FDA panel is set to meet next week. Ahead of the meeting, FDA scientists are reviewing data from clinical trials and plan to present their findings to the committee. The review process for this vaccine has taken longer than those for Moderna and Pfizer, largely due to the complexity introduced by the COVID-19 variants.
Pfizer's new 200 million-dose agreement with the EU will be delivered in 2021, with 75 million promised in the second quarter. The agreement is in addition to the 300 million doses Pfizer pledged to provide to the EU last year, all to be supplied in 2021. With the agreements, Pfizer expects to ''deliver enough doses to vaccinate at least 250 million Europeans before the end of the year,'' Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said.
Moderna also inked a new supply deal with Europe, pledging an additional 150 million vaccine doses. In total, Europe has purchased 310 million doses of the company's vaccine for delivery in 2021.
So far, the EU has been hindered in the fight against COVID-19 as it has experienced vaccine delivery delays from key vaccine players. By the middle of last week, Pfizer had delivered 23 million doses, 10 million short of what had been promised.
The South Africa variant of COVID-19 has appeared in 32 countries so far, many of which have yet to approve the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. South Africa was set to begin vaccinating healthcare workers this week with doses from AstraZeneca, but officials put the plan on hold after reviewing evidence that the AZ vaccine has limited effectiveness against the 501Y.V2 variant.
In Taiwan, health minister Chen Shih-chung said that his country and Pfizer-BioNTech were set to make a deal in December when the drugmaker backed out. He claimed that BioNTech's partner in China, Shanghai Pharmaceutical, had opposed the deal. Taiwan has managed the pandemic effectively, reporting only 938 cases and nine deaths.
The South Korean National Intelligence Service is disputing a claim by South Korean lawmaker Ha Tae-keung, who told CNN that North Korea had hacked Pfizer in an attempt to steal information on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. The NIS said it ''reported general incidences of hacking attempts,'' but did not specify company names, including Pfizer. Ha responded that in an NIS briefing to lawmakers, Pfizer was named.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden will visit Pfizer's manufacturing facility in Portage, Michigan, where millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been produced.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 3:30 p.m. ET
Britain is working with the Serum Institute of India to audit manufacturing processes, which could clear the way for it to supply the U.K. and EU with AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine. Serum Institute currently manufactures the vaccine for many of the world's poorer countries while the U.K. and EU mainly receive supplies from British and European facilities. The news comes after AZ last week said it could ease European supply shortfalls by sourcing doses from non-European facilities. Story
AstraZeneca's success in developing vaccines and drugs to battle COVID-19 has reaped dividends for company CEO Pascal Soriot, who has earned $21.52 million in 2020, according to the company's annual report. AZ's board cited Soriot for delivering on financial and scientific goals'--and his ''inspiring leadership'''--amid the pandemic Story
Thomas Triomphe, EVP of Sanofi Pasteur, told Bloomberg the company was set to start early trials in the coming weeks and could roll out its mRNA-based vaccine before the end of 2021.
Amgen's Corlanor, on the market for six years to treat heart failure, may find a new market as a treatment for COVID-19 ''long-haulers,'' according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego. In a trial of 22 patients with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, who have similar symptoms to many recovering from COVID-19, those treated saw their standing heart rate drop from between 100-115 beats per minute to 77, compared with those taking placebo. Story
Fast-rising biotech Adagio Therapeutics has dosed its first subject in a phase 1 clinical trial of its monoclonal antibody candidate for COVID-19, ADG20. Once the safety of the drug has been determined, Adagio will assess whether ADG20 can treat and prevent COVID-19. Adagio has evidence that its candidate is effective against emerging variants, despite earlier reports of their resistance to antibody treatments. Story
Emerging variants of COVID-19 are hindering clinical trials, according to GlobalData. ''Increased restrictive measures'' have interfered with work to resume trials halted because of the pandemic. Those measures include strict lockdown requirements and social distancing procedures. Story
South Korea said it has found evidence of attempts by North Korea to steal coronavirus data from U.S. drugmaker Pfizer. Vaccine and treatment technology were the targets of cyberattacks by North Korea, South Korean intelligence officials said. South Korea and Pfizer are trying to determine whether the hacks were successful.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 12:12 p.m. ET
After halting its vaccine rollout, South Africa may sell its stockpile of AstraZeneca doses, said the county's health minister.
AstraZeneca's vaccine is the second to be approved by Australia. The country signed off on the Pfizer vaccine last month and received its first shipment of doses on Monday. Health minister Greg Hunt said he expects 1 million doses to be available each week by the end of March.
Japan will begin vaccinations next week as it prepares to host the 2021 Olympic Games, July 24-Aug. 7. The government hopes to have its entire population (126 million) vaccinated by the middle of the year.
Korea has contracted COVID-19 vaccine doses from Novovax and Pfizer that would inoculate 23 million. Combined with previous deals with the same two companies, Korea will be able to immunize 79 million. Korea will kick off vaccinations on Feb. 26, starting with those working and hospitalized in nursing homes.
The Pfizer vaccine has been highly effective in Israel, according to Clait, a health maintenance organization which covers more than half of the county. Among 600,000 who have been vaccinated, there has been a 94 percent drop in infections. The vaccinations have proven most effective for those a week after receiving their second shot.
Iceland's success in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has cost the country a chance to serve as a case study by Pfizer on the ability of vaccines to create herd immunity. In hopes of inoculating 70 percent of its population by the end of March, Iceland wanted to secure 500,000 doses from Pfizer. But despite inoculating only 4 percent of the population, cases in Iceland have dropped, limiting the potential effectiveness of the study.
Speaking on ''Face the Nation'' on Sunday, Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, urged the Biden administration to take ''bespoke'' efforts to vaccinate Americans in underserved communities. Gottlieb said that the emergence of new coronavirus variants, first identified overseas and now evident in five states, makes it imperative for Americans to be vaccinated as soon as possible, requiring more creative efforts from the government.
UPDATED: Friday, Feb. 12 at 2:50 p.m. ET
BD scored U.S. and European nods for a new COVID-19 test that also screens for influenza A and B'--plus, it should detect coronavirus variants first discovered in South Africa and the U.K., BD said. Running on the company's BD MAX platform, the molecular lab test is designed to deliver results in two to three hours and process hundreds of samples per day. Concerning mutations, BD ran computer analyses showing 99.9% of the genetic sequences of the South African and U.K. variants would still match up to the molecular targets used in its tests. Story
Mallinckrodt will have to wait for an FDA decision on its regenerative skin therapy treatment StrataGraft, thanks to COVID-19 travel restrictions that forced the delay of a manufacturing plant inspection, the company said Friday. The FDA was originally due to make a decision on StrataGraft, developed to treat deep second-degree burns, on February 2. Pandemic-delayed inspections led the FDA to push back decisions on a slew of drugs last year, with Bristol Myers Squibb's CAR-T therapy liso-cel a prominent example. Story
North Carolina's state health department on Thursday reported its first case of an emerging virus variant originally discovered in South Africa. The sample of the so-called B.1.351 variant came from an adult who hadn't recently traveled and was detected by Labcorp during routine genomic sequencing. The variant has also cropped up in Maryland, South Carolina and Virginia. As of Thursday, the CDC had reported 13 B.1.351 cases in the states.
By April, it should be "open season" for vaccinations in the U.S., NIAID director Anthony Fauci told NBC. "Namely, virtually everybody and anybody in any category can start to get vaccinated," he continued. Fauci said he was hopeful that the majority of Americans would be vaccinated by the end of summer.
''By the time we get to April, that will be what I would call open season,'' Dr. Anthony Fauci says about the timeline for vaccination availability for all groups to begin getting shots. pic.twitter.com/BMGD3YSVex
'-- TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 11, 2021Hungary is now administering the Gamaleya Institute's Sputnik V vaccine, an official at Honved Hospital in Budapest told The New York Times. In bypassing the European Medicines Agency, Hungary has become the first European Union member state to use Russia's shot. The country has some 2,800 doses left over from a 6,000-dose shipment delivered in December for testing, and it has said it expects to receive 2 million doses from Russia over the next three months. The decision has drawn fire from local health experts, who've urged Hungarian regulators to wait on EU approval.
India aims to vaccinate 300 million people by August'--but over a four-week stretch, it was only able to get 7.5 million COVID vaccines into frontline workers' arms, Reuters reports. At that rate, it would take the country years to hit its immunization target. Supply isn't the issue, one local health expert said, but to meet the government's timeline, India will need to start vaccinating between four and five times more people each day. The government itself plans to pick up the pace next month, with the goal to enlist more private hospitals once priority groups get the shot.
UPDATED: Friday, Feb. 12 at 9:40 a.m. ET
The U.S. locked up a previously announced deal to buy another 100 million vaccine doses from both Pfizer and Moderna, lifting the country's total order from those drugmakers to 600 million doses. The companies will roll out shipments in regular intervals through the end of July, the Department of Health and Human Services said. The government is shelling out some $2 billion to Pfizer for the extra doses, while Moderna will receive roughly $1.65 billion. So far, the government has pledged $6 billion to Pfizer for shot supplies, while Moderna is due a total of $5.75 billion in sale proceeds and R&D investment.
Moderna says it has so far delivered 41 million vaccines to the U.S., and more than 22 million Americans have received at least one dose of its shot. The company said it's confident it can supply a total of 100 million doses by the end of the first quarter and 100 million more in Q2. It's working with manufacturing partners stateside to speed up deliveries and ship this latest order before the end of July.
The European Medicines Agency kicked off a rolling review of CureVac's mRNA vaccine. The regulator will assess data on CureVac's shot as it comes in, building the case for a potential marketing authorization. The company's shot, CVnCoV, is currently plowing ahead in a phase 2b/3 trial in healthy adults in Europe and Latin America, CureVac said.
The U.S. government's promised vaccine safety monitoring system, dubbed BEST, is still in the development stages and won't be able to analyze safety data for weeks or months, various health officials told The New York Times. FDA officials told the Times that they hope to start analyzing vaccine safety data soon, though that likely won't occur until after President Joe Biden has hit his goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans. Tracking vaccine safety is especially important given the record development time for Pfizer and Moderna's shots.
A government health panel in Japan OK'd Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine Friday, with the country's health minister expected to issue a formal approval Sunday, Reuters reports, citing Japanese broadcaster NHK. Around 400,000 Pfizer doses arrived from Brussels on Friday as Japan gears up to start vaccinating healthcare workers by the middle of next week.
The U.K.'s National Health Service will roll out Roche's rheumatoid arthritis med Actemra, also known as tocilizumab, to "thousands more" COVID-19 patients after a positive data readout from the RECOVERY trial. In the study, Actemra cut the absolute risk of death by 4% versus standard care. In combination with the steroid dexamethasone, the drug reduced relative death risk by 14% and cut hospitalization time for patients on oxygen support by five days.
Patients given blood thinners within 24 hours of being hospitalized with COVID-19 are roughly 30% less likely to die than those who don't receive them, an observational study in The BMJ showed. Researchers followed more than 4,000 patients over 30 days; 84% of them had received an anticoagulant within one day of hospitalization. At the end of the study, 14.3% of those on blood thinners died, compared with 18.7% of patients in the non-anticoagulant group, marking an absolute risk decrease of 4.4%, or a relative risk reduction of 27%.
Pfizer and Moderna are testing their vaccines in children ages 12 and up and expect to have results by the summer. Based on those studies, the companies could then move to test their shots in even younger children, The New York Times reports. "Moving below 12 years of age will require a new study and potentially a modified formulation or dosing schedule,'' a Pfizer spokeswoman told the newspaper. Moderna started testing its shot in kids ages 12 to 17 in December and aims to recruit 3,000 subjects for its study.
After German newspaper Handelsblatt last month reported AstraZeneca's vaccine was just 8% effective in people older than 65, experts and AZ itself quickly contested the figure. But the paper stood firm, citing an unnamed health ministry official, The BMJ reports. "Confusion is out of the question," a follow-up Handelsblatt story states. "According to the data available to us so far, effectiveness in people over 60 is less than 10%.'' The paper ''turned the matter into a 'he says, she says' story" to absolve itself, Markus Lehmkuhl, a professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, told BMJ.
UPDATED: Thursday, Feb. 11 at 3:07 p.m. ET
Novavax's vaccine program has already started rolling reviews in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere, and now the company is close to a supply deal with Europe, Reuters reports. Preliminary talks completed in December and officials "aim to agree the contract this week or next," one source told the news service. The deal would be for an initial 100 million doses with an option for 100 million more.
Visby Medical scored an FDA emergency nod for its rapid, single-use PCR test designed to detect COVID-19 infections at the point of care. A palm-sized device that plugs into a power outlet can conduct the test, which takes about 30 minutes. Story
With COVID-19 vaccines already authorized, it's becoming tougher for vaccine developers to enroll trial participants in placebo-controlled studies. Second-wave vaccine companies are responding by looking at studies that weigh immune responses, rather than protection versus placebo, the Wall Street Journal reports.
While vaccine supplies are limited now, former FDA commissioners Scott Gottlieb and Mark McClellan predict a scenario not too far away when supply will exceed demand. They penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed about how to boost demand so that doses don't go unused.
UPDATED: Thursday, Feb. 11 at 11:40 a.m. ET
Roche's rheumatoid arthritis drug Actemra, also known as tocilizumab, cut the risk of death by 4% over standard care'--including dexamethasone'--in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19, new data from the University of Oxford's RECOVERY trial show. The drug also helped patients leave the hospital faster and reduced the need for mechanical ventilation. In patients with severe inflammation, Actemra plus the steroid dexamethasone cut mortality by about 33% for patients needing simple oxygen and nearly 50% for those on invasive mechanical ventilation, the researchers said.
AstraZeneca's asthma med Pulmicort, or inhaled budesonide, cut the risk of urgent care or hospitalization by 90% over a 28-day stretch, a study run by the University of Oxford and posted on the pre-print server MedRxiv showed. Researchers looked at 148 patients, half of whom received 800 micrograms of Pulmicort twice a day. Alongside reduced risk of hospitalization, the drug also led to ''quicker resolution of fever, symptoms, and fewer persistent symptoms'' after 28 days.
Speciality chemicals company Evonik is investing in the short-term expansion of its speciality lipids production to help boost supplies of Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA vaccine. Commercial lipid production is set to kick off at the company's Hanau and Dossenheim, Germany, sites as early as the second half of 2021, Evonik said.
Merck & Co. is "actively involved" in talks with governments, health agencies and other drugmakers to chip in on the pandemic response, including manufacturing authorized COVID-19 vaccines, a spokesperson told Fierce Pharma. Merck hasn't said which companies it could support, but there've been rumblings it may tie up with Novavax. Evercore ISI analyst Josh Schimmer said as much after Novavax presented phase 3 data last month, while Novavax CEO Stan Erck told CNBC that Merck "could be a good partner for us as they don't have a competing product." Story
Novartis Oncology's new campaign ''Let's Talk about the C Word: From Cancer to Cures," aims to remind people that cancer hasn't vanished amid the COVID-19 pandemic. ''Especially during the pandemic, cancer got completely forgotten, and what for me was very concerning is that screenings were disrupted and diagnostics are now very late," Susanne Schaffert, Ph.D., president of the company's oncology unit, told Fierce Pharma. The monthly series of six short videos launched on World Cancer Day and focuses on prevention, diagnosis and disease management. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, Feb. 10 at 3:11 p.m. ET
AstraZeneca's shot can be used to vaccinate all adults ages 18 and up, a World Health Organization panel recommended Wednesday. Efficacy isn't expected to differ between young and old recipients, Alejandro Cravioto, chairman of the WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, said. The recommendation comes as some European countries like Norway and Portugal have sought to limit the shot's use in people over the age of 65.
AstraZeneca and its German manufacturing partner IDT Biologika aim to hasten output of finished vaccines in Europe by the second quarter. Looking ahead, both companies plan to invest in a capacity upgrade at IDT Biologika's site in Dessau, Germany, building up to five 2,000-liter bioreactors that can churn out "tens of millions" of COVID shot doses per month. The new bioreactors are expected to come online by the end of 2022. The move could support production of shots with similar manufacturing processes, paving the way for "Europe's future vaccine supply independence," AZ said.
Several people who received Pfizer or Moderna's vaccine soon after developed the rare blood disorder immune thrombocytopenia, though it's unclear whether the shots themselves were responsible, The New York Times reports. FDA and CDC officials are investigating and say the cases could be coincidental. Pfizer told The Times it so far hadn't established a link to its vaccine, while Moderna told the news outlet it ''continuously monitors the safety" of its shot. Hematologists said the shot may have played a part, but noted cases after vaccination were likely to be very rare.
South Korea approved AstraZeneca's vaccine for emergency use in all adults ages 18 and older, with the caveat that AZ still needs to provide late-stage clinical data, The Korea Herald reports. While the country OK'd the shot in older adults, its Ministry of Food and Drug Safety recommends doctors use caution before deciding to give the vaccine to people over the age of 65. Korea is in line to receive 1.5 million AZ doses on February 24.
Thailand's drug regulator is expected to sign off on Sinovac's shot around the same time the country receives its first 200,000-dose shipment later this month, Bloomberg reports. It will use the Chinese-made vaccine to launch its immunization effort, though the majority of Thailand's vaccines will come from AstraZeneca via local drugmaker Siam Bioscience. Thailand was banking on a 50,000-dose delivery of AstraZeneca shots to start its vaccination program on February 14, but the drugmaker's tiff with Europe has delayed shipments to the country, Bloomberg said.
The European Union made some missteps in its handling of the pandemic, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, told lawmakers. "We were late to authorize," she said, adding that the bloc was "too optimistic when it came to massive production, and perhaps too confident that what we ordered would actually be delivered on time"'--bringing to mind the EU's public supply beef with AstraZeneca. Still, it's better that the EU moved as a bloc and didn't leave member states to fend for supplies themselves, von der Leyen said.
Texas is teaming up with the feds to build out three mass vaccination sites, Reuters reports. Each site will aim to deliver about 10,000 doses a day and should start getting shots into patients' arms by February 22, Jeffrey Zients, the White House's COVID-19 response coordinator, said. The sites will pop in the Dallas and Houston areas, with one pegged for the Dallas Cowboys' AT&T Stadium in Arlington. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will run the sites.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Feb. 10 at 9:30 a.m. ET
People may be getting COVID-19 vaccines every year for the next several years, Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told CNBC's Meg Tirrell. He pointed to the rise of virus variants, warning that every time the virus mutates, "it's almost like another click of the dial so to speak where we can see another variant, another mutation that can have an impact on its ability to fend off antibodies or to have a different kind of response not only to a therapeutic but also to a vaccine.''
Eli Lilly's antibody cocktail of bamlanivimab and etesevimab won an FDA emergency nod to treat mild to moderate COVID patients ages 12 and up who are at high risk of advancing to severe disease or hospitalization. The therapy, delivered as a single intravenous infusion, should be given "as soon as possible" after a person tests positive and within 10 days of symptoms starting, Lilly said. The FDA also signed off on infusion times for bamlanivimab alone and in combination with etesevimab as short as 16 or 21 minutes, respectively. Story
BioNTech has kicked off mRNA production at its facility in Marburg, Germany, and estimates a single mRNA batch at current scale is good for some 8 million doses. To ship out those supplies, the production processes at Marburg must first be cleared by the European Medicines Agency, with an assessment pegged for February and March, BioNTech said. Once fully operational, the site will boast capacity for 750 million doses a year. BioNTech aims to crank out 250 million doses at Marburg in the first half of 2021 and plans to deliver the first doses from the site in April. Story
India-based drugmaker Wockhardt bagged a six-month extension of its agreement with the U.K. to fill and finish AstraZeneca's vaccine, the Daily Post reports. Wockhardt subsidiary CP Pharmaceuticals will continue to carry out the work at its plant in Wrexham, Wales, which is also getting 40 new hires.
South Africa next week will start vaccinating frontline healthcare workers with Johnson & Johnson's unapproved shot, health minister Zweli Mkhize said. The country will use the rollout to study the shot's efficacy, particularly against a virus variant that's become dominant in the country. South Africa is now bypassing AstraZeneca's shot altogether because it ''does not prevent mild to moderate disease'' caused by the variant, Mkhize said. ''The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been proven effective against the 501Y.V2 variant," he said, adding that South African approval processes were underway.
Japan has locked down 144 million Pfizer vaccine doses'--enough for 72 million people'--but thanks to shortages of low dead space syringes needed to extract a sixth dose from vials, some 24 million shots will go to waste, the Independent reports. If healthcare workers can't muster that sixth dose, the extra product will need to be tossed, government spokesman Katsunobu Kato said. ''We will use all the syringes we have that can draw six doses, but it will, of course, not be enough as more shots are administered," Norihisa Tamura, Japan's health minister, said.
A Trump appointee put pressure on the FDA to green light hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma in COVID-19, according to nearly 100 pages of emails released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Paul Alexander, who last year served as a senior advisor to then-HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, reached out directly to FDA chief Stephen Hahn and former deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs Anand Shah to push the treatments'--in at least one case after HCQ's emergency nod had been rescinded.
Drugmakers need to set aside old rivalries to keep COVID-19 vaccine supplies afloat, Carlo de Notaristefani, a former Teva exec and a lead manufacturing and supply chain adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said. If a company's vaccine program is delayed or terminated, manufacturing resources should immediately be divvied up among those still in the race, he said. To make the move more enticing for highly competitive pharma companies, the government should act as a matchmaker, providing collaboration incentives and adapting existing rules, he added.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 3:13 p.m. ET
mRNA vaccines are likely the ''go-to'' for a single-antigen pandemic where speed is key, but in other disease areas with established prophylactics, mRNA candidates will face competition from ''standard of care'' vaccines that boast a ''well-characterized safety profile,'' Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson told Barron's. The COVID-19 pandemic helped put mRNA on the map, but that doesn't mean developers should ''walk away'' from established tech just yet, vaccine experts agreed on a recent Fierce Pharma panel. Story
Verily is joining forces with Johnson & Johnson's Janssen unit to identify early warning biomarkers for COVID-19 that could guide future treatments and potentially predict whether a person's case may turn severe. Verily will use its Project Baseline testing program, collecting biological information and real-world data in the weeks right after a person tests positive, with subjects able to participate from their homes. The parties will also tap data from patients' everyday lives to ID any health-related signals in the two years before and after they consent to the study. Story
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott wants Johnson & Johnson to sell 300,000 vaccine doses straight to the city to help distribute supplies equally. In a letter to J&J, Scott said that if the sale goes through'--pending federal approval and interest from J&J'--he would set up a subcommittee of the city's Vaccine Distribution Task Force that includes company representatives, Baltimore health department officials and community leaders. Maryland governor Larry Hogan was less optimistic: ''I mean, everybody would like a jump to the front of the line, but it's not going to happen,'' he said.
As Mayor, my highest priority is keeping Baltimoreans healthy and safe.Today, I sent a proposal to @JNJGlobalHealth requesting partnership to directly purchase 300,000 vaccines manufactured here in Baltimore and ensure equitable vaccine distribution. Full letter below. pic.twitter.com/X68jR80y8F
'-- Brandon M. Scott (@MayorBMScott) February 8, 2021Miami-based Veru reports that its cancer asset, VERU-111, charted a ''statistically significant and clinically meaningful reduction'' in the proportion of COVID patients who were treatment failures'--meaning dead or alive with respiratory failure'--in a 40-subject phase 2 trial. The company tested its drug in hospitalized patients at high risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome from the virus. At the 29-day mark, the VERU-111 group, which included 18 patients, had a treatment failure rate of 5.6%, versus the 20-patient placebo arm's 30%. Story
Tiziana Life Sciences' intranasal antibody hopeful foralumab helped patients in a small phase 2 study. The trial randomized 39 patients to receive foralumab, foralumab plus dexamethasone or no treatment. The foralumab group displayed 80% improvement in the lungs, compared to 75% in the combo cohort and 43% in the control group, CT scans showed. Antibodies usually aren't a good fit for nasal delivery, but Tiziana pegged foralumab as an exception after assessing its ability to act on systemic immunity via the epithelial lining of the nose. Story
New oncology trials plummeted 60% globally during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which ran from January to May 2020, data out from Medidata and published by the JAMA network found. The pandemic ''may be associated with longer term indirect effects on population morbidity and mortality through pathways such as halted drug development,'' according to the JAMA findings. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 11:25 a.m. ET
Merck KGaA expanded its pact with German compatriot BioNTech to rapidly boost lipid supplies for the company's mRNA shot by the end of the year. To build out its already impressive lipid production capacity, Merck KGaA says it's spent the past several weeks tweaking production technologies and implementing new, complex process steps. Lipids are combined with mRNA to create lipid nanoparticles, central to the delivery of Pfizer and BioNTech's shot.
The viral vector vaccine developed by China's CanSino Biologics was 65.7% effective at preventing symptomatic disease in phase 3. Against severe disease, the shot was 90.98% effective, Pakistan's health adviser, Faisal Sultan, said on Twitter. CanSino later forwarded Sultan's comments in a statement. Like Johnson & Johnson's shot, CanSino's vaccine works at one dose and is easier to store than the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. CanSino's phase 3 included 30,000 subjects across Pakistan, Russia, Argentina, Mexico and Chile.
Johnson & Johnson is looking to manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine in India, Reuters reports, citing a local government official. The country currently feels confident about the efficacy of AstraZeneca's vaccine, which is being produced by Serum Institute of India for some countries under the name Covishield, the official added.
South Africa could still deploy AstraZeneca's vaccine in a "stepped manner," rolling out 100,000 doses and monitoring their effect on hospitalizations and deaths, the Sunday Times reports. Multiple countries and health organizations defended AZ's shot after a new study showed it was less effective against a virus variant discovered in South Africa. ''Obviously the world is full of the wild type virus that this AstraZeneca vaccine is known to work against,'' Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI, said. Other health experts cited limitations in the size and duration of the study.
India, for its part, hasn't discovered any local cases of the South African variant and will continue to use AstraZeneca's shot in its vaccination drive, Reuters reports. The country will "intensify" its surveillance and watch other developments on the shot "in due course," according to top Indian vaccine official Vinod Kumar Paul.
Israel's MyHeritage lab, which handles more than 10,000 COVID-19 tests a day, unveiled partial evidence that Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine stops the virus' spread. The lab said positive test results among patients ages 60 and older had up to 60% smaller viral loads than those from patients between the ages of 40 and 59. The shift started in mid-January, when most of the country's older population had received its first dose. The results are limited because MyHeritage didn't know if individual samples came from patients who'd received the shot.
The coronavirus likely jumped to humans from an animal, Peter Ben Embarek, food safety and animal diseases expert at the World Health Organization, said Tuesday. Embarek's remarks came after his WHO team wrapped its investigation on the coronavirus' potential origins in the city of Wuhan. The exact animal host hasn't been identified, and Embarek partially discounted the possibility of a direct jump from bats, suggesting more work needs to be done to trace potential transmission.
UPDATED: Monday, Feb. 8 at 3:10 p.m. ET
AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford will tweak their vaccine to target virus variants with mutations similar to the South African version, dubbed B.1.351. ''Efforts are underway to develop a new generation of vaccines that will allow protection to be redirected to emerging variants as booster jabs, if it turns out that it is necessary to do so,'' Oxford's Sarah Gilbert, Ph.D., said in a statement. The new shot could be ready by fall, she added. The move comes after a new study cast doubt on the shot's efficacy against mild and moderate disease caused by the B.1.351 variant. Story
Those study results led South Africa to halt its rollout of AstraZeneca's vaccine, prompting several other countries to defend the shot, Reuters reports. AZ's vaccine offers adequate protection against "nearly all the variants" of the virus, French Health Minister Olivier Veran said, and all three shots cleared in Europe, including AZ's, defend against serious infections, Jens Spahn, Germany's Health Minister, said. There's currently no evidence to suggest AZ's shot has become less effective at preventing severe disease and death, Gregg Hunt, Australia's Health Minister, added.
Covaxx's multitope protein/synthetic peptide-based vaccine candidate, UB-612, yielded neutralizing antibodies in 100% of patients after two doses, early phase 1 data showed. Researchers looked at three doses'--10, 30 and 100 micrograms'--in 60 healthy adults between the ages of 20 and 55. At the the 100-microgram dose, anti-spike-protein receptor-binding domain and virus-neutralizing antibody responses "compared favorably" to those from hospitalized patients who'd recovered from COVID. The majority of side effects were short and mild, and none were serious, Covaxx added.
Eighty percent of Americans appear willing to get a COVID-19 shot, a new W20 Group study using search and social data found. Among politically right-leaning respondents'--defined as those who follow at least three right-leaning politicians, journalists or news outlets'--only 41% show a willingness to get the vaccine, versus 95% of the center left, 93% of the educated left and 91% of apolitical groups ready to get the shot. Sixty percent of those right-leaning respondents unwilling to get the vaccine cited freedom of choice in the matter as their main sticking point. Story
The Trump Administration meddled with testing guidance last summer "in order to hide evidence the virus was spreading rapidly among asymptomatic people,'' James Clyburn, chairman of the House of Representatives' Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, alleges in letters to White House chief of staff Ron Klain and HHS acting secretary Norris Cochran. Clyburn's claim relates to the CDC's August guidance that people who'd been exposed to the virus and weren't symptomatic didn't need to get tested. The CDC has since acknowledged the potential for asymptomatic spread on its website.
A coronavirus variant that first cropped up in the U.K., dubbed B.1.1.7, could become dominant in the U.S. by March, a new study published on the pre-print server medRxiv found. The variant is spreading fast in the states, doubling roughly every 10 days, the researchers said. The team estimates that the transmission rate of the British variant is about 30% to 40% higher than more common variants, too'--and that number could rise as more data come in, one of the study's co-authors told The New York Times.
UPDATED: Monday, Feb. 8 at 9:45 a.m. ET
Novavax's protein-based vaccine prospect has started rolling reviews in Europe, the U.K., the U.S. and Canada. The company has started submitting early data on the program to regulators, and the reviews are designed to speed up the process for potential emergency authorizations. The vaccine is in phase 3 testing in the U.K. and U.S., and a separate trial of the candidate previously showed high efficacy.
Pfizer aims to cut the time to produce a COVID-19 vaccine batch from 110 days to about 60 days, Chaz Calitri, VP for operations and sterile injectables, told USA Today. DNA production'--the first step in Pfizer's vaccine manufacturing process'--is one process in line for a speed boost, Calitri said. Making that DNA originally took 16 days, but it will soon take just nine or 10. Meanwhile, the company is adding production lines at its plants in Michigan, Missouri and Massachusetts.
AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford's vaccine looks ineffective against mild or moderate disease caused by a virus variant first ID'd in South Africa, a non-peer-reviewed study showed. Looking at both the blood of vaccinated individuals and more than 2,000 healthy subjects, South African and Oxford University researchers found that while none of the subjects died or were hospitalized, a two-dose vaccine regimen failed to confer protection. Efficacy against severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths has yet to be determined.
With those data in hand, South Africa is halting its AstraZeneca vaccine rollout, Reuters reports. ''This study confirms that the pandemic coronavirus will find ways to continue to spread in vaccinated populations, as expected,'' Andrew Pollard, chief investigator of the Oxford vaccine trial, told the news outlet. ''But, taken with the promising results from other studies in South Africa using a similar viral vector, vaccines may continue to ease the toll on health care systems by preventing severe disease," he said.
Portugal's health ministry recommends AstraZeneca's vaccine be used in people below the age of 65. Still, older people shouldn't delay their vaccinations if AZ's shot is the only one available, the ministry said. The country on Sunday received its first batch of 42,300 AstraZeneca doses. Portugal isn't the first country to question the shot's efficacy in older patients. Norway on Thursday said it wouldn't give the vaccine to people over the age of 65, citing a lack of older participants in AZ's trials.
Sinovac's shot CoronaVac won a conditional marketing authorization from China's drug regulator. Sinovac kicked off a rolling submission in September, filing for conditional authorization on February 3. The China National Medical Products Administration issued its green light on the basis of two month's data from phase 3 trials, Sinovac said. Final results aren't yet available, and efficacy and safety will be "further confirmed" the company added. The shot is currently approved for emergency use in Chile, Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil.
Orders for Zydus Cadila's homegrown COVID-19 vaccine have outstripped capacity, Moneycontrol reports. "In terms of our opportunity size, we have orders far more than what we can make ... I have to work on prioritization of supplies and manufacturing," Sharvil Patel, managing director of Cadila Healthcare, told analysts. The company has been building out a facility to produce 120 million doses of its plasmid DNA candidate, which entered phase 3 last month. Meanwhile, Zydus says it's hunting for manufacturing partners to ultimately hit a production target of about 200 million doses.
Hospital use of the steroid dexamethasone and Gilead Sciences' antiviral Veklury, also known as remdesivir, has doubled since the summer, according to care coordination software company CarePort Health. Across the hospitals CarePort examined, Veklury use hit 17% the week of January 5, compared with 5% the week of July 7. Meanwhile, dexamethasone usage surged to 43% in January, versus 20% in July, a CarePort spokesperson said. Providers may be relying on those treatments as a stopgap until vaccinations are more widespread, CarePort figures.
UPDATED: Friday, Feb. 5 at 3:00 p.m. ET
German mRNA specialist CureVac is teaming up with the U.K. Vaccines Taskforce to study coronavirus variants and develop vaccine candidates against selected mutations. The government will hustle along clinical trials in the U.K. to secure emergency or conditional nods for the shots as quickly as possible. The pact covers an initial supply of 50 million variant vaccines, which will be manufactured in the U.K. Should any of the vaccines pass muster with British regulators, they'll be rolled out in the U.K., as well as in its overseas and dependent territories. Story
Sales for Roche's diagnostics division grew 14% over the full year of 2020, breaching 13.8 billion CHF, or about $15.3 billion. COVID-19 tests supplied a massive chunk of that revenue haul, helping to offset losses caused by pandemic lockdowns and delayed health screenings. The company's molecular diagnostics segment carried the bulk of the growth, raking in some $4.16 billion'--an increase of more than 90% over 2019 at constant exchange rates. Roche last year launched 15 COVID-19 tests, including rapid, point-of-care solutions and high-throughput, centralized lab diagnostics across all test types. Story
Regeneron's antibody cocktail snared $146 million in fourth-quarter sales, falling short of analyst expectations and coming in well below the drugmaker's own predictions. Still, the cocktail could perform better in 2021: Regeneron in January agreed to sell up to 1.25 million more doses to the U.S., building on its previous order for 300,000. If uptake improves, Regeneron could bank up to $2.625 billion on the new contract. The company still has $466 million worth of doses left to deliver from its initial deal, but it aims to roll out 750,000 doses from the second order by the end of June. Story
Gilead's antiviral Veklury, also known as remdesivir, ginned up $2.8 billion in 2020. The drug enjoyed a big boost in the fourth quarter, pulling $1.93 billion, as hospitalizations and treatments peaked on the back of a COVID-19 surge, the company said. Meanwhile, as vaccination efforts gain steam, Gilead estimates between $2 billion and $3 billion in Veklury sales for 2021. Beyond the company's COVID superstar, overall sales fell 3% to $21.5 billion as generic competition for Truvada and Atripla took its toll. Story
Drugmakers ought to share their manufacturing capacity to help boost production of COVID-19 shots, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday. ''We also need a massive scale-up in manufacturing,'' he added.
Over time, SARS-CoV-2'--the virus behind COVID-19'--deletes part of the genetic code for the spike protein on its surface, which stops some antibodies from attaching to and neutralizing the virus, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found. They've published their findings in the journal Science. The team found several genetic deletions, all of which changed the spike protein's shape just enough so antibodies couldn't recognize it. The virus variant first discovered in the U.K. was among those found to have these deletions, they said. Story
The same "scalper bots" that buy Playstation 5s and designer sneakers to resell at astronomical prices are targeting COVID-19 vaccine appointments, prompting pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS to mount a defense, Reuters reports. Walgreens has set up security measures like bot prevention and detection, while CVS says its appointment site "has a layered defense that includes capabilities to detect automated cyber attacks, such as botnets."
UPDATED: Friday, Feb. 5 at 10:45 a.m. ET
It's official: Johnson & Johnson has filed for emergency FDA authorization of its one-and-done COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA has queued up an advisory committee to parse through the application on February 26. The move comes less than a week after the Big Pharma unveiled data showing its viral vector vaccine was 66% effective against moderate to severe disease. J&J plans to have doses ready to roll as soon as the FDA makes a decision, with the goal to sell 100 million shots in the U.S. by mid-year. Story
Pfizer and AstraZeneca's vaccines are "extremely safe," says the U.K.'s drug regulator. To reach that conclusion, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency looked at safety reports from nearly 7 million doses administered through January 24. MHRA received 22,820 reports of suspected reactions, but almost all cases were mild and largely involved reactions like arm soreness and flu-like symptoms. Those are typical responses to the vaccine, MHRA said, noting that severe allergic reactions to Pfizer's vaccine can happen, but are rare.
Pfizer pulled the emergency use application for its vaccine in India, Reuters reported. The pharma giant met with India's drug regulator Wednesday, and ''[b]ased on the deliberations at the meeting and our understanding of additional information that the regulator may need, the company has decided to withdraw its application at this time,'' the company said. It plans to re-submit an approval request once more information becomes available. India's drug regulator previously said it wouldn't approve the shot without a small local trial in Indians, Reuters has reported.
The FDA will keep reviews for variant-focused booster shots swift, acting commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D., said Thursday. If emerging variants necessitate boosters or changes to vaccines, the regulator won't require the same large-scale trials needed to secure an emergency nod or approval, she said. The process will likely call for safety information, as well as a potential review from an external committee of experts. The FDA plans to issue a proposal on the process in the coming weeks, Woodcock said. Story
Pfizer is ahead of schedule in its quest to deliver an additional 100 million shot doses to the U.S., company representatives said Thursday before the Michigan House Health Policy Committee. That abbreviated timeline is the result of production boosts and a bonus sixth dose found in vials of Pfizer's vaccine, the representatives said. Those deliveries, originally pegged to arrive by the end of July, should now reach states by the end of May.
Moderna is in talks with South Korea to build out a $200-million vaccine manufacturing facility'--potentially in Seoul, Park Young-sun, a former government minister involved in the talks, told the Asia Business Daily. It's unclear when the plant could come online or how many doses it might produce. Story
South Korea on Friday authorized Celltrion's COVID-19 antibody drug, Regkirona, though the company is still on the hook to supply phase 3 data, Korea Biomedical Review reports. The country's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety cleared the drug in mild patients in high risk groups, as well as adult patients with moderate symptoms.
Daiichi Sankyo snared an outsourcing agreement with AstraZeneca to produce the drugmaker's University of Oxford-partnered vaccine in Japan, Daiichi said Friday. Under the deal, the company's Daiichi Sankyo Biotech unit will crank out doses through the fill-finish step at a facility tapped in the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's scheme "for developing and producing novel influenza virus vaccines.''
AstraZeneca, armed with results from a non-peer-reviewed study, recently suggested its shot could curb the coronavirus' spread. Taking nasal swabs from vaccinated and unvaccinated people, AZ found positive tests were 50% lower among those who got two doses versus people who received no vaccine, making a case for the shot lowering transmission, it figures. Others aren't convinced. ''What they show is that there was [either] decreased viral shedding or decreased detection of virus"'--not decreased spread, Carlos del Rio, associate dean of Emory School of Medicine, told Time.
The world's approach to flu vaccines could provide a roadmap for the FDA's booster reviews, Politico reports. Yearly flu shots are based on a foundational vaccine that's altered to tackle the variants that emerge in a given season. Using this approach, drugmakers could skip lengthy trials enrolling thousands of subjects and instead prove safety and efficacy in smaller studies of a few hundred volunteers. ''The flu model is the only thing that makes sense,'' Paul Offit, M.D., told Politico, noting the challenge of running an efficacy trial now that many people have been vaccinated.
A slim 2.5% of the European Union's population has received a first vaccine dose, putting the bloc well behind the U.S., the U.K. and Israel. "We need to speed up vaccinations," Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization's European director, told news outlet AFP. Now, it's up to drugmakers to take part in efforts to "drastically increase production capacity," he said. He further recommended that wealthy nations share their shot supplies once they've vaccinated the elderly, healthcare workers and people with underlying conditions that put them at higher risk.
Norway won't give AstraZeneca's vaccine to people over the age of 65, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) said Thursday. FHI cited a lack of older participants in AstraZeneca's trials as cause for its decision. So far, about 135,000 Norwegians have received their first shot, with some 35,000 getting their second dose'--all of those with Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines, FHI said.
Police in Florida are searching for a man who stole a gray Hyundai Accent loaded up with 30 vials of Pfizer and BioNTech's CVOID-19 vaccine. The keys were left in the ignition, and the car was boosted from a vaccination site at the Strawberry Festival Fairgrounds in Plant City, authorities said. The 30 vials contained between 150 and 180 doses.
UPDATED: Thursday, Feb. 4 at 2:55 p.m. ET
As Roche weathers biosimilar pressure on key medicines, the pandemic took a toll on sales of drugs such as multiple sclerosis med Ocrevus and wet age-related macular degeneration treatment Lucentis. Many patients stayed home and didn't get treatments or didn't switch to new offerings, the company said in its fourth-quarter results. Story
As Novavax negotiates more supply deals for its coronavirus vaccine candidate, the company this week unveiled an agreement in principle with the Swiss government for 6 million doses. Novavax's vaccine was recently shown to be 89% effective in a late-stage study.
After officials in the Bolivian city of Trinidad last year started a campaign to give out free doses of Merck's anti-parasite drug ivermectin for COVID-19, the company says a data analysis doesn't support using the medicine against COVID-19.
While doctors in places around the country are still having a hard time getting doses of the coronavirus vaccine, one doctor in the remote town of Cut Off, Louisiana, got a shipment this week, he told Fierce Healthcare. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, Feb. 4 at 11:45 a.m. ET
Amid worries about vaccine supply constraints, U.K. researchers on Thursday kicked off a trial to assess a two-shot schedule combining Pfizer and AstraZeneca's shots. The study will look at the immune responses generated by an initial dose of Pfizer's shot, followed by AstraZeneca's'--and vice-versa, at intervals of four and 12 weeks. Researchers plan to recruit some 800 participants and expect initial results by June. Story
AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford are working "as rapidly as possible" on next-generation COVID-19 vaccines to tackle emerging virus variants, Reuters reports, citing company research chief Mene Pangalos. ''We're working very hard, and we're already talking about not just the variants that we have to make in laboratories, but also the clinical studies that we need to run,'' he said during a media briefing. The company aims to have something ready by as early as autumn, he added.
Recruitment has picked up for Moderna's study assessing its mRNA vaccine in kids between the ages of 12 and 17, a company spokeswoman told the Boston Globe. The company aims to recruit 3,000 subjects and expects to deliver results by the middle of the year, she said. Pfizer last month finished recruitment for a trial of its own shot in children ages 12 to 15.
When the FDA cleared the use of a sixth dose in Pfizer's vaccine vials, demand spiked for special syringes needed to stretch supply. Thing is, the company had been working on a way to extract that bonus dose months before pharmacists had the idea themselves, The Washington Post reports. ''I think this could have been anticipated. '... It's one more thing that was lost in the woodwork during the vaccine response,'' former FDA staffer Jesse Goodman said. Meanwhile, Biden officials last week said they'd secured enough low-dead-space syringes to accompany all Pfizer shipments.
Pfizer won't stop testing its shot against emerging variants anytime soon, the company's vaccine chief, Philip Dormitzer, M.D., Ph.D., told ScienceInsider. Lab tests have so far shown South African and British variants could reduce efficacy, though the company doesn't think it needs to alter its shot just yet, he said. The company is running tests on a variant first observed in Brazil, too, and expects to unveil South African and Brazilian data imminently. "At the rate that this virus is spinning out variants, we will be continuing to do this for quite some time," Dormitzer added.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Feb. 3 at 3:30 p.m. ET
The European Medicines Agency's human medicines committee (CHMP) kicked off a rolling review of Novavax's shot, NVX-CoV2373, basing its decision on preclinical and early clinical data showing the vaccine triggers an antibody and immune cell response against the virus that causes COVID-19. The EMA will evaluate Novavax's clinical data as it comes in until there's enough evidence for a formal marketing authorization application.
Switzerland stopped short of approving AstraZeneca's vaccine as it awaits additional efficacy and quality data from North and South American trials, drug regulator Swissmedic said Wednesday. ''As soon as the results have been received, a temporary authorization according to the rolling procedure could be issued at very short notice,'' Swissmedic said. Meanwhile, the country bought 5 million CureVac doses, 6 million more Moderna doses and forged a preliminary pact for 6 million Novavax doses, for a total supply of more than 30 million shots.
Bristol Myers Squibb picked up the global rights to a pair of early-stage antibodies discovered by The Rockefeller University. The parties are keeping financial details close to the vest, with Rockefeller in line for sales royalties should the product hit the market. The university last month kicked off a 15-subject phase 1 study to assess subcutaneous and intravenous delivery of several doses of the two antibodies. If a low-dose subQ formulation is effective, which preclinical data suggest, BMS could be able to deliver large volumes of the product at a relatively low cost. Story
Biogen's spinal muscular atrophy blockbuster Spinraza took a fourth-quarter sales hit courtesy of COVID-19. Sales of the drug slipped 34% compared to the same period last year, with the "majority" of that decline due to patients opting out of treatment center visits during the pandemic, CEO Michel Vounatsos said on an analyst call. He said COVID-19 was ''accelerating switches to alternative treatment,'' too, such as Roche's oral competitor Evrysdi. Meanwhile, Novartis' gene therapy rival Zolgensma has also turned up the heat on Biogen's drug. Story
Meanwhile, GlaxoSmithKline's shingles vaccine Shingrix posted 11% sales growth in 2020, signaling a slowdown for a product that more than doubled sales in 2019. Pandemic lockdowns had a hand in slashing vaccination numbers, and the company expects Shingrix disruptions to persist in the U.S. until at least the back half of 2021. While sales did tick up in the fourth quarter, governments prioritizing COVID-19 vaccinations will likely take a toll on "all adult vaccinations, including Shingrix," Luke Miels, GSK's president of pharmaceuticals, told investors Wednesday. Story
AstraZeneca's vaccine was 54.9% effective in trial subjects who got their second dose within six weeks of the first'--and that figure jumped to 82.4% in patients who waited 12 or more weeks, new data published in Preprints with The Lancet showed. A standard dose was found to be 76% effective between 22 days and 90 days after the first injection, offering protection while people wait on a booster. The data support AZ chief Pascal Soriot's recent recommendation that the European Union vaccinate as many people as possible now without holding back booster doses. Story
Serum Institute of India will provide 1.1 billion doses of AstraZeneca and Novavax's vaccines to the World Health Organization's equitable shot distribution scheme, Covax, UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore said Wednesday. Those deliveries will roll out over several years with individual doses priced at around $3 for low- and middle-income countries, she said.
BD is rolling out a new COVID-19 blood test in Europe designed to help hospitals flag patients who are more likely to require intensive care with a ventilator and are at higher risk of death. The test evaluates a person's immune system by measuring the percentages and absolute counts of T, B and natural killer cells, plus subpopulations of T cells in peripheral blood. Researchers at BD have found that the risk for ventilation or death spikes if CD4 T-cell counts drop below 250 per microliter or if CD8 cells are under 100 per microliter. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, Feb. 3 at 9:30 a.m. ET
GlaxoSmithKline is paying CureVac up to '¬150m ($180 million) to co-develop next-generation mRNA vaccines against COVID-19, with a focus on emerging virus variants. The partners will develop a number of candidates, which they figure could protect people who haven't been vaccinated or serve as boosters if immunity wanes over time. Meanwhile, GSK has also tapped its Belgian manufacturing network to help produce up to 100 million doses of CureVac's first-generation mRNA shot in 2021. Story
Evotec subsidiary Just-Evotec Biologics bagged a $28.6 million contract from the Department of Defense (DOD) to help produce COVID-19 antibody drugs. Just-Evotec will set aside present and future manufacturing capacity at its soon-to-be-completed J. POD facility in Redmond, Washington, for the next seven years. The DOD first tapped Just-Evotec in July 2020 to help pinpoint potential antibodies'--a move that yielded "rapid process development and manufacture of high yielding mAbs against SARS-CoV-2," the company said.
A recent Tweet got people wondering why more drugmakers haven't stepped up to produce COVID-19 vaccines:
The vaccine shortage doesn't need to exist. Pfizer and Moderna could share their design with the dozens of other pharma companies who stand ready to produce their vaccines and end the pandemic.
'-- James Hamblin (@jameshamblin) February 2, 2021Thing is, that's just wrong, medicinal chemist Derek Lowe wrote in his long-running "In the Pipeline" blog. There aren't "dozens" of companies ready to produce Pfizer and Moderna's shots because making an mRNA vaccine is both a new and complex process, which requires special equipment that most companies simply do not have. He pointed to the step where lipids and mRNA are combined into lipid nanoparticles as a particularly challenging bottleneck. Pfizer and Moderna both seem to be doing this step in-house, likely using "special-purpose bespoke" microfluidics devices.
The FDA slapped New Jersey's Eagle Pharmaceuticals with a complete response letter on its abbreviated new drug application for vasopressin, which the agency has flagged for its potential to treat COVID-19. Eagle has met twice with the FDA about the CRL and says it will hold an additional meeting within 30 days. The company will need to complete one additional short-duration study, which it plans to run in either mid-February or mid-March.
Mexico became the first North American country to authorize Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund said Wednesday. The vaccine has so far been cleared in 17 countries including Russia, Hungary, Argentina, Bolivia and Palestine.
Delaying the second dose of Moderna's shot appears fine, but doing the same for Pfizer's vaccine could cause deaths and infections to spike, a study posted on the pre-print server medRxiv found. Other experts aren't convinced, National Post reports. The researchers' underlying assumption that Pfizer's shot is just 52% effective after the first dose is faulty, Julie Bettinger, a member of Canada's vaccine advisory board said. In fact, the first dose is closer to 90% effective after two weeks, Caroline Quach Thanh, M.D., chair of Canada's National Advisory Council on Immunization, said.
Humanigen tapped CDMO Avid Bioservices to expand production capacity for its monoclonal antibody lenzilumab, designed to treat and prevent the immune hyper-response "cytokine storm." Avid will start tech transfer and analytical validation services with a view to produce drug substance batches for potential commercial supply, the companies said. Humanigen has fully enrolled a phase 3 trial of the drug and says it could file for an emergency use authorization later this year.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 3:15 p.m. ET
Taking a cue from Pfizer, Moderna hopes to raise the number of doses in its vaccine vials from 10 to upward of 15, The New York Times reports. As Moderna ramps up shot production, the fill-finish stage has become something of a bottleneck, hindering efforts to boost distribution in the U.S. Moderna has discussed the move with the FDA, but has yet to submit manufacturing data to get the change approved, sources close to the talks told the Times.
CDMO Catalent saw its biologics revenue jump to $403.9 million in the second quarter of its fiscal year, marking a whopping 76% increase at constant currencies over the same period in 2019. That boost comes courtesy of the company's myriad COVID-19 manufacturing contracts, which include vaccine pacts with AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, CEO John Chiminski said on an earnings call. The company is also looking to rapidly bring additional shot capacity online at facilities in the U.S. and Europe, he said. Story
Australia's Ellume bagged a $231.8 million contract from the Biden Administration to set up its first U.S. production facility and deliver 8.5 million at-home tests. The FDA in December cleared Ellume's test to be sold over-the-counter and used solo, regardless of whether a person has symptoms. The diagnostic is designed to go from swab to result in about 20 minutes. The planned U.S. facility is expected to produce more than 640,000 tests per day before year-end, building on Ellume's current daily capacity of about 200,000 tests. Story
People who previously had COVID-19 may need just one vaccine dose to mount an effective antibody response, a study published on the pre-print server medRxiv found. Researchers reported that a single vaccine dose in patients with pre-existing immunity yielded antibody levels on par with'--and sometimes exceeding'--those seen in non-infected patients after their second dose. Changing the number of doses patients with pre-existing immunity receive could free up limited vaccine supplies, the authors suggest.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expanding efforts to track coronavirus variants, Director Rochelle Walensky, M.D., said. The agency now aims to sequence 7,000 coronavirus samples per week, up from just 251 during the week of January 10. As of last week, the CDC was working with commercial lab partners to overhaul its NS3 sequencing system to better catch virus variants, Walensky said. Its lab partners have pledged to analyze 6,000 samples per week by mid-February, she added.
It's tough to tell the flu and COVID-19 apart'--something Roche's Genentech unit is stressing to patients in its new DTC campaign for influenza med Xofluza. A new TV spot takes an extra 15 seconds to say as much, and it encourages anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms to contact a healthcare provider. The pharma wanted to ensure viewers understand Xofluza doesn't treat COVID-19, Laura Sullivan, the drug's marketing director, said. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 11:21 a.m. ET
Pfizer expects to bag $15 billion in sales of its mRNA vaccine Comirnaty'--and that number could be even higher, the company said Tuesday. In last year's fourth quarter, the shot contributed $154 million. The company based its $15 billion estimate'--part of its 2021 guidance'--on doses set to be delivered in 2021 through established contracts, but the estimate could grow "if additional contracts are signed," according to the company's investor presentation. Story
Canada aims to produce Novavax's vaccine at a new National Research Council plant in Montreal, CP24 reports. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce a deal with the company on Tuesday. The facility is designed to produce a slim 2 million doses per month and is still under construction, meaning production is still some two months out, CP24 said. Canada's supply worries have intensified as the European Union imposes export controls on COVID shots following a supply kerfuffle with AstraZeneca. Canada's Pfizer and Moderna doses are both made in Europe.
AstraZeneca's Chinese vaccine manufacturing partner, Shenzhen Kangtai, has completed a facility with capacity for 400 million AZ doses, the company said Tuesday. The expansion will allow Shenzhen Kangtai to double the capacity target it agreed to last year. AstraZeneca's vaccine could be approved in China by mid-2021, Reuters reports, citing comments made in November by Leon Wang, head of the company's China operation.
The U.S. has set aside 5.8 million Moderna doses for states this week, marking a 1.5-million-dose boost from the 4.3 million doses the company supplied last week, according to the CDC. Pfizer, for its part, provided just under 4.4 million vaccine doses this week, up 70,000 doses from what it delivered last week. "Yesterday, we announced a 16% increase in supply flowing to states every week for the next three weeks to a minimum of 10 million doses per week," White House COVID-19 response adviser Andy Slavitt said Wednesday at a press event.
Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson want to block shareholders from voting on resolutions that would force the companies to reveal the effect of government funding on vaccine pricing and access, Newsweek reports. Members of the shareholder activist group the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility asked the companies for government funding receipts and how that funding could affect pricing. Pfizer and J&J both filed "no action requests" with the Securities and Exchange Commission in December. They've claimed the proposals attempt to "micromanage" the companies. Story
Against the pandemic backdrop, drugmakers have increasingly turned to PR communications to get out day-to-day messages about drug supply, patient support and more. For Evoke Kyne, whose client list includes COVID-19 bigwigs Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, that means 20 recent hires across its specialty creative, digital, social and earned media teams, plus double-digit revenue growth in 2020. ''In a time last year when many people couldn't find work, our category found an abundance of needs," Maryellen Royle, partner and global head of operations, said. Story
UPDATED: Monday, Feb. 1 at 3:05 p.m. ET
China's Clover Biopharmaceuticals parted ways with GlaxoSmithKline's adjuvant in favor of one from Dynavax. Clover had been testing its vaccine candidate with adjuvants from both companies, but said it had settled on Dynavax's after weighing "manufacturing considerations" and reviewing vaccine data from phase 1, which assessed both shot boosters. Clover and Dynavax expect to start a phase 2/3 trial in the first half of the year. Story
Pfizer and Moderna will continue to lead COVID-19 vaccine sales, but AstraZeneca, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson's shots have blockbuster potential, too, analysts figure. Despite lower overall efficacy in phase 3 than its mRNA competitors, J&J's shot still provides a "compelling one-dose profile with much more straightforward distribution and logistics," SVB Leerink analyst Mani Foroohar, M.D., wrote Monday. AstraZeneca, for its part, could snag $1.9 billion in vaccine revenues this year, followed by $3 billion in 2022, fellow SVB Leerink analyst Andrew Berens predicted. Story
The Mayo Clinic and nference are expanding their data analytics partnership to tackle research projects in digital pathology and heart rhythm diagnostics. Last January, Mayo tapped nference to build an artificial intelligence-powered engine that would transform years of clinical records into an annotated database. In 2020, the companies used the system to answer questions about the COVID-19's long-term complications and more. For instance, nference's platform found the virus' favored ACE2 receptor spanned multiple tissues, from the airway to the gastrointestinal tract. Story
Pharma has gone all in on digital solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that may not be working out so well for doctors, recent research from Indegene found. Forty-nine percent of physicians polled expressed dissatisfaction with the industry's social media engagement. Meanwhile, 46% of doctors said they weren't happy with marketing emails and 42% took issue with telephone sales calls with sales reps. Another 39% of physicians said they were unsatisfied with both websites and webinars. Story
The World Health Organization inked a deal with India's Premier Medical Corporation to help automate the company's manufacturing capacity. The agreement, which covers R&D, technology transfer and scale-up provisions, supports Premier's goal of delivering at least 250 million test kits at less than $2.50 apiece'--less than half the cost of the rapid antigen tests from Abbott and SD Biosensor that are already prequalified by WHO. The company has current capacity for 3 million tests per month, which it hopes to boost to 10 million per month by 2021's third quarter. Story
China arrested more than 80 suspects thought to have manufactured and sold at least 3,000 counterfeit COVID-19 vaccines, The New York Times reports, citing China's state-run news agency, Xinhua. The primary suspect, identified by the surname Kong, had been injecting saline into vials and pawning them off as vaccines since September, Xinhua said.
The U.S. has given about 30 million vaccine doses and, as of Sunday, has been averaging more than 1.3 million vaccinations per day in the past week'--surpassing an average of less than one million per day two weeks earlier, The New York Times reports. The U.S. would be in good shape were it not for looming virus variants. With the possibility that those mutations become dominant this spring, "we really have to vaccinate the American population by late spring, early summer," Peter Hotez, M.D., Ph.D., a vaccine scientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said.
And just as the U.S. was correcting the course on its vaccine rollout, a blizzard hit. New York City is postponing COVID vaccinations scheduled for Monday and Tuesday as snow blankets the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. The winter storm has also hamstrung vaccination efforts in New Jersey, Washington, Philadelphia and other areas, The New York Times reports.
Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Massachusetts, tested positive for COVID-19 after getting both doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's shot, the lawmaker's spokesperson said. Lynch is asymptomatic and feeling fine, and he'll self-isolate and vote by proxy in Congress this week, she added. It can take a few weeks for the body to develop immunity after vaccination, the CDC has noted. "That means it's possible a person could be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 just before or just after vaccination and still get sick," the agency said.
UPDATED: Monday, Feb. 1 at 11:40 a.m. ET
Eli Lilly has joined forces with local health systems to launch dedicated infusion centers serving central, northern and now, southern Indiana'--part of a bid to increase access to antibody drug bamlanivimab. The rollout of Lilly's antibody drug and Renegeron's antibody cocktail has been slow, with infusion presenting one significant barrier to access, experts have noted. Lilly's local partners include the State of Indiana, Community Health Network, Eskenazi Health, Franciscan Health, Saint Joseph Health System and more. Story
Amid a European supply kerfuffle, AstraZeneca will send 9 million more vaccine doses to the European Union in the first quarter, increasing deliveries from February to March by about 30%, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said. Deliveries will also kick off a week earlier than expected, she said on Twitter. The company is also working to boost production capacity in Europe, von der Leyen added.
Step forward on vaccines.@AstraZeneca will deliver 9 million additional doses in the first quarter (40 million in total) compared to last week's offer & will start deliveries one week earlier than scheduled.The company will also expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe.
'-- Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) January 31, 2021Bayer will produce German compatriot CureVac's mRNA shot starting in 2022. The company has "necessary capacities" in place to crank out the experimental vaccine, CVnCoV, and aims to produce 160 million doses in the first 12 months, Stefan Oelrich, Bayer's pharmaceutical head, told reporters. CureVac pushed its shot into a phase 3 trial in December and has set the goal to produce several hundred million vaccine doses through 2021, CEO Franz-Werner Haas said. Story
Speaking of CureVac, the mRNA specialist said Monday that it had started setting up manufacturing capacity with CDMO Rentschler Biopharma'--on the hook for large-scale production of the formulated mRNA for CureVac's shot. The companies in December agreed to set aside production lines at Rentschler's site in Laupheim, Germany, where the CDMO aims to crank out more than 100 million doses of CureVac's vaccine per year.
Meanwhile, Pfizer's German mRNA partner BioNTech will boost second-quarter vaccine deliveries to the European Union by up to 75 million doses, the company said Monday. The move comes as Germany and other EU member states lag behind Israel, the U.K. and the U.S. with their vaccine rollouts. AstraZeneca recently said it would cut initial deliveries to the bloc, citing manufacturing shortfalls in Europe, while Pfizer and BioNTech said they would temporarily squeeze early shipments to Europe, Canada and other countries as they complete a factory upgrade in Belgium.
The World Health Organization's equitable vaccine distribution scheme Covax plans to distribute 35.3 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine to to 36 Caribbean and Latin American states from mid-February to the end of June, WHO's regional office said. WHO is expected to finish its review of AZ's shot for a possible emergency listing in the next few days, the Pan American Health Organization said. Meanwhile, Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador and Peru will also get a combined 377,910 doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA shot from mid-February.
Vaccine specialist Dynavax Technologies tapped the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to support supply of Dynavax's CpG 1018 advanced adjuvant, pegged for use in COVID-19 vaccines developed by CEPI grantees. CEPI will provide a forgivable loan of up to $99 million for the potential manufacture of "hundreds of millions" of vaccine doses through 2021, the companies said.
The dry-ice needed to transport Pfizer's vaccine at ultra-cold temperatures is putting a squeeze on the frozen food industry, Modern Retail reports. The same week in December when dry ice manufacturer ThermaFreeze's stock jumped to $32.25, up from $0.80 per share the previous month, frozen waffle maker Evergreen said it would delay shipments of the breakfast food thanks to a lack of dry ice at its warehouse'--and that's just one example.
UPDATED: Friday, Jan. 29 at 11:20 a.m. ET
Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine candidate was just 66% effective overall in moderate to severe COVID-19 cases, with that number rising to 85% in severe disease, phase 3 data showed. The shot proved 72% effective at preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 in the U.S., but its overall effectiveness fared worse outside the country, with 66% efficacy in Latin America and 57% efficacy in South Africa. The shot performed better against severe disease, displaying ''(c)omplete protection against COVID-19 related hospitalization and death'' after 28 days, J&J said. Story
Speaking of J&J, the company plans to deliver some 200 million vaccine doses to the U.S., should its candidate snare an emergency nod. The order volume appeared in a footnote in a Government Accountability Office report published Thursday. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the company told BNN Bloomberg that J&J plans to supply the U.S. with 100 million doses in the first half the year.
Amid supply concerns in Europe, AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine won a conditional approval from regulators there on Friday. The approval was widely expected, and the regulators didn't add an age restriction for people 65 and older. There had been a question about the age group after German officials raised concerns over a lack of data. AZ's shot is now authorized for people 18 and older in Europe.
Novavax's shot candidate hit 89.3% efficacy in phase 3. In the 15,000-subject U.K. study, there were 56 COVID-19 cases in the placebo arm, versus six in the vaccine group at the interim analysis. Thirty-two of those cases were infected with the virus variant first ID'd in the U.K., with a post hoc analysis putting the efficacy against the B.1.1.7 variant at 85.6%, compared with 95.6% in older variants, Novavax said. Meanwhile, the shot was only 49.4% effective against the South African variant, data from a 4,400-subject phase 2b showed. Story
First Sanofi, now Novartis: The Swiss Pharma juggernaut has signed on to help Pfizer and BioNTech crank out their COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty. Under the deal, BioNTech will use Novartis' production facility in Stein, Switzerland. Manufacturing will start in the second quarter, with deliveries pegged to kick off in Q3. Novartis will receive bulk mRNA active ingredient from BioNTech and fill it into vials, which it will then bounce back to BioNTech for global distribution. Novartis is in "advanced" talks to support other companies developing COVID vaccines and drugs, too. Story
South Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety recommended Celltrion's antibody therapy Regkirona, also known as CT-P59, to treat patients with moderate disease, plus those with mild symptoms who are in high-risk groups, Korea Biomedical Review reports. More data is needed to confirm the drug's preventative effect, as well as its efficacy in patients with mild COVID-19, an advisory committee reviewing Regkirona said. The drug regulator could authorize Regkirona once Celltrion submits phase 3 data, the head of the review committee said.
Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA shot Comirnaty looks as safe in the real world as it did in clinical trials, and no new side effects have emerged, the European Medicines Agency said in its first safety update on a COVID-19 vaccine. EMA's safety committee, PRAC, assessed reports of deaths after receiving the shot, including deaths in frail, older patients, and found that there was no link between those cases and the vaccine.
Amid an ongoing vaccine supply row with the European Union, AstraZeneca published the contract it signed with the bloc last August. The contract allows EU member states access to up to 300 million vaccine doses, with the option to buy 100 million more. AZ last week said it planned to cut initial deliveries to the EU from 80 million doses to 30 million, blaming production shortfalls at its European manufacturing operations.
The U.K.'s top priority is to vaccinate its own population, but the country will help its "friends and neighbors" with shot supplies where it can, The Herald reports, citing Home Office Minister Lucy Frazier. The move comes after the European Union called on AstraZeneca to divert vaccine doses made in the U.K. to Europe. Meanwhile, Scotland plans to start publishing AstraZeneca's supply data next week in the interest of full transparency, the country's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said.
AstraZeneca, for its part, offered the European Union an extra 8 million vaccine doses to help ease supply concerns, but that number is still far below what the bloc is looking for, an EU official told Reuters. The drugmaker said it could potentially bump up first-quarter deliveries to 39 million doses, but that still comes in well below the 80-million-dose minimum it had originally promised to deliver in that time, the official'--who was directly involved in the talks'--told Reuters.
UPDATED: Thursday, Jan. 28 at 3:10 p.m. ET
Amid concerns about supply of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine in Europe, a new wrinkle has emerged for the forthcoming rollout. German officials recommended against the vaccine's use in people 65 and older, citing a lack of evidence in the age group, UPI reports. AstraZeneca responded that the conclusion is "not an accurate reflection of the totality of the data."
After news that AZ won't be able to fulfill its first-quarter order in Europe, officials are facing pressure to restrict exports of COVID-19 vaccines, Sky News reports. Officials are also investigating the plant in Belgium at the root of the manufacturing issue.
The South African COVID-19 variant that has raised scientists' concerns has been found in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reports. Two people with no connections and with no travel history to South Africa have been identified to have the variant, according to the report.
Supply shortfalls aren't just hitting Europe. Canada's first-quarter deliveries of Pfizer's mRNA could come up 500,000 doses short, an official said.
UPDATED: Thursday, Jan. 28 at 11:45 a.m. ET
Swiss Pharma Novartis is in talks with several companies to potentially chip on manufacturing for COVID-19 diagnostics and vaccines, a company spokesperson told Fierce Pharma. It isn't the company's first pandemic push, though. Last year, Novartis' gene therapy unit AveXis agreed to produce an early-stage COVID-19 gene therapy under investigation by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Story
Separately, the U.S. government is considering leveraging the Defense Production Act to tap drugmakers to produce Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna's vaccines. The Biden Administration is ''not afraid to explore every option to get more vaccines to the public as quickly as possible," White House senior COVID-19 advisor Andy Slavitt said at a media briefing this week.
French vaccine specialist Valneva kicked off production of its inactivated, adjuvanted vaccine candidate. At the same time, the company announced it had finished enrollment for its phase 1/2 clinical trial and expects to report initial results in April. The company has recruited 150 healthy adults between the ages of 18 to 55 for the study, which launched in December. Valneva has agreed to supply up to 190 million doses of its shot to the U.K. and is in "advanced" talks with the European Commission to provide up to 60 million doses, should the vaccine win out in the clinic.
The European Union should "explore all options" and use "all legal means" to ensure it gets the vaccines it ordered, European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a letter to four EU leaders. This could result in the EU blocking vaccine exports if they violate existing contracts between drugmakers and the bloc, an EU official told Reuters. The European Commission on Friday is expected to outline criteria it would use to assess those exports.
The Belgian government on Thursday said it had inspected the local Novasep facility at the center of AstraZeneca's European vaccine delivery woes. Experts from the country's federal medicine agency will now work with Dutch, Spanish and Italian experts to deliver a report in the next few days, aiming to assess whether production shortfalls are truly behind AstraZeneca's reduced shipments, a spokesperson for Belgium's health minister said. AZ last week said it would cut initial shot deliveries to Europe from 80 million to 31 million doses, citing reduced manufacturing yields in Europe.
AstraZeneca has rejected the EU's recommendation to divert vaccines from its U.K. manufacturing sites to Europe, Bloomberg reports. The European Union has alleged that AstraZeneca used EU funding to boost production in the U.K. ''We regret the continued lack of clarity on the delivery schedule and request a clear plan from AstraZeneca for the fast delivery of the quantity of vaccines that we reserved for the first quarter,'' EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides said.
It's now suspected that anti-vaxxers were behind a bomb hoax that forced Wednesday's evacuation of a Wockhardt facility in Wrexham, Wales, where the company is finishing doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine, The Telegraph reports. "Unfortunately there are anti-vaxxers out there, which is why security is being taken so seriously at this plant," a source told the British daily. The contents of the package, which weren't actually viable as a bomb, are now being investigated to track down the responsible parties. Wockhardt's manufacturing schedule wasn't disrupted.
The U.K. will offer genomic sequencing capacity to other countries to support the tracking of coronavrius variants, Pharma Times reports. The so called New Variant Assessment Platform will be led by Public Health England alongside NHS Test and Trace, plus academic partners and the World Health Organization's SARS-CoV-2 Global Laboratory Working Group. Countries will be able to apply for assistance through WHO if they don't already have an established channel in the U.K., the news outlet said.
Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine was largely effective against virus mutations first identified in the U.K. and South Africa, a lab study found. While the antibodies generated by the vaccine worked slightly less well against mutations found in the South African variant, the ''findings do not indicate the need for a new vaccine to address the emerging variants,'' Pfizer said. Meanwhile, both Moderna and Pfizer are investigating booster shots to tackle virus variants.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Jan. 27 at 3:07 p.m. ET
Sanofi signed on to produce more than 100 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine in Europe this year, with the first batches pegged for delivery from the drugmaker's Frankfurt, Germany, site by August, a Sanofi spokesperson told Fierce Pharma. Sanofi's own vaccine candidates remain top priority, he added. A phase 2b study of Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline's experimental shot is scheduled to start next month, and the company also has a Translate Bio-partnered mRNA candidate in the pipeline. Story
Regeneron's antibody cocktail was mostly effective against viral variants first identified in the U.K. and South Africa, Regeneron and Columbia University researchers independently confirmed in lab tests. Both antibodies in the company's imdevimab and casirivimab cocktail demonstrated neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant, first discovered in the U.K. The cocktail was effective against the South African variant, B.1.351, too, although the potency of casirivimab was reduced.
Eli Lilly is teaming up with GlaxoSmithKline and its partner Vir Biotechnology to test Lilly's authorized antibody drug, bamlanivimab, in combination with GSK and Vir's experimental antibody therapy VIR-7831. The companies will assess the combo in Lilly's Blaze-4 trial to determine whether the two neutralizing antibodies bind to different epitopes of the coronavirus's spike protein, which could improve potency and lower the odds of viral variants evading treatment. Story
Spanish drugmaker PharmaMar's myeloma drug plitidepsin displayed anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity 27.5 times more potent than Gilead Sciences' Veklury (remdesivir) in human cells, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the University of California, San Francisco found. The researchers published their study in Science and, in a separate paper posted on bioRxiv, said the drug also showed antiviral activity against a virus variant first identified in the U.K. PharmaMar says it's now in talks with regulators to launch a phase 3 study of plitidepsin in COVID. Story
CDMO Lonza is on track to get two more production lines for Moderna's vaccine up and running at its Visp, Switzerland, site this quarter, though it may take "a couple months" for the site to reach "cruising speed," CEO Pierre-Alain Ruffieux told reporters Wednesday. The company recently said it started manufacturing work using its first new Swiss line; once the other two become operational, the company will have total capacity for 400 million doses per year across Europe and the U.S. Story
AstraZeneca tapped virtual trial specialist Care Access Research to hustle along a U.S. study of the company's late-stage monoclonal antibody combo, AZD7442. Care Access will leverage its siteless approach for the phase 3, which is targeting more than 1,000 patients in the U.S. and the U.K. The company's so called "Mobile Sites on Demand" capability brings research'--including people, equipment, software and processes'--to places and communities that would otherwise have limited access to clinical studies. Story
Police evacuated Wockhardt's Wrexham, Wales, facility'--tapped for fill-finish work on AstraZeneca's vaccine'--after the company received a suspicious package, the BBC reports. A bomb squad was deployed, with police later stating the package was made safe and that its contents would be "taken away for analysis." Wockhardt said its staff was able to return, adding that its production schedule hadn't been disrupted.
Europe cleared Abbott Laboratories' rapid Panbio antigen test for both self-performed screening under supervision and widespread use by people without COVID-19 symptoms. The lateral flow test, which is similar to Abbott's U.S.-authorized BinaxNOW test, uses a nasal swab, which is plugged into the small, portable device to deliver a visual result in about 15 minutes. Abbott plans to pair its rapid tests with a smartphone app called Navica that will allow people to display their results. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, Jan. 27 at 11:30 a.m. ET
Pfizer and BioNTech are working a booster shot to tackle coronavirus variants, Pfizer told Reuters. ''We are already laying the groundwork to respond quickly if a variant of SARS-CoV-2 shows evidence of escaping immunity by our vaccine,'' the company said. Meanwhile, the company still needs work with regulators to hammer out studies for the booster. Story
The U.S. aims to buy another 200 million doses from Pfizer and Moderna, which would raise the country's total supply to 600 million doses, President Joe Biden said. The move comes as Biden confirmed the government will boost the number of doses going out to states from 8.6 million per week to 10 million for the next three weeks. Story
AstraZeneca reportedly bailed on a meeting with the European Union to talk about the reduction in its vaccine delivery volume, The Irish News reports, citing an EU official. The European Union would ''insist on them'' coming back for discussions should AZ's vaccine get approved, the official said. Meanwhile, ABC News reported that AstraZeneca said it hadn't pulled out of talks and was planning for a meeting later Wednesday.
The story took another turn when Austrian health minister Rudolf Anschober told reporters that AstraZeneca had simply delayed the meeting. ''AstraZeneca has postponed today's round of negotiations until tomorrow,'' he said. ''From my point of view that is not a big problem.''
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca never committed to a hard timeline for its vaccine deliveries in Europe, CEO Pascal Soriot told la Repubblica Tuesday. "Our contract [with the European Union] is not a contractual commitment. It's a best effort,'' he said. ''In fact, getting there, we are a little bit delayed." Because the U.K. inked its purchase with AstraZeneca early, the company had a ''head start'' on resolving supply chain issues that are now plaguing the EU, Soriot said. Story
Meanwhile, some of the details Soriot revealed in his interview were confidential, Reuters reports, citing an EU official. The bloc is now requesting that AstraZeneca publish its contract with the European Union, the official said.
Japan's JCR Pharmaceuticals will produce 90 million doses of AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford's vaccine, Nikkei Asia reports. JCR will then send the doses it makes to Japanese compatriots Daiichi Sankyo and Meiji for finishing and packaging, though it will likely take until May for the locally produced vaccine to be distributed, Nikkei said. The country in December agreed to purchase 120 million doses of the shot.
Bharat Biotech's vaccine Covaxin neutralized a U.K. variant of the coronavirus, a lab study posted on bioRxiv showed. The company, alongside the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology, Pune, assessed blood samples from 26 people who'd received Covaxin against the mutant virus. Bharat's vaccine was approved in clinical trial mode earlier this month, raising concerns about the shot's efficacy.
India's Dr. Reddy's Laboratories canned its COVID-19 study of Fujifilm's flu med Avigan in patients with moderate to severe symptoms in Kuwait after the drug failed to hit its primary endpoint. Patients on Avigan saw sustained improvements in oxygen levels at the seven-day mark, compared to the placebo arm's eight. The company plans to continue a phase 3 trial in the U.S. in an outpatient setting.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 3:19 p.m. ET
Regeneron unveiled early phase 3 data supporting the use of its antibody cocktail for "passive vaccination." REGEN-COV was 100% effective at preventing COVID-19 symptoms versus placebo in the trial, which assessed the drug in people at high risk of contracting the disease from exposure to infected family members. Passive vaccination with the drug slashed the overall rate of infection by half, and infections in patients on the cocktail were asymptomatic, brief and had a ''short duration'' of viral shedding, which can lead to the illness' spread, the company said. Story
Meanwhile, a combination of two Eli Lilly antibodies led to a 70% reduction in the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization or death, phase 3 data showed. In the study of more than 1,000 high-risk patients recently diagnosed with COVID-19, 11 people given a combination of bamlanivimab and etesevimab were hospitalized and none died, compared with 26 hospitalizations and 10 deaths in the placebo arm. The antibody duo also reduced viral load and improved resolution of symptoms. Story
Ahead of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine readout, now pegged for early next week, chief financial officer Joe Wolk said the company is "optimistic" and expects to deliver "a very robust data set." An emergency nod for the company's single-dose shot could help ease early vaccination efforts. AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines all require two doses, and with many countries demanding more, supply is struggling to keep up. J&J, for its part, aims to deliver 100 million doses to the U.S. by the end of June and 200 million to the EU by year-end. Story
Speaking of Johnson & Johnson's supply commitments, the company is "very comfortable" with those deals and "well on track" to make its deliveries, CFO Wolk said on the company's Tuesday conference call with analysts. Aside from its commitments to Europe and the U.S., the company has also pledged 100 million doses to developing countries through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, with plans to start those deliveries in the year's second half. Future supply agreements present ''somewhat of a fluid situation,'' Wolk said, adding that the volume of doses would affect the selling price. Story
Pfizer shouldn't count an extra sixth dose in vials of its vaccine toward its U.S. supply contract "until the supply of specialized syringes meets that of Pfizer vials," watchdog Accountable Pharma said Tuesday. Pfizer was originally receiving $97.50 for the five doses in each vial but now stands to make $117 per vial "by counting an extra dose that may or may not be extractable," the watchdog said. BD, the world's largest syringe maker, recently told Reuters it lacks capacity to "substantially" boost U.S. supplies of low dead space syringes, needed to pull Pfizer's sixth dose.
States may start receiving more vaccines next week, The Washington Post reports, citing two people close to the plan. Weekly shot allocations are expected to jump from about 8.6 million doses to 10 million doses'--an increase of about 16%. White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients is expected to call governors Tuesday to inform them of the boost, possibly thanks to the release of more Moderna doses, according to The Post's sources.
After 14 to 18 days, people who received one dose of Pfizer's vaccine were 33% less likely to be infected, Clalit, Israel's largest state-mandated health services organization, said. Clalit compared 200,000 people ages 60 and up who'd received their initial shot with another 200,000 people who hadn't been vaccinated. Maccabi Health Services separately reported a 60% drop in infectious 13 to 21 days after patients received their first shot. Among the 428,000 Israelis who got both doses, only 63 people became infected a week later, the Israeli Health Ministry and Maccabi said Monday.
A fast-spreading coronavirus variant first identified in Brazil has cropped up in the U.S., Minnesota officials announced Monday. Officials said they'd identified one person infected with the so called P.1 variant, and that the individual in question had a "recent travel history to Brazil." Separately, Minnesota has detected eight cases of a variant first ID'd in the U.K., which could become dominant in the U.S. sometime in March, the CDC has warned. Another mutation that emerged in South Africa has yet to appear stateside.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is stepping up surveillance and study of viral mutations, director Rochelle Walensky told Fox News. Working with the National Institutes of Health, the FDA and the Pentagon, the CDC will work to assess the effect of vaccines and therapeutics on coronavirus variants, she said. Concerns have mounted this week over the possibility that the variant detected in South Africa may evade antibody treatment and reduce the efficacy of vaccines.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 11:37 a.m. ET
Following a supply cut in Europe, AstraZeneca has offered to kick off vaccine deliveries on February 7, about a week earlier than originally planned, two European Union officials told Reuters. The EU has also pressed the company to divert doses made in the U.K. to the European Union, at least through March, though AZ hasn't said whether it will go that route. One of the sources, briefed on the talks, told Reuters AZ had revised its upward supply goals for February, while the second official, involved directly in discussions, said there was no offer to boost supplies.
On the heels of AstraZeneca's delivery reduction, the European Union is telling Pfizer and other drugmakers that they need permission from the bloc to export vaccine doses to the U.K., The London Economic reports. Pfizer, which is producing doses of its shot Comirnaty in Belgium, will need to offer "early notification" anytime it wants to ships EU-made doses to non-bloc countries, Stella Kyriakides, Europe's health commissioner, said.
Serum Institute of India is set to deploy 3 million AstraZeneca doses to Saudi Arabia in about a week, company CEO Adar Poonawalla told Reuters. Each dose will cost $5.25, he added. SII doesn't plan to divert any of its Covishield doses to Europe, despite AstraZeneca's recent vaccine supply woes there, because the move would siphon shots away from places like India and Africa, Poonawalla said.
AstraZeneca's shot is more than 8% effective in people over the age of 65, Germany's health ministry clarified after a major mixup by local news outlets Bild and Handelsblatt. The newspapers published separate stories citing the low figure, with Bild suggesting German officials were worried the shot would fail to win approval with the European Medicines Agency. It seems the journalists confused the 8% of patients in AZ's trial who were between the ages of 56 and 69 with efficacy data, the country's health ministry said.
The Bild and Handelsblatt reports are "completely incorrect," an AstraZeneca spokesperson told German news outlet DW. The company pointed to vaccine data published in The Lancet that showed 100% of older adults generated spike-specific antibodies after their second dose. The U.K.'s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and the country's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency both vouched for the shot's efficacy in people over the age of 65, AZ added.
Meanwhile, "we could and should have been better prepared for this pandemic," AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot said on a virtual panel, blasting the "me first" approach that many countries have taken. In particular, he called out subpar international collaboration and pandemic preparedness. Looking forward, world leaders should adopt lessons learned from COVID-19 and invest more heavily in early detection and prevention, he said.
Sweden halted its Pfizer vaccine payments as it works to determine just how many doses are in each vial, local newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports. The country wants to know whether it's been charged for an extra sixth dose found in vials'--a dose Europe's drug regulator approved earlier this month'--rather than the five doses it agreed to. The country is also pushing Pfizer and the European Commission to reach a definitive agreement on the dose count for each vial.
Providing its shot in a six-dose vial is Pfizer's best chance at stretching its vaccine supplies, company board member and former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNBC. ''The bottom line here is that this is a very scarce resource. We need to make sure every dose gets used,'' he said. With approval for that sixth dose in place, Pfizer can now deliver 120 million doses in the first quarter, rather than 100 million, he said'--but there's a catch: To pull out that extra dose, pharmacists need special low dead space syringes.
Moderna has delivered 30 million vaccine doses to the U.S. as of Tuesday, Bio Stocks reported on Twitter. The company is still on track to roll out 100 million doses by March and 200 million by the end of June.
$MRNA Provides U.S. #COVID19 Vaccine Supply Update.Company has supplied over 30M doses to U.S. Govt to date.
Remains on track to deliver 100M doses by end of March.Remains on track to deliver 200M doses by end of June
'-- Bio Stocks' (@BioStocks) January 26, 2021 Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson aims to unveil phase 3 data on its single-dose vaccine hopeful next week, CFO Joseph Wolk said. Wolk restated that the price per regimen wouldn't surpass $10, adding that the company plans to onboard seven vaccine production facilities by end of the second quarter.
*J&J TO REPORT VACCINE DATA BY EARLY NEXT WEEK: CFO*J&J TO ONBOARD 7 VACCINE PRODUCTION FACILITIES BY Q2 END: CFO
*J&J CFO: GUIDANCE DOES NOT INCLUDE COVID-19 VACCINE SALES
*J&J CFO REITERATES PRICE PER REGIMEN NOT TO EXCEED $10$JNJ
'-- zach (@zbiotech) January 26, 2021The World Health Organization now recommends that clinicians put COVID-19 patients in the awake prone position, on their front, to improve oxygen flow, and it's also vouching for the use of low-dose anticoagulants to prevent the formation of blood clots, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said at a U.N. briefing. For patients who continue to display symptoms after recovery, WHO is pushing for the use of pulse oximetry, used to measure oxygen levels, to determine whether a person should be admitted to the hospital.
UPDATED: Monday, Jan. 25 at 3:15 p.m. ET
Merck & Co. canned both of its COVID-19 vaccine candidates, citing lackluster efficacy data in phase 1. The candidates, V590 and V591'--developed with IAVI and picked up in Merck's Themis buyout, respectively'--triggered immune responses inferior to those seen in infected patients. The responses were also weaker than those spurred by rival vaccines. Merck will now shift its attention to two experimental therapies in the works'--a fusion protein it snagged in its OncoImmune takeover, and the Ridgeback Bio-partnered antiviral molnupiravir. Story
While Moderna's vaccine has so far stood up against two fast-spreading coronavirus variants, it's less effective against the more recently identified South African mutation, prompting the company to weigh a third shot and variant-specific booster. The variant candidate, designed to target the South African mutation, B.1.135, is moving into preclinical trials and a phase 1 U.S. study, Moderna said Monday. Meanwhile, Pfizer and BioNTech in December said testing had shown their mRNA vaccine, Comirnaty, consistently ''neutralized multiple mutant strains.'' Story
Upstart generics maker Civica Rx is plowing $124.5 million into a sterile injectables manufacturing plant in Petersburg, Virginia'--part of its partnership with Phlow Corp to crank out essential meds for COVID-19. The 120,000-square-foot facility will have capacity for 90 million vials and 50 million pre-filled syringes per year, focusing on drugs for COVID-19 patients as well as meds used in emergency rooms, intensive care units and surgeries. The facility will ultimately employ more than 180 staffers once it comes online, sometime in the next three years, Civica said. Story
Scientists examining the immune system's effect on the microbiome found two molecules that could offer new treatment strategies for asthma and COVID-19. Upon transplanting gut bacteria from an immune-deficient mouse model into normal mice, the team found that the bacteria displayed enhanced metabolism of the molecule L-tyrosine, creating a byproduct called p-cresol sulfate (PCS). Both supplements protected against lung inflammation in asthma models and animal models of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)'--a common byproduct of severe COVID-19. Story
President Joe Biden's quest to roll out 100 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office is "a floor... not a ceiling," which "reflects the realities of what we face, what could go right but also what could go wrong," Surgeon General pick Vivek Murthy told ABC. Approval of Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine would help meet that goal, but it isn't essential given current supplies of Pfizer and Moderna's shots, he said. Meanwhile, establishing better distribution channels via mobile units and strategically-placed community vaccination centers will be equally essential, he added.
Italy is weighing legal action against AstraZeneca, which committed a ''serious contractual violation'' on Saturday when it told the country to expect 3.4 million vaccine doses in the first quarter, down from the 8 million it had hoped for, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said. The delivery reduction comes after Italy's COVID-19 commissioner, Domenico Arcuri, said the country was bracing for a 29% drop in Pfizer/BioNTech doses after this week.
The FDA rolled back its emergency authorizations for N95 respiratory decontamination systems, cutting down the number of times each mask could be safely reused to just four. Systems from companies like Battelle, Steris and Stryker kill viruses and bacteria on the masks by gassing them with hydrogen peroxide vapor. Early last year, when supplies of personal protective equipment were at a minimum, the agency allowed masks to be reprocessed up to 20 times on certain hardware. Story
When the city of Los Angeles converted Dodger Stadium from a testing center into a mass vaccination site, it temporarily removed about one-third of all government-funded testing in the county, Kaiser Health News reports. Less testing capacity could mean people have to wait longer for appointments, increasing the risk of potential spread. Those delays haven't happened yet, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti said; still, many health experts caution that testing is just as important as vaccination, especially as a tool to assess the longer-term efficacy of authorized shots.
On the East Coast, New York City will delay opening vaccination centers at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, thanks to low vaccine supplies, mayor Bill de Blasio said. Another site at the Empire Outlets on Staten Island, originally pegged to open last week, has also been put on hold. On Monday, the city had 19,032 first doses on hand and expected to receive a little less than 108,000 more this week'--not nearly enough to keep up with the pace of immunization, de Blasio said.
Want to watch the Miami Heat play? First, you need to pass the sniff test. The Heat will use coronavirus-sniffing dogs to screen fans hoping to attend games at the American Airlines Arena, The Boston Globe reports. The dogs were deployed earlier this season to screen small numbers of guests'--mostly friends and family of Heat players and staff, though starting this week, a limited number of ticket holders will be allowed in.
UPDATED: Monday, Jan. 25 at 11:40 a.m. ET
Moderna says its vaccine appears to work against coronavirus variants first identified in South Africa and the U.K., citing new results from lab studies assessing the blood of eight patients who received the shot. The study showed no reduction in neutralizing titers against the B.1.1.7 variant, which first cropped up in the U.K. And despite a six-fold reduction in neutralizing titers against the South African variant, B.1.351, levels remained above those expected to provide protection, Moderna said.
Humanigen tapped Emergent BioSolutions to speed up production of the drugmaker's experimental antibody drug lenzilumab. Emergent's aim is to shore up supplies of the drug, currently in phase 3, ahead of a possible emergency nod in 2021's first quarter. For its seventh COVID-19 manufacturing tie-up, Emergent plans to leverage a new flex fill line at its Baltimore, Maryland, drug product manufacturing facility.
Korea's Daewoong Pharmaceutical got a thumbs up to run a phase 3 trial of its oral protease inhibitor, Foistar, in COVID-19 patients. The drug, approved in Korea in 2012 to treat chronic pancreatitis, will be given to 1,012 COVID patients across two Seoul hospitals starting in February. Daewoong has completed a phase 2 study of the drug in patients with mild symptoms, but it did not yield statistically significant data.
The European Medicines Agency could clear AstraZeneca's shot for emergency use on Friday, Yahoo! News reports, citing an official from Germany's health ministry.
Meanwhile, European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen spoke to AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot Monday, clarifying that she expects the British pharma to fulfill its established orders to Europe, her spokesperson, Eric Mamer, said. Soriot said his company was doing everything possible to speed deliveries to Europe, though wider supply problems emerged Monday, Reuters reports.
Over the weekend, health commissioner Stella Kyriakides also wrote a letter to the company seeking "further clarifications," a Commission spokesman on public health said. In her letter, Kyriakides argued that production scale-ups have to happen "concurrently" with clinical trials to get doses out as quickly as possible, the spokesman said. Story
AstraZeneca also plans to cut supplies to Australia in March after the company said it was facing a "significant supply shock," the country's health minister, Greg Hunt, told reporters. Meanwhile, Thailand says it will now receive 150,000 AZ doses rather than an expected 200,000. AZ's EU delay is tied to reduced yields at a site run by its viral vector manufacturing partner Novasep.
Speaking of Australia, the country on Monday issued a complete approval for Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, which has largely been cleared for emergency use in countries where it's available. The country plans to vaccinate some 80,000 people per week starting in late February, Prime Minister Scott Morrisson said.
Pfizer will ship fewer vials of its vaccine to the U.S. than originally planned, thanks to updated FDA guidance allowing pharmacists to extract a sixth dose from the vials, which were originally designed to hold five. The FDA's decision marked an immediate 20% jump in Pfizer's vaccine capacity and now, the company is folding that extra dose into its overall order for 200 million U.S. shots by July, The New York Times reports. Story
So-called "low dead space" syringes are needed to pull out that sixth dose, and Pfizer on Friday finalized a deal with the Biden Administration to track shipments where the specialty injectors are available, a source close to the matter told The Washington Post. Shipments with regular syringes will count toward five doses, while those accompanied by low dead space syringes will count for six. Meanwhile, the administration on Friday said it would leverage the Defense Production Act to secure more of the devices.
Italy tweaked its vaccination plan to prioritize patients' second dose after Pfizer announced a temporary reduction in deliveries as it completes an upgrade on a Belgian manufacturing plant. Nearly 1.38 million doses have been administered so far, the country's deputy health minister Pierpaolo Sileri said. Among those, 100,863 people have received their second shot. The delivery adjustment has further prompted Italy to delay vaccination for people over 80 years old by four weeks, with a delay of six to eight weeks for the rest of the population.
Germany bought a combined 200,000 doses of Eli Lilly's antibody drug bamlanivimab and Regeneron's antibody cocktail for '¬400 million ($484 million). The move makes Germany the first European nation to purchase the drugs, which are cleared for emergency use in the U.S.
UPDATED: Friday, Jan. 22 at 3:23 p.m. ET
A new coronavirus variant that emerged in South Africa seems to evade treatment with convalescent plasma and may render the current vaccines on offer less effective, South African researchers wrote in a paper published on bioRxiv. ''This lineage exhibits complete escape from three classes of therapeutically relevant monoclonal antibodies,'' the researchers said, adding that the variant shows "substantial or complete escape" from antibodies in the plasma of recovered COVID-19 patients. That bodes ill for potential reinfection and the efficacy of spike-based vaccines, they said.
Chances are "very high" that a South African variant of the coronavirus is spreading in the U.S., Illumina CEO Francis deSouza told CNBC. "[The] reality is, in the U.S. we're doing very little genomic surveillance," he explained. Sequencing giant Illumina has been working with the CDC to assess the prevalence of a variant first ID'd in the U.K., B.1.1.7, across the U.S., though efforts are lagging behind those of other countries. The U.K. is sequencing about 10% of the cases they see, while the U.S. currently sequences around 0.3% of positive cases, deSouza said. Story
With a European authorization looming, AstraZeneca notified EU officials this week that its first-quarter vaccine deliveries will be lighter than expected, thanks to "reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain," a company spokesperson told Fierce Pharma. The company aims to supply "tens of millions" of doses to the EU in February and March as it continues to boost production volume, she added. The supply squeeze comes shortly after Pfizer and BioNTech reduced their own EU deliveries as they finish a plant upgrade in Belgium. Story
Eli Lilly is armed with data showing its antibody drug bamlanivimab can prevent symptomatic infections, but because those data are limited to long-term care facilities, where many are now getting vaccines, the drug may continue struggling to catch on. Getting the therapy to patients is its own challenge, SVB Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges said in a note. ''[T]his hinges on quick, targeted distribution... by the U.S. government, which is a significant unknown factor,'' he said. The fact that the drug needs to be infused presents another distribution barrier, he added. Story
The pandemic put mRNA vaccines on the map last year, and the technology's future looks bright, experts said on a Fierce Pharma virtual panel. The manufacturing process for mRNA shots is "universal," Mariola Fotin-Mleczek, chief technology officer at CureVac, said, meaning different vaccines can be made at the same plant. IAVI's Swati Gupta thinks scientists will look to explore the platform beyond infectious diseases. Still, researchers shouldn't give up entirely on proven vaccine tech, Rajeev Venkayya, president of Takeda's global vaccines business unit, said. Story
Facing the prospect of another year without in-person events, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) has made "some staff reductions... to align the organization for the new strategic direction,'' CEO Michelle McMurry-Heath, M.D., Ph.D, said. BIO currently has two in-person meetings lined up, though it ''expects to offer virtual-only events throughout most of 2021.'' Story
Walmart is gearing up to offer vaccines in Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas, plus Chicago and Puerto Rico, a company spokesperson told Reuters. Healthcare workers can already get vaccines through the retailer in New Mexico and Arkansas. The company said Friday that it should be able to deliver 10 million and 13 million doses per month at full capacity.
UPDATED: Friday, Jan. 22 at 11:22 a.m. ET
Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine, authorized in India under the name Covaxin, proved safe and induced an immune response in phase 1, data published in the The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal showed. The shot was well-tolerated across dose groups and no serious safety events were reported. All side effects were mild to moderate and were more frequent after the first dose, Bharat said. Bharat's shot is currently in phase 3 testing and was approved in "clinical trial mode" just one day after India's drug regulator pressed the company for more efficacy data.
Five people are dead after a fire broke out in a building under construction at Serum Institute of India's (SII) headquarters in Pune. The blaze may have started as a result of welding work, CNN reports, citing Pune's mayor. Production of AstraZeneca's vaccine, which SII is cranking out under the name Covishield, won't be affected, CEO Adar Poonawalla said.
The European Commission wants clarity from Pfizer over further vaccine delivery delays reported by a handful of European countries, a European Union executive told Reuters. Originally, Pfizer and the Commission said delays would only occur this week as Pfizer scales up its Puurs, Beligum, plant. Italy has been told to now expect a 20% order reduction next week, while the Czech Republic said deliveries could drop by as much as 30% over the next two weeks.
Poland may sue Pfizer if it fails to make its vaccine deliveries on time, Piotr M¼ller, Poland's government spokesman, said. Poland received 176,000 doses of Pfizer's shot this week, down about 50% from what it expected. Pfizer has said it will temporarily squeeze shot deliveries to Europe and Canada as it completes a plant upgrade in Puurs, Belgium. Poland's health minister Adam Niedzielski on Thursday said the missing doses would be made up from mid-February, "but if this is not the case then of course legal measures will have to be considered,'' M¼ller said.
France, meanwhile, could impose sanctions on Pfizer and BioNTech if vaccine shipments are further reduced, Clement Beaune, the country's minister for European affairs, told the Europe 1 radio network. That said, Pfizer's vaccine deliveries are expected to return to normal on Monday, he said.
European Union countries are scrambling to get their hands on low dead space syringes that would allow a sixth dose to be extracted from vials of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, Yahoo! Finance reports. Europe's drug regulator on January 8 OK'd the use of a sixth dose from each Pfizer/BioNTech vial, originally meant to hold five. Meanwhile, countries will have to pay for that extra dose regardless of whether they have the syringes to make use of it, since the companies' supply commitments are "based on delivery of doses, not vials," Pfizer said.
UPDATED: Thursday, Jan. 21 at 2:10 p.m. ET
The challenges for antibodies from Regeneron and Eli Lilly have been well documented, and now a new wave of antibodies from AstraZeneca and other companies is in development to potentially solve that problem and the separate issue of viral mutations. A Regeneron spokeswoman said the company's antibody should stand up to known variants, while Eli Lilly's drug could be susceptible to the South African variant, a representative said. Story
Headlines about low vaccine acceptance have raised alarm in recent months, but amid the rollout, sentiment seems to be improving. In a new Harris Poll, researchers found a 69% acceptance rate for COVID-19 vaccines, just shy of the all-time high of 73%. Story
On the subject of vaccine acceptance, Pfizer and BioNTech are running their own effort with partners to encourage people to get vaccinated. The companies, together with a coalition of health organizations, recently debuted an unbranded awareness campaign that reminds people about the way life used to be. The partners plan 25- to 30-second videos outlining the possibilities following vaccination. Story
While President Joe Biden has his hands full with the COVID-19 pandemic, he has a talented group of advisors, as well. NIAID director Anthony Fauci is staying on board as chief medical advisor, and numerous other experts are joining the effort. Stat has a list of 10 key officials of note.
As the new administration pushes to vaccinate 100 million people in 100 days, new CDC director Rochelle Walensky said COVID-19 vaccines won't be in every pharmacy by the end of next month, NBC News reports.
UPDATED: Thursday, Jan. 21 at 11:15 a.m. ET
Eli Lilly's antibody therapy bamlanivimab cut the risk of symptomatic COVID-19 in nursing home residents and staff, data from the company's phase 3 Blaze-2 trial showed. Among 965 participants who tested negative at the start of the study'--299 of them residents and another 666 staff'--Lilly linked bamlanivimab to a roughly 57% reduction in risk of contracting symptomatic COVID-19 versus placebo. Among residents specifically, those treated with the drug were up to 80% less likely to develop symptomatic disease, Lilly said.
Adding Roche's arthritis med Actemra to standard care is no better than standard care alone at cutting death rates among the sickest COVID-19 patients, results from a small Brazilian study published in the British Medical Journal showed. Clinical outcomes among 65 patients who got the drug plus standard treatment failed to beat those in the control arm. The study, though small, contradicts results from a larger U.K. trial, which found the drug, as well as Sanofi and Regeneron's Kevzara, significantly curbed death risk in patients needing intensive care.
Among 189,000 Israelis screened for COVID-19 after receiving their first Pfizer shot, 12,400 people tested positive, the Israeli health ministry said. Most people contracted the virus shortly after their first dose, though around 1,410 tested positive two weeks after that, when the vaccine should have started taking effect. Meanwhile, another 69 people became infected after receiving both doses. The efficacy of Pfizer's shot climbs from 52% to 89% between day 15 and day 21 after patients get their first injection, the company has said.
The U.K.'s vaccine rollout dodged a major pitfall after rainwaters from Storm Christoph surrounded a Wockhardt manufacturing facility in Wrexham, North Wales, tapped for fill-finish work on AstraZeneca's vaccine. Emergency teams subverted flooding by establishing resources like gullies, the leader of Wrexham County Borough said. Meanwhile, a Wockhardt spokesperson told The Irish News that manufacturing hadn't been interrupted and no water made it inside. Story
South Africa will buy 1.5 million AstraZeneca shots from Serum Institute of India at $5.25 per dose, a senior health administration official said. Deliveries are expected to start before the end of the month. Meanwhile, South Africa is set to receive another slate of vaccines in March through the African Union. Under that deal, the country is expected to pay $3 per dose of AstraZeneca's shot.
Japan's Panasonic is leveraging its refrigerator tech to develop storage boxes for Pfizer's vaccine, which must be kept at a frigid -94 degrees Fahrenheit, The Asahi Shimbun reports. The box will incorporate dry ice to keep the shots cool and doesn't need to be plugged in, the company said. Samples will be ready in March, with a final product expected a month or two after that.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Jan. 20 at 3:08 p.m. ET
The premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, has asked President Joe Biden to share "a million" vaccine doses from Pfizer's Kalamazoo, Michigan plant, after Canadian officials reported Tuesday that the country wouldn't receive any Pfizer doses next week and 50% fewer than expected over the next month. Pfizer recently confirmed a brief reduction in shot deliveries to Europe and Canada as it wraps a capacity upgrade on a plant in Puurs, Belgium.
Meanwhile, Italy plans to press charges both ''civil and criminal, where possible'' against Pfizer for delayed vaccine deliveries linked to its Belgian plant upgrade, Domenico Arcuri, Italy's special commissioner for the pandemic, said in a statement. Italian officials discussed the delay with Pfizer Tuesday, but the talks ''did not have the effect we were hoping for,'' Arcuri wrote. He added that Pfizer would not make up the difference in deliveries next week.
President Joe Biden is putting science first in his efforts to curb the pandemic. Human Genome Project head Eric Lander, Ph.D., is Biden's pick for presidential scientific advisor, as well as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Frances Arnold, Ph.D.'--the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry'--and Maria Zuber, Ph.D., an expert in geophysics and planetary science, will serve as external co-chairs of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Francis Collins, M.D., will stay on as director of the NIH, while Janet Woodcock, M.D., appears the likely pick for FDA commissioner. Story
One challenge President Biden now faces? Convincing people to take an approved vaccine. Rather than focusing on straight talk and hard stats, vaccine campaigns should instead appeal to peoples' desire for a return to normalcy, execs from Digitas Health, McCann Health and Ogilvy Health told Fierce Pharma. ''To overcome vaccine hesitation, you're going to have to have a lot of different segmentation and a lot of different messages," Justin Freid, chief growth and innovation officer at CMI/Compas, added. Story
New York-based Ride Health, which works with a network of transportation providers to get patients to and from hospitals, is partnering with the NIH-backed ACTIV-2 study, assessing treatments for COVID-19, and the NIH-founded COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network. The goal is for Ride Health to provide transportation to and from study sites through its network of COVID-19-equipped providers, meaning drivers will follow guidelines from the CDC, plus state-mandated precautions. Story
India on Wednesday started exporting Serum Institute of India (SII)-produced doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine to nearby countries. The first exported Covishield doses, set for delivery to Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and the Seychelles, are being donated, India's Foreign Ministry said. Several of those countries have separate vaccine orders on the docket or are in talks with Serum Institute. Bangladesh, for instance, expects to receive 2 million Covishield doses on Thursday and has separately purchased 30 million doses from SII.
COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Sinovac are in the ''final phase'' of review for a possible emergency use listing by the World Health Organization, Reuters reports, citing an internal WHO document. The agency on December 31 cleared Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA-based vaccine for emergency use.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Jan. 20 at 11:16 a.m. ET
As states expand vaccine eligibility to people over the age of 65, older patients enrolled in Novavax's late-stage shot trial want to be "unblinded" and, if they received placebo, drop out to get Moderna or Pfizer's vaccine, The Washington Post reports. Recruitment of trial subjects has slowed, too. Novavax in December set out to recruit 30,000 people for its U.S. trial, including 25% in the over-65 category. As of last week, the company said it had enrolled 9,000 patients and would ask the FDA to weigh data from the same age group in a fully-enrolled U.K. trial if it missed its recruitment goal. Story
Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine appears to work against a fast-spreading British variant of the coronavirus, further lab tests showed. The latest study, still awaiting peer review, used a synthetic virus with 10 mutations characteristic of the British variant. The antibodies in the blood of 16 patients who received Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, Comirnaty, neutralized the pseudovirus as well as they did the older version of the virus.
Japan secured another 24 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA vaccine, building on a previous order for 120 million doses, the country's health ministry said. The expanded order gives Japan enough doses of Pfizer's shot to vaccinate 72 million people out of its total population of 126 million, Nikkei Asia reports. Pfizer's vaccine is currently the one and only COVID-19 shot under review in Japan. The government is looking to kick off vaccination efforts by late February, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said.
Swedish biotech Cyxone has applied to run a phase 2 trial of its rheumatoid arthritis hopeful rabeximod in moderate COVID-19 patients requiring oxygen therapy who are not on mechanical ventilation. The aim is to see whether the drug could cut the risk of severe respiratory symptoms caused by immune responses run-amok. Cyxone will compare two doses of the drug against placebo in 300 subjects, with plans to release initial data in the third quarter of 2021.
The U.K. is more than halfway toward its goal of vaccinating 300,000 elderly nursing home residents, and mobile vaccination teams armed with AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford's shot have helped get it there, The Wall Street Journal reports. The shot doesn't need to be diluted, making delivery more efficient, plus, patients don't need to be monitored for anaphylaxis after getting their injection. AZ's vaccine remains stable for six month at fridge temps and can be used in smaller batches, too. This versatility has led to its prioritization for nursing home residents, WSJ said.
In searching for a fast-spreading British variant of the novel coronavirus, Californian researchers discovered the state had a mutation of its own, which may be responsible for a recent surge, The New York Times reports. The variant seems to have emerged in July but lay low until November, when it started to spread. The mutation, dubbed CAL.20c, accounted for more than half of the virus genome samples collected in Los Angeles laboratories on Jan. 13, the NYT said, citing a new study that has yet to be published.
The African Union has locked down 270 million vaccine doses beyond the World Health Organization's Covax distribution scheme, and each dose will cost member countries between $3 to $10, Reuters reports. Serum Institute of India will provide 100 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine for $3 per dose, while Pfizer is offering 50 million doses at $6.75 apiece. Finally, Johnson & Johnson will offer 120 million doses of its single-shot vaccine at $10 each.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 19 at 3:17 p.m. ET
A factory upgrade in Puurs, Belgium is putting a temporary squeeze on deliveries of Pfizer and BioNTech's shot to Europe, Canada and a few other regions, The Wall Street Journal reports. Unveiled last week, the Puurs expansion should start boosting output in February and is set to "significantly" increase deliveries in the first and second quarter, BioNTech said. Deliveries will return to normal starting next week, the companies added. Six EU countries were quick to hit back, calling the situation "unacceptable" in a letter to the companies, Reuters reports. Story
Pfizer supports President-elect Joe Biden's plan to roll out 100 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office, CEO Albert Bourla said. Biden on Thursday unveiled a $1.9 trillion plan to combat COVID-19, which includes federally-assisted vaccination centers, mobile clinics, an expanded healthcare workforce and more. As for whether available shot supplies support Biden's goal, ''It will be a hefty lift, but we have enough to do that,'' Rochelle Walensky, Biden's pick for CDC chief, told CBS' Face the Nation.
The World Health Organization's equitable vaccine distribution scheme Covax'--co-led by Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)'--could soon secure doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA shot, senior adviser Bruce Aylward said. Covax aims to start deploying doses to low- and middle-income countries in February.
Pfizer and BioNTech will provide the FDA with a Biologics License Application'--needed to snare full approval for their COVID-19 shot'--in the first half of 2021, with a view to secure a green light in the second half of the year, the companies told Fox News.
Clinical trials combining AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine with Russia's Sputnik V shot could kick off in early February, Alexei Repik, chairman of the Russian drugmaker R-Pharm, which is on deck to produce both vaccines, told Reuters. Researchers will look to recruit some 100 subjects for the first two phases of the study, which will take place in Azerbaijan, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Belarus, Russia and elsewhere.
Brazil's drug regulator on Sunday cleared AstraZeneca and Sinovac's shots for emergency use. The Brazilian government aims to launch a national vaccination campaign on Wednesday, though it's still waiting on doses from AstraZeneca to arrive, Reuters reports. The country has locked down 2 million AZ million doses through the Serum Institute of India, which should arrive this week, the country's health minister said Sunday.
Cancer vaccine specialist Gritstone Oncology is developing a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 that could work against other coronaviruses, too. The vaccine leverages Gritstone's EDGE technology, which uses machine learning to predict antigens presented by tumor cells or virus-infected cells that the immune system can see. The company has snared a grant from the Gates Foundation for preclinical work, while the NIAID is set to conduct a phase 1 trial. Story
Thermo Fisher is laying out up to $550 million to buy handheld test maker Mesa Biotech. Mesa early last year bagged an emergency nod for its rapid, molecular Accula test at point-of-care for COVID-19. It's also been pegged in the National Institutes of Health's "Shark Tank"-style COVID-19 diagnostics competition, winning federal funding to help scale up its manufacturing lines. Mesa will receive $450 million cash, plus up to $100 million more for future milestones. The deal is expected to close by the end of March. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 19 at 10:00 a.m. ET
Approvals for Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccines are mere "weeks away," the nation's top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, told Meet the Press. J&J has said it's expecting late-stage results on its shot by the end of January. J&J's shot, which is designed to work at a single dose'--unlike Pfizer and Moderna's two'--could help expedite vaccination efforts in the U.S., health officials figure.
Pfizer and BioNTech are cutting European vaccine deliveries in the next few weeks, thanks to factory modifications'--and now Germany's Bayer wants to to fill in the gaps with supplies of CureVac's mRNA shot. "We are ready to pull out all the stops for this," Bayer chief Werner Baumann told German paper Welt am Sonntag. Several EU countries complained Friday that Pfizer and BioNTech would scale back promised deliveries as they work on upgrades at Pfizer's plant in Puurs, Belgium.
State epidemiologist Erica Pan, M.D. urged California to temporarily pause distribution of one Moderna vaccine lot after fewer than 10 patients at a San Diego clinic suffered severe allergic reactions requiring medical attention within a day of being vaccinated. The manufacturer, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration are investigating.
Governor Andrew Cuomo went straight to the source to ask Pfizer to sell vaccine doses directly to New York State. That move would require approval from the Department of Health and Human Services, the drugmaker replied.
Two people have died after receiving COVID-19 vaccines in India, and local shot maker Bharat Biotech on Monday warned people who are immunocompromised or have "any allergies" to avoid its vaccine. Bharat's shot was recently authorized in "clinical-trial mode," just one day after authorities pressed the company for more efficacy data. An Indian 52-year-old hospital worker died a day after getting AstraZeneca's Covishield shot. Government officials said the man suffered from cardiac arrest, but stressed that his death wasn't related to the vaccine. A second person who was vaccinated Saturday died Monday, though it remains unclear whether he got Bharat's or AZ's vaccine, both of which are authorized in India.
The Subject Expert Committee of India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation is weighing whether to OK phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of Bharat Biotech's intranasal vaccine candidate. The adenovirus vectored candidate, BBV154, has so far triggered a protective immune response in mice and hamsters. Earlier this month, Bharat's two-dose intramuscular vaccine was authorized alongside AstraZeneca's shot, produced by Serum Institute of India under the name Covishield, in-country.
Mexico is set to receive 200,000 Pfizer vaccine doses Tuesday before shipments are temporarily paused for the next three weeks. The pause supports a United Nations proposal to limit purchases as vaccine shipments make their way to poorer countries. It shouldn't scupper Mexico's plans to vaccinate its citizens, President Manuel Lopez Obrador said. The country is currently locking in shot deliveries from China's CanSino, Russia and AstraZeneca, he said.
Norway won't change its policy on Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine after reports of deaths among older, frail patients who'd received the shot. As of Jan. 14, 23 deaths potentially linked to the vaccine had been reported by the Norwegian health registry. ''It is important to remember that about 45 people die every day in nursing homes in Norway, so it is not a given that this represents any excess mortality or that there is a causal connection,'' Camilla Stoltenberg, director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said.
Serum Institute of India (SII) is homing in on a deal to supply the WHO-Gavi equitable vaccine distribution effort Covax with around 300 million to 400 million more vaccine doses, sources told Rediff. The 400-million-dose supply deal would be separate from a previous agreement SII made to supply 100 million doses each of AstraZeneca and Novavax's shot.
Israel is offering Pfizer weekly updates on its immunization program to help other countries improve their vaccination drives and achieve "herd immunity." Under the deal, the country is providing epidemiological data like the number of confirmed COVID cases, hospitalizations, deaths, the number of patients on ventilators, plus age and other demographic breakdowns. So far, about a quarter of the country's citizens have received their first dose.
UPDATED: Friday, Jan. 15 at 1:51 p.m. ET
The Norwegian Medicines Agency says it's received reports of 23 deaths potentially linked to Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty. It has so far assessed 13 of the reported cases. Common side effects of the mRNA vaccine like fever and nausea may have contributed to the deaths of certain older, frail patients, the agency's chief physician, Sigurd Hortemo, said in a statement.
A COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Sinopharm subsidiary China National Biotec Group (CNBG) appears safe in children as young as three years, Reuters reported, citing China's state-run press agency, Xinhua. It wasn't immediately clear which of CNBG's two late-stage vaccines was tested in children, though it could be the company's BBIBP-CorV candidate, Reuters surmised, pointing to a previously disclosed phase 2 trial of that shot in children aged three to 17 years old. Story
Researchers at the University of Cambridge developed a DNA test to catch secondary infections, like pneumonia, that may come about during COVID-19 treatment. Patients on mechanical ventilation often receive anti-inflammatory drugs to ease lung damage, but this can leave them more susceptible to bacteria and fungi in the hospital. Developed in collaboration with Public Health England, the test is designed to identify the infection and suggest the proper antibiotic response. It's currently being rolled out to healthcare providers via Cambridge's NHS Foundation Trust. Story
Parexel is joining forces with Signify Health to better understand clinical trial diversity and re-model their studies accordingly. The partnership aims to boost trial access, bring studies into patients' homes and identify social determinants of health to "facilitate connections among local resources, patients, and caregivers,'' the pair said in a release. The issue of clinical trial diversity was thrown into sharp relief last year as the COVID-19 pandemic exposed longstanding healthcare inequities. Story
How do you launch a drug during a pandemic? Technology'--plus a rolodex full of established contacts, Incyte CEO Herv(C) Hoppenot told Fierce Pharma. Incyte navigated the launches of two new cancer meds in 2020'--Pemazyre and Monjuvi'--thanks to its sales reps' existing relationships with cancer centers and doctors, who were willing to jump on Zoom to get the skinny, he said. Things are "quite a bit more challenging" for companies without those connections, Hoppenot admitted. Story
UPDATED: Friday, Jan. 15 at 9:33 a.m. ET
Moderna is offering a third dose of its vaccine to patients who were vaccinated twice in the biotech's phase 1 trial'--part of an ongoing study to see whether booster doses are necessary, safe and effective. Moderna is extending the booster to participants six to 12 months after they got their second doses. The company said it may also study a third shot in patients from its late-stage trial, if antibody persistence data warrant it.
President-elect Joe Biden tapped David Kessler, M.D., to take the reins at Operation Warp Speed, The New York Times reports. Kessler was FDA chief during George Bush and Bill Clinton's presidencies and is co-chair of the Biden transition team's pandemic task force. He will split top responsibilities with Gen. Gustave Perna, who will keep his role as Warp Speed's chief operating officer. Kessler will work to speed deliveries of vaccines throughout the country and is also expected to kick off a major antiviral development program, transition officials told NYT.
Meanwhile, President-elect Biden on Thursday asked Congress for about $400 billion in additional pandemic funding to establish a national vaccination program, expand COVID-19 testing and hire on some 100,000 healthcare workers. Biden envisions about $20 billion going toward the addition of an unspecified number of vaccination sites, including mobile ones. He wants to plug another $50 billion into expanded testing efforts, as well as hire on a suite of public health staffers and boost efforts to track emerging virus variants, too.
When India launches its mass vaccination campaign Saturday, the government will approach AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech's shots "equally," and people won't have a say in which vaccine they get, Vinod Paul, who heads a government panel on vaccine strategy, told Reuters. Bharat's shot Covaxin was recently authorized in "clinical-trial mode," just one day after authorities pressed the company for more efficacy data. Many health experts have since challenged Covaxin's go-ahead. Meanwhile, late-stage data on the vaccine are expected in March.
Speaking of AstraZeneca, the Serum Institute of India (SII) expects WHO to issue an emergency nod for the British drugmaker's shot "in the next week or two," SII chief Adar Poonawalla said at the Reuters Next conference. SII hopes to start supplying shots to the agency's equitable vaccine distribution effort, Covax, by the end of January, he said. WHO late last year listed Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA shot for emergency use in a bid to hasten vaccination efforts in the developing world.
UPDATED: Thursday, Jan. 14 at 3:25 p.m. ET
Moderna linked up with Uber to boost shot confidence and make it easier for people to get vaccinated, too. It's still early-stage stuff, but initial ideas include promoting vaccine safety through in-app messages on the Uber network, as well as folding rides into the vaccine scheduling process. The goal is to provide widespread access and improve outreach to underserved populations and people who are vaccine-hesitant, Michael Mullette, Moderna's VP of commercial operations in North America, said. Story
A slate of tech companies and health organizations'--including Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, Cerner and the Mayo Clinic'--have partnered on the Vaccination Credential Initiative, aiming to establish a standard for digital vaccination records. The goal is to eventually provide people with an ''encrypted digital copy of their immunization credentials'' on their smartphones, or a printed QR code for people without a device.
As certain hospital and nursing home staffers refuse vaccines, employers are adopting unusual measures to sweeten the offer'--like cash, extra time off and Waffle House gift cards'--or threatening to fire their workers altogether, The New York Times reports. Long-term care chains Juniper Communities and Atria Senior Living are making the shot non-negotiable if employees want to keep their jobs, for instance. Meanwhile, critics told NYT it's unethical to pressure low-paid workers into getting the vaccine.
Florida's so-called ''vaccine tourism,'' is taking heat, The Wall Street Journal reports. The state has made the vaccine available to anyone age 65 and older, including nonresidents, drumming up interest from people in places like Canada and Latin America eager to fly over for a quick shot. The move has frustrated academic experts, politicians and residents across the Sunshine State. Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wasn't opposed to giving the shot to those who live in Florida part-time, but added that the state's ''discouraging people to come to Florida just to get a vaccine.''
The wildly divergent efficacy figures for Sinovac's shot, CoronaVac'--which Brazilian scientists most recently pegged at a little over 50%'--could put China's plans for global health diplomacy at risk, the NYT reports. Countries that bought the shot may question its efficacy, which could lead to political fallout in places like Brazil, where the prospect of importing CoronaVac has already been fraught. Meanwhile, the piecemeal release of data "just reinforced the narrative that this vaccine is not good," Brazilian-American epidemiologist Denise Garrett told NYT.
Twitter on Thursday briefly restricted the official account of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, prompting the Russian Direct Investment Fund to put out a call to action for its followers to demand restored access. Turns out, that wasn't necessary. ''This account was temporarily locked in error by an automated spam filter. This action has been reversed and the account is now fully operational,'' Twitter said in a statement. The temporary shutdown may be tied to ''a possible security breach from Virginia, USA," the Sputnik V account said.
UPDATED: Thursday, Jan. 14 at 9:45 a.m. ET
Johnson & Johnson's single dose COVID-19 vaccine seems to trigger a safe and effective immune response in people young and old, phase 1/2 data published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed. Ninety percent of volunteers developed neutralizing antibodies by day 29, while all volunteers had detectable antibodies by day 57. Plus, patients' immune responses lasted all 71 days of the trial. Fever, headache, fatigue, muscle aches and injection site pain comprised the most common side effects.
Initial Johnson & Johnson vaccine shipments could arrive in Europe by April 1, a European Union official told Reuters. The European Medicines Agency has been conducting a rolling review of J&J's shot since the start of December. Earlier Wednesday, EU lawmaker Peter Liese told the news outlet that J&J would submit an application for approval in February, citing Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.
Alexion is halting enrollment of its phase 3 Ultomiris trial in severe COVID-19 patients requiring mechanical ventilation. The move comes on the heels of an independent data analysis, which found Ultomiris plus best supportive care didn't meaningfully boost survival at day 29 versus supportive care alone. The study will continue for patients already enrolled, Alexion said. Story
The industry can expect COVID-19 work to be "recurring and long-lasting," Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui said Wednesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. While the general public may be holding out hope that the pandemic will simply disappear, "we cannot forget," Slaoui warned. "We forgot with Ebola. We forgot with Zika."
Scientists at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine have ID'd a new variant of the coronavirus that bears a mutation identical to the variant from the U.K.'--though it likely cropped up in a version of the virus already present in the U.S., they said. Meanwhile, the researchers reported another U.S. variant with three gene mutations not previously seen together in SARS-CoV2. At this point, researchers say they have no evidence to suggest the new variants might affect vaccine efficacy.
President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday evening is expected to blueprint plans for trillions of dollars of government spending to tackle COVID-19 and its effects on the economy. Part of that package will fuel vaccine development, testing and contact tracing efforts, Brian Deese, the soon-to-be director of the National Economic Council, said Wednesday at the Reuters Next conference.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Jan. 13 at 3:30 p.m. ET
Under its $1 billion Operation Warp Speed (OWS) contract, Johnson & Johnson was originally set to provide 12 million vaccine doses by the end of February and 100 million by the end of June, but federal officials have now been informed the company is behind on its production timeline, sources told The New York Times. OWS chief Moncef Slaoui last week said the company would be able to deliver doses in the "single-digit" millions by February's end as J&J works to boost those numbers over the following months, the NYT reports. Story
Sinovac's vaccine was just 50.38% effective in a Brazilian phase 3, the Butantan Institute'--which ran the trial'--and the government of Sao Paulo said Tuesday. That's well below the 78% success rate Butantan reported last week, which it has now linked to efficacy against mild COVID cases. Meanwhile, it reported the shot was 100% effective against moderate and severe cases, but just 50.38% effective overall. Elsewhere, early phase 3 data from Indonesia placed efficacy at 65.3%, while Turkey said the shot was 91.25% effective.
Armed with an educational grant from the Johnson & Johnson Institute, medical education video game developer Level Ex has created new pandemic-specific levels for its Airway Ex, Pulm Ex and Cardio Ex mobile games. Similar to a flight simulator for pilots, Level Ex's games place players in a digital emergency room, facing patients who may or may not be infected with COVID-19. Players must determine whether the virtual patient is infected and, if so, decide how to safely deal with them to minimize spread. Story
Researchers from the University of Bonn, the Karolinska Institute and Scripps Research Institute designed a COVID-19 drug based on "nanobodies," the tiny antibodies produced by camelids. By fusing two nanobodies picked from a llama and an alpaca immunized with the virus, the researchers synthesized nanobodies able to simultaneously attack multiple sites of the virus's spike protein and fight mutated variants, too, a study published in Science showed. A University of Bonn spinoff, Disclosure Therapeutics, plans to push two lead candidates into the clinic this year. Story
Celltrion's experimental antibody helped mild-to-moderate COVID-19 patients in a phase 2/3 trial. The 40 mg/kg dose'--the lower of two Celltrion is testing'--reduced progression to severe disease by 54% versus placebo at day 28, while reduction was 68% in a subgroup of moderate COVID patients aged 50 years and older. Patients on the low dose recovered in 5.4 days, compared to 8.8 days in the control group, with the difference even larger in certain subgroups. Meanwhile, viral load fell significantly versus placebo at Day 7. Story
Pfizer and BioNTech were able to raise their projected 2021 vaccine output to 2 billion doses thanks to some "very out of the box" manufacturing," Pfizer chief Albert Bourla said Tuesday. The company has launched a slate of initiatives, including changing the way it works with partners on raw materials, reimagining its operational flow to boost capacity, designing new equipment and more, he said. Story
Don't discount CureVac's role as a major vaccine player just yet, Marianne De Backer, head of business development at Bayer'--which recently penned a vaccine pact with CureVac'--said Wednesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. "[We] will need between 12 (billion) and 14 billion doses to get a full handle on the pandemic,'' she said, suggesting every company in the vaccine race should "continue to put all the effort in to curb this pandemic.'' Story
It's still too early to say when AstraZeneca might turn a profit on its vaccine, Ruud Dobber, EVP and biopharma president at the company, said in a Fierce JPM Week interview. ''Let's first deliver all the doses, let's make sure people are getting vaccinated, and then we will decide at a certain stage when we are going to commercialize the vaccine,'' he said. AZ has said it won't profit off the vaccine during the pandemic, though a report emerged in October that the drugmaker might be ready to declare the pandemic over as soon as July. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, Jan. 13 at 9:20 a.m. ET
The U.S. agreed to buy all doses of Regeneron's antibody cocktail delivered by June 30, amounting to upward of 1.25 million, the company said. The deal brings the government's total potential order to over 1.5 million doses. Uptake of the treatment has been underwhelming, George Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., Regeneron's R&D chief, said at this week's J.P. Morgan healthcare conference'--a problem the company said it could remedy by working more closely with the U.S. government.
Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui has resigned at the request of President-elect Joe Biden's transition team. Slaoui will stick around for the next 30 days to ease the switch, two people close to the matter told CNBC. His role will likely be diminished once Biden takes office on Jan. 20, the sources added.
Pfizer is working with BioNTech to ratchet up its 2021 vaccine production goal to 2 billion doses, CEO Albert Bourla, Ph.D., reiterated Tuesday. Pfizer will also implement a label change to include six doses in each vial instead of five'--plus, it's rolling out a new syringe that reduces the chances of liquid becoming stuck in the needle.
Some Australian scientists think the country should delay its immunization drive with AstraZeneca's vaccine, citing potential efficacy issues, Reuters reports. ''The question is really whether [AstraZeneca's vaccine] is able to provide herd immunity," Stephen Turner, president of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology, told the news service. AZ's shot boasted 62% efficacy in phase 3, well below the 90%-plus success rates of Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines.
Despite those calls, Australia's CSL remains committed to production of the 50 million AstraZeneca doses it agreed to churn out last year'--even as investors call for CSL to break into the mRNA space, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. A CSL spokeswoman told the news outlet that the first locally produced doses would be available in the second quarter of the year, subject to regulatory approval. The company said it could look to mRNA in the future but likely couldn't produce mRNA vaccines in time for this pandemic.
China's Sinovac could double annual capacity for its pandemic shot, CoronaVac, to 1 billion doses as early as next month, the group's chairman, Yin Weidong, said Wednesday. Sinovac's existing production line boasts capacity for 500 million doses per year, while another line with the same capacity could come online by February, Yin said.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 12 at 3:13 p.m. ET
Some COVID-19-related documents and data breached in a December cyberattack on the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have surfaced online, the regulator said Tuesday. The EMA didn't disclose which documents or data were leaked, adding that law enforcement was on the case. Pfizer and BioNTech in December said documents related to their COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty, had been accessed in the attack.
French shot developer Valneva is in ''advanced'' talks with the European Commission to supply Europe with up to 60 million doses of its inactivated vaccine candidate, the company said. The shot entered phase 1/2 studies in December, with initial safety and immunogenicity data expected in April, Valneva said. Meanwhile, the company in September agreed to supply the U.K. with up to 190 million doses.
A new coronavirus variant, similar to those identified in South Africa and the U.K., has cropped up in Japan, the country's National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) said. The variant was found in four passengers traveling from Brazil, one of whom was asymptomatic upon arrival before he was later hospitalized, Japan's Ministry of Health added. The NIID has alerted the World Health Organization and said it is investigating whether the variant could trigger more severe disease.
Uptake of Regeneron's antibody cocktail needs to improve, R&D chief George Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., said Monday at the annual J.P. Morgan healthcare conference. To overcome potential treatment barriers'--Regeneron's cocktail requires a prescription and must be infused'--the company plans to work "much more closely" with the government to effectively deliver its cocktail to patients, he said. Plus, the therapy should stand up against emerging virus variants, since "it reduces the likelihood that a single variant can become resistant to both antibodies in the cocktail," CEO Len Schleifer, M.D., Ph.D., said. Story
For many drugmakers, changes made during the pandemic are here to stay. Eli Lilly, for instance, plans to continue leveraging virtual trials that feature remote patient monitoring and digital interactions with trial sites, CEO David Ricks said Tuesday. Meanwhile, the advent of remote work has inspired Moderna to weigh how it leverages talent regardless of geography, the company's chief, St(C)phane Bancel, said. Story
The first wave of COVID-19 vaccines wont be enough to quell the pandemic, Swati Gupta, Ph.D., an executive with IAVI, said on a Fierce JPM Week panel. While those early launches will help end the "acute" phase of the pandemic, COVID-19 will likely become endemic, so ''we also need to plan for longer-term management of the disease.'' Others, like Valneva CEO Thomas Lingelbach, are confident there will be demand for follow-up vaccines. Those shots could offer efficacy at a single dose, prove easier to scale up or be better-suited to refrigerated storage, Gupta added. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 12 at 1:12 p.m. ET
The Trump administration is switching up its vaccine rollout, Axios first reported. First, the administration aims to promptly release the majority of shots on tap, rather than holding them back for second doses, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told ABC's "Good Morning America." It's also calling on states to give the vaccine to everyone 65 and older, plus those with underlying health conditions, he said. President-elect Joe Biden last week said he wanted to release most available doses to get them out to the public faster. Meanwhile, Azar is set to share further details at a midday press conference.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 12 at 11:26 a.m. ET
GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology will run a National Health Service-backed trial assessing Vir's antibody hopeful, VIR-7832, in early COVID-19. The so-called Agile trial is due to kick off in the first quarter of 2021 and will take place at multiple sites in the U.K., the companies said. Meanwhile, the partners have another Vir antibody, VIR-7831, currently in two phase 3 studies. The new trial comes as experts are emphasizing the need for additional COVID-19 therapeutics.
AstraZeneca's vaccine is up for review this month in Europe, the European Medicines Agency said. The regulator on Tuesday said it received an application from AstraZeneca and could make an authorization decision as early as Jan. 29. The EU has locked in an order for up to 400 million AstraZeneca doses and expects to receive initial deliveries two weeks after authorization.
Los Angeles County is pulling Curative's oral swab COVID-19 test from its mobile testing sites after the FDA warned that the startup's diagnostic carries a risk of false results'--and in particular, false negatives, local outlet KTLA reports. Asymptomatic patients are especially likely to receive incorrect results, the FDA added. Curative tests at 14 sites operated by the city will remain unaffected by the county's decision.
Japan's Chugai Pharmaceutical saw its shares surge Tuesday on the heels of a U.K.-funded study showing rheumatoid arthritis meds Kevzara and Actemra could reduce the risk of death and hustle COVID-19 patients out of intensive care units faster. Chugai co-developed Actemra, also known as tocilizumab, with Roche, while Sanofi and Regeneron are working together on Kevzara, also known as sarilumab.
Elsewhere in L.A., officials are converting Dodger Stadium from a testing site to a vaccination center, hoping to eventually immunize 12,000 people a day, the Los Angeles Times reports. Until Monday, Dodger Stadium was the largest testing site in the U.S. and had administered more than 1 million tests since May.
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority folded Albany Molecular Research's (AMRI's) Albuquerque, New Mexico, facility into its CDMO network. AMRI's Albuquerque site houses a large fill-finish facility that is already supporting COVID-19 vaccine production, the company said.
UPDATED: Monday, Jan. 11 at 3:05 p.m. ET
Novavax tapped contract manufacturer Baxter BioPharma Solutions to support commercial-scale production of its vaccine hopeful, NVX-CoV2373, at the CMO's facility in Halle, Germany. The move is intended to boost availability of the shot, still in phase-3 studies, across Europe and the U.K., the partners said in a release.
Moderna is kicking off deliveries of its mRNA vaccine to European Union and European Economic Area member states on Monday, a spokesperson told Fierce Pharma. All shipments will be handled by the Switzerland-based transport and logistics firm Kuehne+Nagel through its centralized pharma hub in Europe.
Merck KGaA snapped up German mRNA manufacturer AmpTec to bolster development and production for customers using the platform to make diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, including those for COVID-19. With mRNA technology on the rise, Merck says it's plotting related scale-ups at AmpTec's existing site in Hamburg, Germany, plus its own home base in Darmstadt. Story
As the scramble to repurpose drugs against COVID-19 tapers off, "I think what we're seeing is the emergence of real customized drugs that are highly focused on SARS-CoV-2,'' Ann Leen, Ph.D, chief scientist at AlloVir'--developing off-the-shelf T-cell therapies to combat viruses'--said during a Fierce JPM Week panel. As experts' understanding of COVID-19 evolves, it's clear there won't be a "silver bullet," Wendy Holman, CEO of Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, said. ''It's important to have multiple shots on goal and potentially, combination therapy.'' Story
Select Publix pharmacies in Florida will start deploying COVID-19 vaccines, Gov. Ron DeSantis said'--and all available appointments have already been booked, local outlet ClickOrlando reports. Each site plans to vaccinate around 120 people per day, the supermarket chain said. Publix is also supporting vaccination drives in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
President-elect Joe Biden got his second dose of Pfizer's vaccine on camera Monday. This marks Biden's second televised vaccination'--part of a bid to boost confidence in the shot. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was also taped when she received her first dose of Moderna's shot in December, one week after Biden's initial injection. Biden has pledged to roll out 100 million COVID-19 shots during his first hundred days in office and recently suggested the U.S. release nearly all doses on hand to hasten distribution efforts.
Synairgen's inhaled form of interferon beta-1a raised levels of a short form of ACE2 that doesn't allow the COVID-19 virus to enter cells and may also have a protective effect, researchers at the University of Southampton found. Last summer, Synairgen showed that its interferon drug lowered risk of progression to severe COVID-19 in a 101-subject trial, but there was a caveat: Interferon is known to increase levels of the cell surface protein ACE2, which serves as the entry point for the virus that causes COVID-19. Story
NeuroRx and Relief Therapeutics' coronavirus treatment hopeful Zyesami has been pegged for inclusion in the I-SPY COVID-19 Trial. Sponsored by San Francisco's Quantum Leap, the I-SPY platform study is assessing multiple drugs in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19. Zyasemi is also being studied in two U.S. phase 2b/3 trials in COVID-19 respiratory deficiency, both as an inhaled and intravenous option.
Russia wants to expedite its immunization program by potentially halving the two-dose regimen of its Sputnik V vaccine, The New York Times reports. While Russia's shot currently leverages two types of genetically modified human adenoviruses, the single-dose approach would see only one type of the cold virus administered in each shot, Sputnik V's developer, the Gamaleya Institute, said.
UPDATED: Monday, Jan. 11 at 9:27 a.m. ET
Fujifilm Diosynth and Texas A&M's Center for Innovation in Advanced Development & Manufacturing (CIADM) kicked off production of two vaccine candidates at CIADM's Flexible Biomanufacturing Facility in College Station, Texas. Fujifilm has been tapped to crank out bulk drug substance for Novavax's candidate, NVX'CoV2373, which kicked off phase 3 testing the U.S. and Mexico in December. The company is also manufacturing the shot at commercial scale at its Morrisville, North Carolina, plant.
BioNTech ratcheted up its vaccine production forecast at this year's virtual J.P. Morgan healthcare conference. The company now has its sights set on 2 billion doses by year-end, up from an original 1.3 billion-dose goal. Meanwhile, it's looking to boost supply capacity by introducing a new six-dose vial, alongside plans to establish new sites, suppliers and CMO pacts.
It's time for the U.S. to "hit the reset" on its vaccine rollout strategy, ex-FDA chief Scott Gottlieb, M.D., told CBS News' "Face the Nation" Sunday. With some 40 million doses available, the government should adopt an "all-of-the-above approach" to push shots out through different channels like "big-box stores" and the federal sites President-elect Joe Biden has talked about setting up. So far, only about 6.7 million Americans have received the first of two necessary doses, according to the CDC.
Meanwhile, front-line healthcare workers at greater Manchester hospitals in the U.K. will have to wait 11 weeks before they can get their second dose of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, Manchester Evening News reports. The British government last month unveiled plans to delay patients' second shots as the country prioritizes delivery of initial doses. Pfizer itself has cautioned against the move, warning that available data do not support a longer lag time between doses. The recommended schedule is 21 days after the first dose.
Gregory Michael, a 56-year-old doctor from South Florida, died two weeks after taking Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine. A CDC spokesman confirmed to local news outlet South Florida Sun Sentinel that it's investigating one death where a vaccine may be involved, but didn't confirm whether it was specifically reviewing Michael's case. Pfizer is running its own investigation, though it doesn't believe there is any direct connection between the death and its vaccine, a spokesperson told the Sun Sentinel.
The Indian government is in talks with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to lower the price of AstraZeneca's vaccine, sources close to the matter told The Economic Times. While the country's drug regulator has authorized shots from AZ and local developer Bharat Biotech, it hasn't locked down firm orders with either company, ET wrote. SII chief Adar Poonawalla in November said the shot would cost around '¹1,000 ($13.55) per dose on the private market in India and around '¹250 ($3.40) per dose for the government.
Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine will only be available in "major cities" in the Philippines, thanks to a lack of cold chain capability in the country, a presidential spokesperson said. The country recently locked in an order for 30 million doses of Novavax's vaccine through the Serum Institute of India, the spokesperson added. Plus, the country is in talks with Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sinovac and Russia's Gamaleya Institute.
UPDATED: Friday, Jan. 8 at 3:10 p.m. ET
With the U.S.' shot rollout lagging, President-elect Joe Biden wants to release nearly all available vaccine doses, his transition team said Friday. ''[Biden] supports releasing available doses immediately, and believes the government should stop holding back vaccine supply so we can get more shots in Americans' arms now," a spokesman for the transition team said. One potential hurdle? Releasing those doses all at once could make it harder for people to receive their second shot on time. Both Moderna and Pfizer's vaccines call for two doses at specific intervals.
Labcorp is teaming up with the CDC to conduct a large-scale genomic study tracking new mutations in the coronavirus. The agency plans to collect random samples from around the U.S., providing a baseline that should allow national and state-level surveillance programs to catch emerging cases. With Labcorp's facilities on deck, the CDC says it aims to more than double the number of genomic samples sequenced per week. Story
Moderna named industry vet Corinne Le Goff chief commercial officer as the drugmaker embarks on its first-ever product launch'--which just so happens to be the second COVID-19 vaccine to market in the U.S. Le Goff joins from Amgen, where she was most recently senior VP and president of the company's U.S. business. Aside from its pandemic shot launch, Moderna is gearing up for a phase 3 study of its mRNA-based cytomegalovirus vaccine. Story
Pfizer has agreed to boost vaccine deliveries to Israel in exchange for data on the country's immunization program, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday. More than 1.7 million Israelis have already received their first dose, and the country has sketched out the goal to be able to vaccinate all citizens over the age of 16 by the end of March. While Israel's second Pfizer shipment was originally scheduled to arrive in February, that delivery is now expected Sunday. Plus, Pfizer has agreed to provide the country with millions more doses, Netanyahu said.
It's fine if priority vaccination groups overlap, the CDC said Friday, clarifying guidance that many states have already implemented as they hustle to get shots out to the public. Healthcare workers and nursing home residents should be first in line, followed by essential workers and people over the age of 75, the agency has said. The CDC's website is now updated to show that the various priority groups'--1A, 1B and 1C'--could intersect.
Meanwhile, healthcare providers in the U.K., plus some parts of Florida, Tennessee and Texas, are using the online ticketing service Eventbrite to schedule vaccine appointments, The New York Times reports. It's far from a perfect system, though: Scams for bogus vaccination slots have already been reported in Florida, while some have cited the need for a computer and a speedy internet connection to book an appointment as a potential barrier to access.
UPDATED: Friday, Jan. 8 at 9:17 p.m. ET
The European Commission floated a deal to snag an extra 200 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, with the option to later purchase 100 million more. Building on a previous deal for up to 300 million doses of the partners' shot, the expanded order would allow the bloc access to some 600 million doses. Deliveries of the newly secured product would begin in the year's second quarter, the commission said.
The U.K. authorized Moderna's mRNA vaccine Friday, adding a third shot to its pandemic arsenal. The country also locked down an additional 10 million Moderna doses, bringing its total order to 17 million. Deliveries are pegged to begin in the spring. So far, roughly 1.5 million people in Britain have received at least one shot, Bloomberg reports.
Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine seems to work against a key mutation in variants of the novel coronavirus found in South Africa and the U.K., a lab study showed. Blood collected from 20 patients who received the shot in Pfizer's phase 3 successfully neutralized the so-called N501Y mutation, located in the receptor binding site of the spike protein. The partners have now shown their vaccine works against 16 different mutations of the virus. Story
The World Health Organization (WHO) is reviewing shots from AstraZeneca and China for a possible emergency listing, Kate O'Brien, the agency's immunization director, said Thursday. The WHO is also "in discussions and beginning processes with other vaccines," she added. The agency on Dec. 31 listed Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine for emergency use.
Australia inked a deal for 51 million doses of Novavax's late-stage vaccine, with the option to buy up to 10 million more doses, the company said Thursday. Shipments are expected to kick off in mid-2021. Novavax launched a U.S. phase 3 study in December after weathering multiple manufacturing delays.
South Africa is in "advanced" talks with Johnson & Johnson to lock down vaccine supplies, the country's health ministry said Thursday. Local manufacturer Aspen Pharmacare aims to kick off production of J&J's shot in late March or early April, but those Aspen doses are earmarked for export. The country is set to receive 1.5 million doses through the Serum Institute of India this month and next, which it will use to vaccinate healthcare workers.
Turkish drugmaker Abdi Ibrahim got the OK from the country's health ministry to manufacture and fill vials of inactivated vaccines, plus mRNA vaccines, against COVID-19, state-run news outlet Anadolu Agency reported. The company has capacity for 20 million doses, Nezih Barut, chairman of Abdi Ibrahim, told Anadolu.
UPDATED: Thursday, Jan. 7 at 3:10 p.m. ET
mRNA specialist CureVac tapped German compatriot Bayer to support clinical development, manufacturing, regulatory affairs and marketing on its late-stage vaccine hopeful, CVnCOV. With their forces combined, the partners aim to crank out "hundreds of millions" of doses once the shot is approved. No financial details were given. CureVac will be on deck in the EU and a few other markets, while Bayer holds options to be the rights owner in most ex-U.S. territories. Story
Roche's Actemra (tocilizumab) and Sanofi's Kevzara (sarilumab) reduced death rates by 8.5% in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19, a British study showed. The REMAP-CAP trial, still awaiting peer review, enrolled some 800 subjects. Patients receiving either Kevzara or Actemra had a mortality rate of 27.3%, compared to 35.8% in the control arm. On average, patients treated with the rheumatoid arthritis meds were also discharged from intensive care units around seven to 10 days earlier than those in the control group. The U.K. plans to start using the drugs immediately. Story
South Africa's Aspen Pharmacare could start producing doses of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine in late March or early April, if approvals are in place, Stavros Nicolaou, group senior executive for strategic trade at Aspen, told Reuters. The company is waiting on a technology transfer and currently has capacity for up to 300 million doses. All shots produced by Aspen will be exported and folded into J&J's global supply, Nicolaou said.
Peru locked in the delivery of 1 million Sinopharm vaccine doses this month'--part of a larger deal for 38 million doses from the Chinese firm, President Francisco Sagasti said Wednesday. Peru has also closed a deal for 14 million AstraZeneca doses, though shipments aren't expected to begin until September, Sagasti said.
Sinovac's shot CoronaVac proved 78% effective in phase 3, Brazil's Butantan Institute said. Among more than 12,000 healthcare workers enrolled in the trial, no one developed severe cases of COVID-19, the S£o Paulo-based research center said. Turkey unveiled interim phase 3 data in December showing the vaccine was 91.5% effective. Indonesia is also running a late-stage study of the vaccine but has yet to issue results. Story
William Hanage, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is trying to break down two coronavirus variants at the top of everyone's mind:
As millions of COVID-19 vaccines start rolling out, drugmakers of all kinds should brace for a wave of side effect reports and lawsuits. "Unprecedented" development timelines, emergency use authorizations and media scrutiny will likely drive high incidences of vaccine side effect reports, Torrey Cope, a partner at law firm Sidley Austin, told Fierce Pharma. Meanwhile, vulnerable people set to receive the first vaccines are likely on multiple medications, and companies who make those drugs can expect new reports, too, another partner at the firm said. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, Jan. 7 at 9:12 a.m. ET
Moderna's mRNA shot could provide years of protection against COVID-19, though more data are needed to support that claim, CEO St(C)phane Bancel said. Concerns from early last year that a shot might only work for a few months are "out of the window," he said. ''The antibody decay generated by the vaccine in humans goes down very slowly '... We believe there will be protection potentially for a couple of years.''
Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine could snare U.K. approval within weeks, local scientists and government officials told The Telegraph. Britain has purchased 30 million doses of the vaccine, developed by J&J's Janssen unit, with the option to purchase another 22 million doses. Meanwhile, U.K. Vaccine Taskforce adviser Sir John Bell said he was hopeful J&J supplies could reach the country in time for British vaccination rates to pick up by mid-February.
States need to intensify their vaccine rollouts, and any extra supplies should be used to swiftly vaccinate the elderly or people with underlying health conditions, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said at a media briefing Tuesday. "We cannot let perfection be the enemy of good," he said. "Prioritized recommendations are simply recommendations, they should never stand in the way of getting shots in the arms."
Meanwhile, the U.K.'s vaccine rollout is lagging, thanks to limited supply. Now, the government is working with both Pfizer and AstraZeneca to ramp up deliveries, health minister Matt Hancock said. ''The manufacturers are doing a brilliant job, and they're delivering to the schedule that's agreed, but that schedule is the amount of vaccine that we have '... [We] expect to see that amount of vaccine being delivered going up.''
India's Bharat Biotech has recruited 25,800 volunteers for its late-stage vaccine trial, the company said Thursday. Bharat's shot, dubbed Covaxin, bagged an emergency use authorization in India Sunday, just seven weeks after starting a phase 3 study. Krishna Ella, chairman of Bharat, recently defended the company's approval, pointing to a government notification from 2019 that says "good quality immunogenicity data" from phase 1 and 2 trials can be used to win an emergency license.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Jan. 6 at 3:06 p.m. ET
AstraZeneca's vaccine now boasts emergency nods in India, Argentina, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Morocco, the British pharma said Wednesday. The shot's approval in India, where AZ has teamed up with Serum Institute of India to crank out 1 billion doses for low- and middle-income nations, is an important step toward delivering the vaccine to millions of people worldwide, AZ chief Pascal Soriot said.
Meanwhile, India's drug regulator has blocked Serum Institute of India (SSI) from exporting doses of the AstraZeneca shot for several months as the country prioritizes vaccinating its own vulnerable populations first, company CEO Adar Poonawalla told the Associated Press. Exports to the WHO's Covax distribution initiative won't start until March or April, though SII is working to sign a larger agreement with Covax for 300 million to 400 million doses, he said. SII has so far pledged 200 million doses to the distribution effort, split between AZ and Novavax's shots.
New York will start fining hospitals that fail to dispense their allocated vaccine doses within a week of receiving supplies, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday. What's more, the state will also bar those hospitals from receiving future doses. Florida, meanwhile, is allocating doses to hospitals that dispense them quickest, while sites that fail to push the vaccine out fast enough will have their supplies shipped to hastier locations, Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
The U.S. could soon administer at least 1 million COVID-19 vaccines per day, NIAID director Anthony Fauci told the Associated Press. After a slow start, U.S. vaccination efforts are ramping up, reaching some half a million shots a day, he said, adding that President-elect Joe Biden's bid to hit 100 million vaccinations during his first hundred days in office was an achievable goal. ''Any time you start a big program, there's always glitches. I think the glitches have been worked out,'' Fauci said.
The University of California, San Diego, is using sidewalk vending machines to dispense self-administered COVID-19 tests to students and staff, the La Jolla Light reports. After a nose swab is performed, samples are sealed and returned to drop boxes around campus for analysis by the university's own EXCITE laboratory. Results are typically returned within 12 to 24 hours. The school currently requires all students on campus to be tested weekly, regardless of symptoms. Story
Color, which bagged a slate of FDA emergency nods for COVID-19 testing and self-sampling kits last year, raised $167 million in a series D funding round as it looks to scale up and expand into digital vaccine logistics. Color's software platform is used to manage California's COVID-19 testing efforts, and the company also works with diagnostics maker PerkinElmer to process up to 150,000 samples per day. Looking ahead, Color aims to launch vaccine delivery systems through its established testing networks. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, Jan. 6 at 9:38 a.m. ET
A South African variant of the novel coronavirus appears to "obviate" certain countermeasures like antibody drugs, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., told CNBC. The variant, which has cropped up in South Africa and Brazil, seems to partially escape prior immunity, which could make recovered patients' own antibodies and currently approved antibody therapies less effective, Gottlieb warned. ''Now, the vaccine can become a backstop against these variants really getting more of a foothold here in the United States, but we need to quicken the pace of vaccination," he said.
The European Medicines Agency gave Moderna's vaccine a thumbs-up, recommending its authorization for people ages 18 and older. The agency's human medicines committee (CHMP) based its recommendation on phase 3 data showing Moderna's shot was 94.1% effective. Once the European Commission rubber-stamps the EMA's approval, Moderna's vaccine will join Pfizer and BioNTech's as the second authorized in the EU.
Moderna and the National Institutes of Health are determining whether supplies of the company's vaccine could be doubled by halving the dose, The New York Times reports. Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui, M.D., on Monday said people who received two 50-mcg doses of Moderna's shot, compared to the standard 100-mcg regimen, showed an "identical immune response," referring to data from an early phase 2 study. To change the dosing, Moderna will need to look back at its phase 2 or run a new study.
The U.K. should administer second doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine within 21 to 28 days or, in exceptional circumstances, within six weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday. The U.K.'s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation had recommended patients get their second shot within three to 12 weeks to stretch initial supplies. "[It] is important to note that there is very little data from the trials that underpin this type of recommendation," one WHO expert said.
Some 3.5 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses are awaiting approval from the U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Sky News reports. So far, only 530,000 AZ doses out of an initial order for 4 million have been cleared for use through batch testing. The MHRA is working in parallel with AstraZeneca's own batch-testing process to speed up deliveries.
India's authorization of Bharat Biotech's vaccine is taking more heat. The Indian drug regulator's subject expert committee actually requested more efficacy data just one day before apparently reversing its stance to issue an OK, documents show. Bharat's vaccine, Covaxin, is still in phase 3 testing and was approved "in clinical trial mode"'--unconventional language that's left some experts perplexed.
U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Tuesday that he'd tested positive for COVID-19 after receiving an initial dose of Pfizer's vaccine. ''As recommended, I received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine Dec 18 & also recently tested negative for Covid on New Years Day. Begin treatment tomorrow," Brady tweeted.
On Sunday, the Transportation Security Administration said 1.3 million Americans passed through airport security'--the highest daily tally of travelers since the pandemic began, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reports. Many states are now bracing for a surge of new infections in the wake of the holidays. Hard-hit Southern California has told paramedics to conserve oxygen and not to bring patients with little hope of survival to hospitals. Meanwhile, COVID-19 patients now occupy 1 in 5 hospital beds in Texas'--a record for the state, the Texas Tribune reported.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 5 at 3:07 p.m. ET
The European Medicines Agency is due to decide on Moderna's mRNA vaccine Wednesday. The agency's human medicines committee (CHMP) met Monday to discuss the shot but said it would need to meet again on Wednesday. The EMA will also hold a public meeting Jan. 8 to outline its assessment, approval and vaccine rollout plans for European Union citizens, Politico reports.
Meanwhile, Moderna on Monday raised the low end of its global vaccine production estimate from 500 million doses to 600 million doses this year. The company is also planning new investments and hiring to potentially hit a target of 1 billion doses by year-end. The U.S. recently bought an additional 100 million doses from Moderna, and Canada and the European Commission expanded their orders last month. Story
The FDA put a planned phase 1 of Altimmune's intranasal vaccine candidate on hold, which the company attributed to the need for protocol modifications and additional manufacturing and quality-control info. Altimmune's candidate, AdCOVID, is an adenovirus type 5-vectored vaccine designed to offer protection after one dose. Story
Brazil is revving up for a national vaccination campaign, despite a dearth of injector devices, Reuters reports. The government plans to requisition surplus stocks from the country's syringe and needle makers, the health minister said, after an electronic auction last week turned into a fiasco.
France is "accelerating and simplifying" its vaccination program as it lags behind its European neighbors, Olivier Veran, the country's health minister, said Tuesday. France first focused on vaccinating nursing home residents and caretakers, but the government has now added healthcare workers and paramedics to that group. The plan is to start vaccinating people ages 75 and up by the end of the month.
Vaccine rollouts in other countries are also moving more slowly than expected, The New York Times reports. England aims to vaccinate some 13.9 million citizens from its four most vulnerable groups by February, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, but as of Dec. 27, fewer than 800,000 people in the country had received the shot. In the U.S., around 4.5 million people have been vaccinated, well below the 20 million the government had aimed for.
India, which authorized AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech's shots Sunday, plans to launch its vaccination program next week, the country's federal health secretary said. Around 29,000 cold storage facilities have been set up, and health officials carried out large-scale dry runs around the country. It's aiming to vaccinate 300 million people by July.
The Republic of Palau, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean with a population of around 18,000, hasn't recorded a single coronavirus case or death since the pandemic began. With the arrival of 2,800 Moderna vaccine doses Saturday'--which the country bought through the U.S.' Operation Warp Speed program'--Palau is on its way to becoming one of the first countries vaccinated against the disease, too, CNN reports.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 5 at 9:34 a.m. ET
Mexico on Monday cleared AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford's vaccine for emergency use, Hugo L"pez-Gatel, the country's top epidemiologist, tweeted. AstraZeneca in August laid out plans to work with the Mexican and Argentine governments to crank out 150 million initial doses for Latin America, with plans to later produce at least 400 million more doses for the region.
Israel Monday became the third country to authorize Moderna's mRNA vaccine behind Canada and the U.S. The country's health ministry has locked down 6 million doses, and deliveries are expected to begin this month, Moderna said.
Belgium is set to receive half the doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine it ordered for January, thanks to an unspecified technical hiccup last month, Yves Van Laethem, a spokesman for the country's health ministry, said. ''The company Pfizer, which supplies us, will only be able to supply half of the planned doses for the month of January and so we go from 600,000 doses to a little over 300,000 doses." Belgium on Tuesday started vaccinating residents and healthcare staffers at nursing homes.
In a statement issued Monday, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn and Peter Marks, director of the agency's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said it would be "premature" and "not rooted solidly in the available evidence" to reduce the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses, extend the length of time between doses, alter the dose itself or mix and match vaccines to stretch supplies without supporting data. The U.K. recently opted to delay peoples' second vaccines in a bid to get initial shots out to more of the public. Story
The U.K.'s Emergex Vaccines teamed up with Brazil's Institute of Technology on Immunobiologicals of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation'--also known as Fiocruz'--to develop a COVID-19 shot using Emergex's next-gen T-cell vaccine tech. Emergex has so far completed preclinical development work on its shot, including toxicology and immunoproteomic research into the MHC Class I peptide expression library for cell surface expressed peptides on coronavirus infected cells, which define an effective T-cell response against the disease, Emergex said.
Inovio tapped fledgling biotech Advaccine Biopharmaceuticals Suzhou to help develop, manufacture and market its DNA-based vaccine candidate, INO-4800, in Greater China. In exchange for those exclusive Chinese rights, Advaccine will license its plasmid manufacturing process for use with the shot and other Inovio pipeline candidates, with the right to sublicense to Inovio's manufacturing partners, the companies said. Inovio will receive $3 million upfront for the deal, and up to $108 million should the vaccine hit certain sales and regulatory milestones in China.
Novo Nordisk extended its COVID-19 patient assistance program until June 30, 2021'--a bid to help people who've lost health insurance thanks to a job-status change during the pandemic. The program allows diabetes patients using Novo Nordisk insulin to receive insulin free of charge for 90 days. Patients can also potentially receive a free, one-time supply of up to three vials or two pen packs of insulin in instances where rationing may be a concern, Novo says.
An Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist who left out 57 vials of Moderna's vaccine was deliberately trying to spoil the shots because he feared they would mutate peoples' DNA, the Associated Press reports. Wisconsin's Steven Brandenburg, arrested last week, could face charges for the move that sent enough vaccine product for 500 people down the drain.
UPDATED: Monday, Jan. 4 at 3:26 p.m. ET
While the U.K. is delaying second doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer's vaccines to allow more people to get the initial shot, U.S. health officials are none too keen on the idea, The New York Times reports. ''I would not be in favor of that,'' NIAID director Anthony Fauci told CNN last week. Others fear the country's piecemeal approach to shot distribution would only be complicated further by the switch. ''Doubling the number of doses doesn't double your capacity to give doses," Saad Omer, a vaccine expert at Yale University, told the Times.
South Korea kicked off its review of AstraZeneca's vaccine, with a view to approve the shot for emergency use in 40 days, the country's drug safety ministry said. South Korea in December inked a deal for 20 million AZ doses, and initial shipments could arrive as early as this month. The country also has deals with Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, with plans to start vaccinations in February.
RedHill Biopharma's oral SK2 inhibitor opaganib appears to help COVID-19 patients on oxygen support, phase 2 data showed, though a larger study is needed to confirm the experimental cancer med's benefit. Among 40 participants who developed pneumonia and required oxygen, RedHill reported a 68% reduction in the median total oxygen needed for patients on opaganib, compared to a 46.7% reduction in the control arm. The company's data reveal didn't include a statistical analysis. RedHill launched a 270-subject phase 2/3 last summer and expects top-line results in Q1. Story
Acrotech Biopharma's lymphoma drug Folotyn (pralatrexate) inhibited replication of the coronavirus more strongly than Gilead's antiviral Veklury (remdesivir), researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) found. The chemotherapy's side effects could limit its use in COVID-19 patients, but the study supports the use of hybrid virtual screening for pandemic drug repurposing, the team figures. It used different AI platforms to screen a library of 1,906 currently marketed drugs that could bind to the coronavirus's RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Story
India's Bharat Biotech signed a letter of intent with Malvern, Pennsylvania-based Ocugen to co-develop its inactivated vaccine, Covaxin, for the U.S. market. Ocugen is on deck for clinical development, registration, and commercialization stateside. The companies plan to finalize the deal "in the next few weeks," while Ocugen says it has set up a vaccine scientific advisory board to chart the shot's path to market. Bharat's vaccine won an emergency nod in India on Jan. 3.
Meanwhile, Bharat's authorization, which came just seven weeks after the drugmaker kicked off phase 3 trials, is taking heat from local experts, Quartz India reports. ''The decision to approve an incompletely studied vaccine, even under accelerated process, raises more questions than answers," a member of the All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) said in a statement. The Indian government said it authorized Bharat's vaccine on ''safety and immunogenicity data,'' but did not include efficacy data in its approval announcement.
UPDATED: Monday, Jan. 4 at 9:26 a.m. ET
By the third week of January, AstraZeneca aims to double vaccine production to 2 million doses per week, an anonymous staffer told Business Insider. AZ has pledged 100 million doses to the U.K., where its vaccine was authorized last week. The U.K. government has said some 530,000 AZ doses should be available in the country Monday, local outlet Channel 4 News reported.
Meanwhile, 82-year-old dialysis patient Brian Pinker on Monday became the first person in the U.K. to receive AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford's shot following the late-December authorization.
AstraZeneca's vaccine snagged an emergency nod in India, where it's being produced by Serum Institute of India (SII) under the name Covishield. SII has pledged to crank out 1 billion AZ doses for developing nations, including India. The country's drug regulator also authorized Bharat Biotech's inactivated shot Covaxin. The country has laid out a goal to vaccinate 300 million people'--a mix of healthcare workers, older citizens and others'--by August 2021.
Thanks to stockpiling efforts, Covishield doses are ready to roll out "in the coming weeks," Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla said. AstraZeneca's vaccine could be easier to store and distribute, too; unlike mRNA vaccines, which must be stored at ultracold temperatures, Covishield can be kept at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (about 36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit)'--about as chilly as your standard refrigerator.
Moderna's mRNA vaccine, administered at two doses 28 days apart, proved 94.1% effective against COVID-19, phase 3 data published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed. The final analysis covered 196 coronavirus cases, with 185 cases observed in the placebo group and 11 cases recorded in the vaccine arm. Moderna is plotting additional trials of its vaccine in pregnant women, children below the age of 12 and special risk groups like the immunocompromised.
Moderna and the FDA are considering giving people a half-dose of the drugmaker's shot to expedite vaccination efforts, Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui told CBS. ''We know it induces identical immune response," he said of the half dose, adding that the move would help the government immunize "double the number of people with the doses we have." U.S. officials originally outlined a goal to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of 2020. As of Saturday morning, the CDC said it had administered 4,225,756 vaccine doses out of a total 13,071,925 delivered. Story
A small number of people with facial fillers who received Moderna's vaccine in the company's phase 3 study experienced facial swelling, the FDA advisory committee reviewing the shot said. ''What happens is you take a vaccine and suddenly your immune system ramps up," plastic surgeon Amir Karam told NBC 7 San Diego. "The thinking is basically because of that effect of the immune system it's targeting the areas that you have filler in and causes a more robust inflammatory response." The side effect is easily treated and shouldn't discourage people from getting the vaccine, he added.
Pfizer and BioNTech are offering South Africa 50 million vaccine doses for healthcare workers between March and the end of 2021, though the cost is "prohibitive," the country's presidency, speaking on behalf of the African Union, told Bloomberg. South Africa is also in supply talks with Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, which has directed the country to source its shots through Serum Institute of India.
Pfizer is pushing for people to receive their second vaccine dose within the recommended 21-day period, warning, "there is no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained" after that time. Britain's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has since recommended vaccinating more people in at-risk groups before giving others their second doses.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Dec. 22 at 8:47 a.m. ET
Amid concern about the new coronavirus variant spreading in England, BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin said the company is confident its vaccine will work against the strain. It's "highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine also can deal with the new virus variants," he said.
So far during the vaccination push with the Pfizer and BioNTech shot, there have been eight cases of severe allergy-like reactions, Science reports. There's a growing suspicion among some scientists that polyethylene glycol, a compound in the mRNA packaging, could be responsible. Others doubt the link. The U.S. plans to investigate.
CureVac has launched another pivotal study for its coronavirus vaccine. The biotech started a phase 3 trial of its vaccine, CVnCoV, in healthcare workers in partnership with the University Medical Center Mainz. The trial will enroll 2,500 people 18 and older and test the vaccine against placebo for the workers, who are at a higher risk of becoming infected than the general population.
Johnson & Johnson originally planned to recruit 60,000 participants for its global phase 3 vaccine trial, but earlier this month said it would halt enrollment at around 40,000 people. The company says it can still seek a U.S. authorization in early 2021, but doctors at trial sites in South America were disappointed in the company's decision to abruptly halt recruitment, Reuters reports.
Amid Novavax's push to complete vaccine testing and potentially seek an emergency use authorization, the biotech has named a chief operating officer. Rick Crowley, who previously served at TerSera Pharmaceuticals, Crealta Pharmaceuticals and other companies, is joining the biotech.
Following the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use's endorsement of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, the European Medicines Agency has formally approved the shot. The distribution across Europe is set to start later this week.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland has seized and shut down fake websites claiming to represent Moderna and Regeneron. The sites stole user information for cyberattacks.
UPDATED: Monday, Dec. 21 at 3:02 p.m. ET
Codagenix and the Serum Institute of India (SII) launched a 48-subject phase 1 study in the U.K. to assess the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of their single-dose, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine. Dosing at an hVIVO-run site is pegged to start early next year. While that puts the partners well behind the leading developers in the vaccine race, Codagenix and SII's candidate could carve out a niche if booster shots are needed to maintain protection against the virus. Plus, the partners' candidate, COVI-VAC, is stable beyond the subzero temps needed to store Pfizer's shot. Story
IBM is pairing its Digital Health Pass app with Salesforce's online employee management platform, Work.com, to help businesses and public spaces reopen as COVID-19 vaccines become available. IBM's app aims to provide personalized, sharable health credentials after vaccinations, temperature checks and test results via an encrypted digital wallet on a smartphone, plus contract tracing and other services. Story
Beckman Coulter sketched out launch plans for a $4 antigen test designed for mass screening, with the goal to ship up to 25 million units per month by March. The Access antigen assay, which runs on high-throughput laboratory hardware, can deliver individual results in 30 minutes while processing up to 200 samples per hour. The company is currently submitting the test to the FDA for an emergency nod, Beckman Coulter said. Story
Walgreens Boots Alliance and CVS Health are spearheading a program, in partnership with the federal government, to vaccinate roughly 7 million people in more than 70,000 long-term care facilities across the U.S. While some residents received shots last week, the partners' full rollout kicked off Monday, Reuters reports.
The FDA turned back Novartis' cholesterol drug inclisiran'--cornerstone of the Swiss Pharma's $9.7 billion buyout of The Medicines Company'--thanks to ''unresolved facility inspection-related conditions." The agency didn't take issue with the drug's safety or efficacy, Novartis said. The holdup is "essentially due to COVID-19 travel restrictions (FDA couldn't inspect a third-party facility)," an RBC Capital Markets analyst wrote Sunday. It's a fate shared by BMS' CAR-T hopeful liso-cel, which recently had its approval timeline pushed back after the FDA missed an on-site inspection. Story
Most agree the industry's pandemic pivot to digital marketing is here to stay. "[There's] no going back now'--we are going to digitalize healthcare,'' Marie-France Tschudin, president of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, said in July. Meanwhile, pharma marketers and sales reps are getting more creative on the virtual front: Razorfish Health, for instance, created healthcare provider mailers for a new drug launch, complete with an Amazon Dash button, which, when pressed, sends out a request for a sales rep call or drug samples. Story
Meanwhile, telemedicine could be here to stay, too. Nearly 80% of specialists in the U.S. say they've started using telemedicine tech to reach more patients this year, a GlobalData survey found, with more than 75% of respondents saying they planned to keep using the tech after the pandemic. Elsewhere, digitally minded companies like Everlywell, Pear Therapeutics and Evidation Health have bagged millions of investment dollars to grow their telehealth offerings in 2020. Story
UPDATED: Monday, Dec. 21 at 9:05 a.m. ET
The FDA on Friday cleared Moderna's mRNA vaccine for emergency use in people ages 18 and older, teeing up immediate, nationwide distribution for the U.S.' second authorized COVID-19 shot. Moderna plans to deploy 20 million doses to the U.S. by year-end, while Pfizer, first to authorization, has pledged 25 million doses. Both companies say they're on track to deliver 100 million doses by the end of the first quarter, while Moderna recently agreed to supply 100 million more shots in the second quarter. Story
The EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) on Monday vouched for the conditional marketing authorization of Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA vaccine in people ages 16 and older in Europe. The European Commission is set to review and potentially rubber-stamp the CHMP's decision "in the near future," Pfizer and BioNTech said in a release. If the commission grants Pfizer's shot a CMA, the decision will immediately extend to all 27 EU member states.
China aims to vaccinate 50 million people before Feb. 15'--the date of the Lunar New Year, when many people are expected to travel, a Shanghai vaccine expert and former immunologist with the city's CDC said during a teleconference with China's National Health Commission. The country currently has five vaccine candidates in late-stage testing.
President-elect Joe Biden and incoming First Lady Jill Biden will receive Pfizer's vaccine on live television Monday morning. Meanwhile, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris plans to get her shot after Christmas, on the advice of doctors who suggested she and Biden stagger their first injections. Last week, Vice President Mike Pence became the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to receive the vaccine when he, Second Lady Karen Pence and Surgeon General Jerome Adams rolled up their sleeves to get Pfizer's shot'--also on live TV.
With authorizations for Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines locked in, Johnson & Johnson is the next likely contender to apply for approval stateside, Admiral Brett Giroir, M.D., assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, told ABC News. J&J is expected to submit its adenovirus hopeful for authorization in January, Giroir said. The drugmaker last week said it had finished recruiting for its phase 3 trial and aims to deliver early efficacy data by the end of next month.
A new strain of COVID-19 first detected in the U.K. spreads quickly, and work is underway to determine whether it leads to higher mortality, too, Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, said in a statement Saturday. ''As a result of the rapid spread of the new variant, preliminary modeling data and rapidly rising incidence rates in the South East, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) now consider that the new strain can spread more quickly," he said.
Italy on Sunday reported it had one patient infected with the new strain of the coronavirus found in Britain. The patient, now in isolation, recently returned from a trip to the U.K., Italy's health ministry said. Meanwhile, Australia on Monday confirmed it had identified two patients infected with the new strain.
UPDATED: Friday, Dec. 18 at 3:20 p.m. ET
Belgium's budget state secretary, Eva De Bleeker, tweeted'--and then deleted'--the prices the EU has negotiated for Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines, The New York Times reports. Pfizer's shot, due for a European approval decision Monday, will cost '¬12 ($14.70) per dose, bringing up the cost for a full two-dose course to '¬24 ($29.38). Moderna's shot will cost $18 per dose, or $36 for a full course, according to the leaked price list.
The National Institutes of Health kicked off dosing in sub-studies of GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology's antibody hopeful, plus a two-antibody combo from Brii Biosciences. To start, researchers will test the two drug regimens against placebo in 450 subjects hospitalized with mild to moderate COVID-19. An initial readout, expected five days after dosing, will look at a range of factors like symptoms, how easily patients can perform daily activities and risk of death. If the drugs fare well, they'll move into 700-subject trials that include patients with more severe COVID-19. Story
The FDA authorized a new version of Abbott's speedy BinaxNOW antigen test that people can use at home with a prescription. Users aged 15 and up can take their own nose swab samples, while adults can use the swab on children as young as 4. Users are guided through the process via a telehealth connection. In partnership with digital service provider eMed, Abbott aims to deliver 30 million BinaxNOW tests by the end of March and another 90 million before the end of June. EMed, meanwhile, will pass off testing results to the relevant public health authorities. Story
COVAX, the World Health Organization's equitable vaccine distribution scheme, has secured nearly 2 billion vaccine doses through additional supply talks with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, the alliance said Friday. COVAX aims to start deliveries in the first quarter of 2021, assuming the shots are approved. It expects enough doses in 2021's first half to protect healthcare workers in all participating countries and economies and plans to deliver at least 1.3 billion doses to 92 low- and lower-middle income countries enrolled in the program sometime next year.
The vaccination will be televised. Vice President Mike Pence, second lady Karen Pence and Surgeon General Jerome Adams rolled up their sleeves to get Pfizer's vaccine on live television Friday morning, making Pence the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to get the shot. After receiving the vaccine, Pence said he hoped the move would "affirm to the American people that hope is on the way," adding that he "wanted to step forward and take this vaccine to assure the American people that while we cut red tape, we cut no corners.''
UPDATED: Friday, Dec. 18 at 11:45 a.m. ET
The FDA's panel of vaccine experts voted 20-0 Thursday, with one abstention, that the benefits of Moderna's mRNA shot outweigh the risks for people 18 and older. With Moderna's vaccine now positioned for a swift authorization, panelists did raise concerns that an emergency nod could disrupt the company's ongoing trial. Others pointed to cases of facial paralysis'--a condition known as Bell's palsy'--that cropped up during the study. The FDA is investigating the side effect but ''has no basis to conclude a causal relationship'' between the paralysis and the vaccine, an agency official said. Story
The European Commission tapped its option to purchase another 80 million Moderna vaccine doses, raising the bloc's total purchase to 160 million doses. Moderna aims to kick off deliveries to Europe in early 2021, subject to regulatory approval. The European Medicines Agency's scientific committee for human medicines is set to review the shot on Jan. 6, and then the European Commission will decide whether to authorize it.
Johnson & Johnson on Thursday said it had wrapped enrollment for its late-stage vaccine trial and expects to release initial efficacy data by the end of January. If all goes to plan, J&J aims to submit its vaccine to the FDA in February and apply for authorization in other countries "in parallel." The phase 3 kicked off in September, with study sites up and running in the U.S., South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and several other Latin American countries. Meanwhile, Health Canada launched a rolling review of the vaccine late last month.
A healthcare worker in Alaska suffered flushing and shortness of breath 10 minutes after receiving Pfizer's vaccine, the states' health department said. She had no previous history of allergies and is now in stable condition. Meanwhile, a second staffer at the same Alaskan hospital was hit with eye puffiness, lightheadedness and scratchy throat 10 minutes after receiving the shot, though this second case was not considered anaphylaxis.
Regeneron's antibody cocktail successfully reduced viral load and the need for medical visits in non-hospitalized, recently infected COVID-19 patients, with the greatest benefit seen in those who'd yet to mount their own effective immune response or had high viral load at baseline, initial data from a phase 1/2/3 trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed. Regeneron's cocktail won an emergency nod in late November to treat non-hospitalized, mild-to-moderate patients at high risk for progressing to severe COVID-19.
Speaking of Regeneron, President Donald Trump personally stepped in to help Housing Secretary Ben Carson get the drugmaker's antibody cocktail after he was hospitalized with COVID-19 last month, Carson told Fox News. Carson initially tried to treat himself with oleander extract'--an unproven treatment derived from a toxic plant, which Trump and MyPillow executive Mike Lindell pushed aggressively over the summer.
UPDATED: Thursday, Dec. 17 at 3:39 p.m. ET
After HHS secretary Alex Azar said Pfizer was having some issues with its COVID-19 vaccine production, the company refuted the statement on Thursday. Pfizer "is not having any production issues" and "no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed," the company said. At a press event Wednesday, Azar said the government had "recently been informed by them, finally, of various challenges" in the manufacturing process. Story
The United States' second COVID-19 vaccine could be nearing an FDA emergency authorization. On Thursday, an advisory committee met to discuss Moderna's application, with C-SPAN streaming the event. A vote on whether to recommend Moderna's vaccine was expected around 5:15 p.m. ET.
Meanwhile, the effort to scale up COVID-19 vaccines is affecting other medicines in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Horizon said its thyroid eye disease med Tepezza will run scarce from the end of the month into 2021 as its contract manufacturer Catalent helps with coronavirus vaccine production. Story
Throughout the pandemic, market watchers have wondered whether the pharmaceutical industry would see major reputation gains. A new study in the U.K. from Takeda finds that's not the case, as only 17% of adults surveyed in October said their perception of the industry had improved. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, Dec. 17 at 11:23 a.m. ET
Vials of Pfizer's vaccine, designed to hold five doses, contain enough product for pharmacists to squeeze out a sixth or seventh dose, Stat News first reported. Without clear manufacturer or regulatory approval, that extra supply has so far been discarded. Now, the FDA is suggesting healthcare workers "use every full dose obtainable (the sixth, or possibly even a seventh) from each vial, pending resolution of the issue,'' an agency representative told Reuters.
Speaking of Pfizer, why hasn't CEO Albert Bourla taken the drugmaker's vaccine yet? "I'm 59 years old, in good health, I'm not working on the frontline, so my type it is not recommended to get vaccination now," he told CNN, suggesting it would "set a bad example" to "cut the queue."
Japanese health authorities have questions about the efficacy of Fujifilm's flu med Avigan in COVID-19, Kyodo News reported. Fujifilm started seeking approval in October after late-stage data showed its antiviral sped recovery time in patients with less-severe symptoms. Japan's drug regulator is due to make a decision on Dec. 21, though it's concerned doctors involved in the trial were aware which patients got the drug or placebo, government sources told Kyodo.
Utah's Intermountain Healthcare says it's trained a dedicated team, dubbed ''the MAb Squad,'' to contact high-risk individuals the moment they receive a positive COVID-19 testing result, helping connect them with infusion centers to receive Eli Lilly and Regeneron's monoclonal antibody drugs. Demand for the companies' antibodies, which must be administered soon after a person contracts COVID-19, has been underwhelming, Operation Warp Speed's Moncef Slaoui said Wednesday.
Some 15,000 people in Moscow have received Russia's Sputnik V vaccine since the the country kicked off large-scale vaccination efforts on Dec. 5, but enthusiasm for the shot has been mixed, the Los Angeles Times reports. Russia approved its shot this summer before wrapping up late-stage trials. It has since kicked off a phase 3, though public confidence may already be damaged. An October poll from the country's Levada Center found 59% of Russians were unwilling to get the shot, with many wary that the "raw" vaccine was rushed to secure a world-first approval.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 3:15 p.m. ET
Most U.S. doses of Regeneron and Eli Lilly's antibodies remain unused, Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui told CNBC. Of some 65,000 total doses shipped out each week, only 5% to 20% end up reaching patients, he said. Some hospitals say they're too overwhelmed to handle the logistics of prioritizing patients for treatment. As The Verge points out, patients also have a narrow window of time'--soon after contracting COVID-19'--when they could benefit from Lilly and Regeneron's drugs.
A lab technician at a Sanofi vaccine plant in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, sued the company and the staffing firm Yoh for failing to deliver pandemic hazard pay as promised. A project manager this spring emailed more than 60 technicians to offer a 15% pay bump for the duration of the pandemic as compensation for "increased risk of exposure," but as the weeks went on, employees noticed their wages hadn't increased, the lawsuit alleges. The staffers were ultimately offered three extra days paid time off, the suit says, which the same manager later told them was "in lieu of hazard pay." Story
The FDA cleared Ellume's over-the-counter, home COVID-19 test for emergency use. The Ellume COVID-19 Home Test detects fragments of proteins of the coronavirus from a nasal swab and uses an analyzer that connects with a smartphone app to help users perform the test and interpret results. Ellume expects to crank out some 3 million tests by next month and 20 million by the second half of 2021. Story
Data analytics firm nference picked up $60 million in a series C funding round, building on a previous $60 million it raised in January. With the new cash, the company says it will to broaden its focus to include ''biomedical data analytics to better understand the novel coronavirus." This includes nference's recent project to demystify COVID-19 transmission, the symptoms and progression of the disease and ''diagnostic predictions of chronic and life-threatening conditions such as pulmonary hypertension,'' the company said. Story
French shot developer Valneva kicked off a phase 1/2 trial of its inactivated, adjuvanted vaccine hopeful. The vaccine leverages the manufacturing platform of the company's approved Japanese encephalitis shot, Ixiaro, Valneva said in a release. To start, the company will study the safety and immunogenicity of three dose levels in around 150 healthy adults at sites across the U.K. Valneva aims to pick an optimal dose by 2021's second quarter and, if all goes to plan, believes it could snare an initial approval as early as the end of next year.
British American Tobacco'--well-known for its cigarette brand Lucky Strike'--bagged U.S. approval to run in-human trials of a COVID-19 vaccine made using tobacco plants, The Guardian reports. The company's biotechnology division, Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP), says it can turn tobacco crops into ''bio-manufacturing factories'' by inserting a potential antigen into the plants for reproduction. The company's unusual approach could be faster, too: up to 3 million "factory" plants can be grown, harvested and processed within six weeks, KBP said.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 9:31 a.m. ET
Pfizer is in talks with the U.S. government to free up supplies for extra vaccine doses, The New York Times reports, citing sources close to the matter. Pfizer may be able to manufacture more shots for the U.S.'--beyond the 100 million it's pledged to deliver by March'--if the government orders its suppliers to prioritize its purchase requests. The company is now hashing out a contract with the government to potentially provide more doses from April to the end of June, NYT said. Story
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Tuesday said the Trump Administration was angling for an additional 100 million Pfizer doses, but didn't specify when the order might arrive. Pfizer "can provide" the doses, CEO Albert Bourla told CNN earlier this week, but he added that "most of that we can provide in the third quarter." The two parties are working "collaboratively" to find ways to produce more doses in the second quarter, he said.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration turned down an offer to secure more Pfizer doses as recently as November, former FDA commissioner and Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb said on CNBC's Squawk Box. "I think hopefully we'll find a way to increase supply and be able to get the government what the government needs,'' he said.
BioNTech will supply 100 million vaccine doses to China as part of an agreement with the country's Shanghai Fosun. The company will source the initial shipment from its production facilities in Germany. BioNTech and Fosun first teamed up in March to develop and commercialize a shot using BioNTech's mRNA platform. The companies kicked off a phase 2 trial of the vaccine in China in late November. Meanwhile, BioNTech and Pfizer's vaccine already boasts an emergency nod in countries like the U.S. and the U.K.
Long Island-based Codagenix got the OK to start a phase 1 trial of its nose drop COVID-19 vaccine in the U.K. The 48-subject trial is slated to kick off in the first week of January. Codagenix's candidate, COVI-VAC, is designed to work after one dose and ''may induce a more robust immune response and long-lasting cellular immunity," the company said.
The University of California, San Francisco, is set to receive its first allocation of Pfizer doses in mid-December'--but that's just the start of the journey, Desi Kotis, chief pharmacy executive at UCSF health, told Fast Company. Once the university starts vaccinating people, it will send the CDC and the California Department of Public Health an accountability log of the number of doses administered each day. Meanwhile, the school is working with ethicists, doctors and health equity experts to determine who should receive the first doses.
The drug manufacturing industry in Bihar, India, is having a rough go of it amid the pandemic, and the government seems unwilling to help, Pharmabiz reports. The coronavirus has spurred losses of production, revenue and employment in the industry. Earlier this year, drug manufacturing facilities in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, India, shut down after the region was declared a COVID-19 containment zone.
Amid pandemic supply constraints, South Africa is facing shortages of lithium, used to treat bipolar disorder, and the injectable contraceptives Depo-Provera and Nur-Isterate, made by Aspen Pharmacare and Bayer, respectively, Ruth Dube, project coordinator at the Stop Stockouts Project'--a non-profit that looks to end medication scarcity'--told Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Pfizer in September stopped South African manufacturing of intramuscular haloperidol, used to treat mood disorders, for "reasons beyond its control," the company's South African communications chief said.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Dec. 15 at 3:15 p.m. ET
Eli Lilly's antibody treatment bamlanivimab and its immunology med Olumiant could add up to $2 billion in COVID-19 sales this year, the drugmaker said Tuesday. Pandemic profits, plus strong demand for several core products like Lilly's diabetes drug Trulicity and its psoriasis med Taltz prompted the company to hike its year-end revenue forecast to $24.2 billion to $24.7 billion. In 2021, Lilly predicts revenues will fall between $26.5 billion to $28 billion. Story
The U.S. government should invest in production of Eli Lilly and Regeneron's pandemic antibodies as an ''insurance policy'' against COVID-19 next year, former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb wrote in The Wall Street Journal. The government could pay companies for access to their manufacturing space and help blunt the risks for those willing to become contract manufacturers for the treatments, he said. The government should also stockpile raw ingredients for the drugs at a ''worthwhile'' price, shoring up supplies ahead of next winter. Story
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris should both get Pfizer's vaccine'--as should President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, Anthony Fauci said Tuesday. Biden and Harris should get the shot as soon as possible, Fauci said, adding that Trump, who tested positive for COVID-19 in October, should also get one since his current level of natural resistance is unclear. Trump on Sunday said he wasn't schedule to get the shot and suggested White House staffers wait until ''somewhat later in the program" to receive one.
As shot authorizations start to trickle in, 71% of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine if it were free and proven safe and effective'--up from 63% in September, a new Kaiser Family Foundation survey found. Twenty-seven percent of the public remains vaccine hesitant, with skepticism highest among republicans at 42%. Among Black adults'--a group hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic'--35% said they definitely wouldn't or probably wouldn't get vaccinated. The poll surveyed 1,676 people between Nov. 30 and Dec. 8.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded a $37.6 million grant to Inovio, the Wistar Institute, AstraZeneca, the University of Pennsylvania and Indiana University to leverage Inovio's platform to develop DNA-encoded monoclonal antibodies (dMAb) against SARS-CoV-2. To start, Inovio and Wistar will construct dMAb candidates mirroring the recombinant antibodies AZ has already pushed into clinical studies.
Biogen's ill-fated management conference has been linked to hundreds of thousands of coronavirus cases, researchers estimate in an article published in Science. As of Nov. 1, at least one viral variant that may have hitched a ride over from Europe with an attendee had made its way to 245,000 people in the U.S., while another that emerged during or right after the Biogen conference reached 88,000, the researchers said. Story
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine is 91.4% effective, interim phase 3 data published Monday by the country's sovereign wealth fund showed. The readout covered 22,714 participants who got either placebo or the vaccine in Russia's late-stage trial. Seventy-eight people became infected with COVID-19 across both groups. Twenty severe cases were logged in the placebo arm, while no one who got the vaccine became seriously ill.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Dec. 15 at 9:20 a.m. ET
Moderna's mRNA vaccine won a thumbs-up from FDA staffers ahead of Thursday's hotly anticipated advisory committee review. The agency reviewers highlighted the shot's overall 94.5% efficacy rate, but noted that it appears to work better in patients under 65. Efficacy landed at 95.6% in that age group, compared with 86.4% for people 65 and older. The agency also vouched for the shot's "favorable safety profile," though many patients did experience mild side effects like injection site pain, fatigue and headaches, the FDA said. In an intriguing addendum to its own briefing documents, Moderna added its shot could prevent asymptomatic infection after one dose. Story
The European Medicines Agency aims to approve Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine on Dec. 23, Germany's Bild reported. The agency would make an approval decision by Dec. 29 at the latest, an EMA spokesperson added. Meanwhile, Germany could kick off vaccination efforts over the Christmas holiday, Bild reports.
The first round of efficacy data from Johnson & Johnson's phase 3 vaccine trial could arrive in early January'--potentially teeing up an emergency nod later that month, Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui said. AstraZeneca's efficacy readout is expected in late January, and the company could file for emergency use later in February, Slaoui said.
Some of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine documents were breached in a cyberattack targeting the European Medicines Agency, the biotech said. None of the data Moderna submitted contained identifying information on study participants and so far, there's no evidence that any trial subjects have been ID'd, Moderna said. Last week, the EMA revealed hackers behind the same attack had accessed documents from Pfizer and BioNTech. Story
Pfizer's shots are making their way across the U.S., CBS Philly reports. Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia expects to get 2,000 doses this week, with the goal to ultimately immunize between 7,000 and 8,000 patient-facing employees across its sites. Delaware on Monday received its first 9,000-dose shipment and will start giving the shot to frontline workers Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Cooper health system in New Jersey also plans to kick off vaccination efforts today.
All told, Pfizer's vaccine made it to 141 out of 145 target locations in the U.S. Monday, an HHS spokeswoman told Metro US. Healthcare facilities in the island territories of American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the North Mariana Islands and Guam are still waiting on shipments, she said. Meanwhile, severe storms expected in the U.S. this week could hamper ongoing distribution plans, Operation Warp Speed's Gen. Gustave Perna said.
AstraZeneca removed children from a phase 2/3 study of its vaccine hopeful in the U.K., the United States clinical trial registry showed. Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna are all testing their shots in kids to see how they work across a wider range of age groups.
The World Health Organization is in talks with Pfizer to include its shot in a global vaccine rollout, Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser at the agency, told Reuters. Aylward said he saw a "strong commitment" from Pfizer chief Albert Bourla to price shots fairly for poorer nations. Meanwhile, the agency expects to release information on additional manufacturers joining its COVAX vaccine facility in the coming weeks, he said.
Brazil's Sao Paulo state plans to release efficacy data on Sinovac's shot on Dec. 23, eight days later than planned, Reuters reports. That extra time will allow researchers to include data on a sample of 151 infected people, completing the analysis, the head of the state's COVID-19 response said. Sao Paulo has set a vaccine rollout date for Jan. 25, though Sinovac's shot has yet to win approval and has been met with frequent opposition from President Jair Bolsonaro.
China's Sinopharm expects to have capacity to crank out 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses next year, Chinanews reports. The company has two inactivated vaccine candidates in phase 3 trials across 10 countries and regions, Yang Xiaoming, Sinopharm's president, said. As it stands, Sinopharm's plants in Wuhan and Beijing have a combined capacity of 300 million doses per year.
South Korea's drug regulator cleared Celltrion's experimental COVID-19 antibody treatment in patients with life-threatening disease. Under South Korea's treatment scheme, patients with potentially fatal conditions and no other treatment options can receive drugs still in clinical trials, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said. Celltrion's antibody is currently in phase 2 and phase 3 studies. The company plans to pursue an emergency nod before the end of the year.
A new strain of the coronavirus surfaced in the U.K., with more than 1,000 cases of the new variant found "predominantly in the South East" Monday, health secretary Matt Hancock said. Dubbed VUI-202012/01, the strain has also been identified in Wales. The new variant is spreading faster than the existing coronavirus strain, but it's too early to say how it will affect the virus' overall behavior, Hancock said. The mutation can still be detected by COVID-19 tests, another official added.
UPDATED: Monday, Dec. 14 at 3:05 p.m. ET
The U.S. government on Monday tapped its option to buy an additional 100 million doses of Moderna's vaccine for around $1.68 billion, raising the country's total order to 200 million doses'--enough to vaccinate 100 million people. The biotech said it plans to distribute the new order in 2021's second quarter. Ahead of that, it plans to ship out some 20 million doses this month and deliver 80 million more by next year's first quarter, provided it wins an FDA emergency nod. Story
Vaccinations with Pfizer's shot kicked off in the U.S. Monday, less than 11 months after the country's first COVID-19 case, but the nation isn't out of the woods yet, SVB Leerink analysts pointed out. Shot hesitancy among the public is one major concern, with recent reports of anaphylaxis and Bell's palsy after vaccination adding to those worries, the analysts wrote. Supply and storage could create additional hurdles, while R&D setbacks for Sanofi, GSK and AstraZeneca may limit the U.S.' backup options behind Pfizer and Moderna's shots. Story
Eli Lilly's Olumiant (baricitinib) plus Gilead's Veklury'--also known as remdesivir'--may work better than Veklury alone in hospitalized COVID-19 patients on high-flow oxygen or non-invasive ventilation, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found. Among that group, patients who got the combination treatment had a median recovery time of 10 days, compared to 18 days in the group that received solo Veklury.
Eureka Therapeutics' antibody nasal spray InvisiMask protected mice against SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus for at least 10 hours, even at the lowest concentrations tested, researchers described in a paper on bioRxiv. The drug could work as a daily preventive measure against COVID-19, said Eureka, which is currently working on a clinical trial application with the FDA. Eureka's monoclonal antibody targets the virus' spike protein and has been further modified to increase its binding to mucin'--a bid to extend the retention time of the drug in the respiratory tract. Story
In a preclinical trial, ImmunityBio's oral COVID-19 vaccine raised levels of anti-spike antibodies in almost all 10 nonhuman primates who received the candidate. Five primates got subcutaneous doses on days 0 and 14, followed by an oral tablet on day 28. The other five received a subQ primer dose to start, but switched to the oral formulation for the two boosters. The company plans to move the oral formulation into phase 1 testing alone and as a boost to a subcutaneous shot in a mixed regimen. Immunity launched a phase 1 trial of its injectable formulation in October. Story
A finger-worn sensor from Oura may help reliably detect an oncoming fever before a person feels the effects, a proof-of-concept study showed. The results could position the device as an early warning system for spotting a major symptom of COVID-19, researchers running the Oura-funded study said. Data were gathered from a group of 50 participants who reported contracting COVID-19 and are the first to be published out of a larger, 65,000-subject trial of the Oura ring. Story
Parisian diagnostics firm Novacyt launched a research-use-only polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for a new strain of COVID-19. The test homes in on the Y453F viral mutation originally found in mink in Denmark and the Netherlands. The mutation quickly spread to humans and has been detected outside of Europe. Story
Top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci stars in the first phase of the Department of Health and Human Services' troubled, $250-million ad campaign to build public confidence in a vaccine. The first video in the $500,000 "Tell Me More" digital campaign opens with reassurance from Fauci that the pandemic will end, while additional videos detail the science behind the virus and vaccine development. The effort will be followed by a $36.6 million "Slow the Spread" radio campaign, set to debut Dec. 21. Story
Primary care doctors in the U.K. will start offering doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine to their patients, a little less than a week after the country started rolling out the shot, The New York Times reports. As of Monday, vaccines are being deployed to more than 100 vaccination sites, while more doctors and pharmacies are set to join the program on a "phased basis" over the next few months, the country's National Health Service said.
UPDATED: Monday, Dec. 14 at 11:45 a.m. ET
It's official: The FDA Friday cleared Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA shot, authorizing the first COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in the U.S. The nod came a little more than 24 hours after the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biologics Products Advisory Committee voted 17-4, with one member abstaining, that the vaccine's benefits outweigh the risks in people over the age of 16. Story
As of Monday morning, patients started receiving Pfizer's shot at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, New York, The New York Times reports. Across the U.S., 145 sites are expected to receive vaccine shipments today, followed by 425 sites on Tuesday and 66 Wednesday, Operation Warp Speed's Gen. Gustave Perna said.
Speaking of vaccinations, President Donald Trump Sunday said he would delay plans for senior White House staffers to receive the vaccine in the coming days, The New York Times wrote. The move came hours after The Times reported on the administration's plan to distribute the shot internally. ''People working in the White House should receive the vaccine somewhat later in the program, unless specifically necessary,'' the President tweeted.
FedEx, United Airlines and UPS are taking to the skies to fly the first Pfizer doses to vaccination centers around the country. United says it was the first commercial airline to ferry Pfizer's shot to the U.S. FedEx, meanwhile, will transport the vaccine using its priority overnight service, while UPS plans to move the shot from Pfizer storage sites in Michigan and Wisconsin to its UPS Worldport facilities in Louisville, Kentucky, where it will then expedite the shots to hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities.
Novartis and Incyte's JAK1/JAK 2 inhibitor Jakafi, also known as ruxolitinib, missed the mark in a phase 3 study to see whether it could help patients aged 12 years and older with COVID-19-related cytokine storm. By day 29 of the study, there was no reduction in the proportion of patients on Jakafi and standard of care who experienced severe complications, including death, respiratory failure or admission to an ICU, compared to those on standard care alone, Incyte said. The drug also failed to improve mortality rates or time to recovery by day 29.
AstraZeneca would have run the University of Oxford's vaccine trials differently if it had been in charge, Mene Pangalos, VP, biopharmaceuticals R&D at the British drugmaker, told BBC Panorama. Two full-doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine have so far proven around 62% effective, while a regimen including half-dose primer shot charted 90% efficacy in phase 3, leading to recent confusion around the vaccine's benefit. Ultimately, "it is what it is," and AZ and Oxford have done as good a job as possible to set themselves up for a potential approval, Pangalos said.
Germany's CureVac kicked off a phase 2b/3 trial of its mRNA vaccine candidate, CVnCoV. The trial will enroll 36,500 participants in Europe and Latin America with a view to generate data for a possible 2021 authorization. Unlike Moderna's mRNA shot, advanced at a 100-microgram dose, CureVac's candidate triggers immune responses at just 12 micrograms, enabling the company to pump out more doses if it snares approval. The phase 2b will generate safety, reactogenicity and immunogenicity data to inform the phase 3 start. Story
Even with Pfizer's shot authorized and a possible Moderna EUA on the horizon, the worst of the pandemic is still yet to come, Bill Gates told CNN Sunday. "Sadly the next four to six months could be the worst," the Microsoft co-founder warned. A vaccine won't be widely available until spring or summer. ''In the near term, it's bad news,'' Gates said, citing an evaluation showing the U.S. could suffer more than 200,000 additional COVID-19 deaths by April 1.
Swiss biotech Relief Therapeutics, partnered with the U.S.' NeuoRx on development of a patented version of aviptadil for COVID-19 respiratory failure, has seen its share price skyrocket by 38,000% this year, CNBC reports. The companies have been in contact with Operation Warp Speed, and if their treatment passes muster in phase 3, the partners expect to receive stockpiling orders on par with those for Gilead Sciences' antiviral Veklury and Eli Lilly's monoclonal antibody bamlanivimab, Relief chairman Ram Selvaraju told the news outlet.
UPDATED: Friday, Dec. 11 at 3:15 p.m. ET
With an emergency use authorization looming, Pfizer is already looking ahead with plans to file its vaccine for a full FDA approval by April, William Gruber, SVP of vaccine clinical research and development at the company, said.
Roche has started deploying its Elecsys high-throughput antigen test across Europe, which could ease the burden on molecular-based diagnostics'--the gold standard since the pandemic's start. Anticipating international demand next year, Roche aims to boost production to ''a double-digit million number of tests per month." The test uses deep nose or throat swabs collected by healthcare professionals and runs on the company's cobase immunochemistry analyzers, at up to 300 tests per hour. Story
The World Health Organization could offer a decision on Pfizer's vaccine within a "couple of weeks," Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the agency, told Reuters. It may also review Moderna and AstraZeneca's vaccines in a similar timeframe, she added. A WHO authorization could potentially allow vaccines to reach countries where local regulators have not yet had the chance to review them.
Sorrento Therapeutics got a thumbs up to run a phase 1 trial of its next-generation antibody treatment, STI-2020, also known as COVI-AMG. The drug is a new-and-improved version of the company's first-gen antibody treatment COVI-GUARD, for which Sorrento has yet to publish phase 1 clinical data. To start, Sorrento will evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics and efficacy of the drug at a single dose in healthy and non-hospitalized patients with mild COVID-19.
Teva teamed up with Villyge family benefits to help its employees better cope with work-life stresses, amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. The partnership will result in a four-part virtual workshop series to help parents better manage work and family needs. As stay-at-home orders and school closures upend business-as-usual for working parents, women especially have had to shoulder the burden. More than 2.2 million women left the workforce between February and October due to pandemic disruptions, Teva noted in a press release. Story
The World Trade Organization Thursday considered waiving certain intellectual property rights for COVID-19 drugs, vaccines and tests'--a move supported by India and South Africa, plus organizations like M(C)decins Sans Fronti¨res. But those patent protections drive innovation, Thomas Cueni, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, wrote in a New York Times op-ed. Without the potential for financial reward, drugmakers wouldn't invest years'--and billions'--into the development of new meds, he said.
Thirty-five percent of women say they're "not very" or "not at all" interested in getting a COVID-19 vaccine, up nine percentage points from May, a Reuters and Ipsos poll found. Among that group, 60% said they were wary of the rapid fire development and approval process. Meanwhile, 68% of men and 55% of women said they would consider getting the vaccine. Convincing more women to accept the shot could be crucial to early vaccination efforts, as American mothers make some 80% of healthcare decisions for their families, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Russia kicked off a mass vaccination campaign with its Sputnik V shot this week, but initial turnout has been lower than expected, The Washington Post reports. Some of that hesitancy could stem from the shot's swift registration over the summer, before it completed trials. Even now, Sputnik V is still in late-stage testing, and Russian scientists have so far only published phase 1/2 results. In an October poll by the Levada Center, 59% of Russians said they wouldn't get a vaccine, while a separate, government-backed survey that same month found 73% were unwilling to get the shot.
UPDATED: Friday, Dec. 11 at 9:14 a.m. ET
The FDA's expert panel Thursday voted 17-4, with one member abstaining, that the benefits of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine outweigh the risks for use in people 16 and older. Some panelists raised concerns about the relatively low number of 16- to 17-year-old trial participants, however, and at least a few wanted to exclude this age group from the emergency use authorization. Panelists also discussed allergic reactions that hit two U.K. healthcare workers who received the vaccine, as well as the novelty of the drugmakers' mRNA platform. Story
Interim phase 1/2 data showed Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine candidate spurred an adequate immune response in people aged 18 to 49 years'--but the vaccine failed to trigger a comparable response in older adults. The setback triggered a new phase 2b trial and stands to delay the recombinant protein shot from mid-2021 to near the end of next year. The partners pegged insufficient concentrations of the adjuvant, supplied by Sanofi, as the likely cause of the lackluster data. They plan to launch a test of a new antigen formulation in February. Story
On the heels of Pfizer's panel review, the U.S. is planning to authorize the shot'--which could go out to the public by Monday or Tuesday of next week, HHS secretary Alex Azar told ABC's Good Morning America. The FDA on Friday issued a statement saying "it will rapidly work toward finalization and issuance of an emergency use authorization" following Thursday's meeting.
Interim phase 1/2 data showed Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine candidate spurred an adequate immune response in people aged 18 to 49 years'--but the vaccine failed to trigger a comparable response in older adults. The setback triggered a new phase 2b trial and stands to delay the recombinant protein shot from mid-2021 to near the end of next year. The partners pegged insufficient concentrations of the adjuvant, supplied by Sanofi, as the likely cause of the lackluster data. They plan to launch a test of a new antigen formulation in February. Story
By year-end, AstraZeneca plans to kick off a trial combining its vaccine with Russia's Sputnik V shot, the Russian Direct Investment Fund said. The hope is that by combining the two adenovirus vaccines, AstraZeneca's candidate'--troubled in recent weeks by less-than-stellar data'--could enjoy an efficacy boost. Meanwhile, Russia said it wants to jointly produce the new vaccine if it passes muster in the clinic.
Australia's CSL put the kibosh on mid- and late-stage trials of a vaccine in development with the University of Queensland after the shot triggered an antibody response that led to false positives on some HIV tests, the company said. Instead, CSL has signed on to manufacture another 20 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine on top of the 30 million doses it's already agreed to crank out. Plus, the company said it will still keep its phase 1 vaccine trial going.
Rumors that Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA vaccine could cause infertility in women flooded social media this week'--but that simply isn't true, health experts told The New York Times. A blog post compared the virus' spike protein with a type of placental protein, which it alleged were similar enough to trick the body into attacking the placenta. But those proteins are almost nothing alike, an expert in maternal and neonatal immunity at Duke University told the Times. Pfizer, meanwhile, pointed to a recent study showing its vaccine didn't appear to raise the risk of pregnancy-related problems.
UPDATED: Thursday, Dec. 10 at 3:25 p.m. ET
The U.S. could meet its goal to vaccinate every American by summer if it backs up its Pfizer and Moderna doses with vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui said. Phase 3 data on the companies' viral vector vaccines are expected by February, he said, voicing confidence that both would succeed. The shots' proven technology would make them easier to scale up than mRNA candidates, too, Slaoui added. AZ and J&J are expected to provide between 150 million to 200 million doses total in 2021's first quarter. Story
Moncef Slaoui played matchmaker in Merck's recent $425 million buyout of OncoImmune, Bloomberg reports. The company is developing a non-antiviral immunomodulator, CD24Fc, which has shown promise in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19. After seeing positive data on the drug, Slaoui quickly phoned OncoImmune's CEO and, two days later, Operation Warp Speed met with the company's research team. Slaoui then sent out a slate of emails to pharma execs'--hooking Merck's research head, Roger Perlmutter.
The FDA cleared LabCorp's Pixel test for home use without a prescription. Self-collection kits can now be bought directly through the company's website by anyone over the age of 18 for the price of $119 out-of-pocket. After swabbing the the inside of the nose, the sealed sample is shipped overnight to a lab for analysis, with results typically delivered within one to two days. LabCorp will also use its online portal to connect users who test positive with a healthcare provider, supporting treatment and isolation. Story
CDC official Charlotte Kent, who edits the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, told House Democrats she was ordered to destroy an email from a Department of Health and Human Services staffer who tried to meddle in the report's publication. Kent's allegation stems from an August email from then-senior HHS adviser Paul Alexander, who asked her to put new language into an earlier report on COVID-19 risks to children or ''pull it down and stop all reports immediately.''
In some 70 developing nations, only one in 10 people is expected to receive a COVID-19 vaccine next year, the People's Vaccine Alliance warned, urging drugmakers to share the science and technology behind their shots. Meanwhile, rich countries representing just 14% of the world's population have snapped up more than 50% of the leading shot candidates, The New York Times reports, citing data from the London-based software company Airfinity, which looked at supply deals covering eight vaccines in phase 3 testing.
Brazil's Sao Paulo state on Thursday started producing Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine hopeful, Governor Jo£o Doria said. The state's Butantan Institute has capacity for 1 million doses of CoronaVac per day, he said. Sao Paulo plans to kick off vaccination efforts on Jan. 25, despite President Jair Bolsonaro's repeated objections to the Sinovac shot. Meanwhile, the country's health minister Thursday pledged to vaccinate Brazil's entire population against COVID-19 in 2021.
UPDATED: Thursday, Dec. 10 at 9:36 a.m. ET
Moderna dosed the first teenagers in a 3,000-subject, phase 2/3 trial to see whether its mRNA shot works in that age group. Moderna aims to deliver that data by spring 2021, hoping for an expanded approval ahead of the school year. The study's size and the low rate of symptomatic COVID-19 in adolescents may hinder Moderna's efforts to deliver data in time, though. Story
The brouhaha surrounding Warp Speed's Pfizer vaccine purchase continues. The government expects to receive all of its initial order by March, and it still has the option to purchase another 500 million doses after that, HHS Secretary Alex Azar told PBS Newshour. But former FDA commissioner and Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb maintains that government "multiple times" turned down offers to purchase more shots than it did initially and may have missed its chance to secure another order before July, Gottlieb told CNBC.
Meanwhile, documents linked to Pfizer's vaccine submission in Europe were unlawfully accessed in a recent cyberattack targeting the European Medicines Agency. Neither Pfizer nor BioNTech's own systems was breached, and as far as the companies know, no trial participants were ID'd. The attack should have no bearing on the timing of the partners' vaccine review, the companies added. Story
Plus, the FDA's vaccine advisory committee takes its deep dive into Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA shot Thursday and weigh in by day's end on whether the FDA should issue an emergency green light. Meanwhile, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet Friday and Sunday to hash out who should receive the first doses.
AstraZeneca's shot has a "distinct comparative advantage" over its rivals, Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, said. For one thing, it can be easily stored and distributed across low- and middle-income countries, he figures. Unlike Pfizer's shot, which must be kept at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, AZ's vaccine can be stored at regular refrigerator temps. Plus, Horton said, it's cheaper than its rivals.
Rudolph Giuliani, personal lawyer to President Donald Trump and the latest member of his inner circle to test positive for COVID-19, was treated with Eli Lilly's monoclonal antibody bamlanivimab and Regeneron's antibody cocktail, he told WABC radio. Meanwhile, across the nation, antibody treatments are so scarce that states have developed systems for rationing their use, The New York Times reports.
South Africa will leverage rolling reviews to fast track approval of COVID-19 vaccines, the country's drug regulator, SAHPRA, told Reuters. It expects to receive its first set of applications within two weeks and hopes to receive its first doses from the World Health Organization's COVAX distribution scheme in the second quarter of 2021.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Dec. 9 at 3:03 p.m. ET
Canada Wednesday became the third country to authorize Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA vaccine, paving the way for a shot rollout as early as next week. Pfizer will supply Canada with up to 76 million doses of its vaccine, a spokeswoman for the drugmaker's Canadian unit said. On Monday, the country said it had secured early delivery of 249,000 initial doses in anticipation of vaccination efforts next week.
The European Medicines Agency said Wednesday it had been hit by a cyberattack. It's unclear who was behind the attack or what, if any, data were compromised, though the cybersecurity scare comes as the EMA weighs approvals for vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that North Korean hackers had targeted AZ, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, as well as three South Korean drugmakers working on COVID-19 meds.
President-elect Joe Biden aims to get 100 million Americans vaccinated during his initial hundred days in office'--and that's just the first piece of a three-part plan to overhaul the nation's pandemic response. Biden also intends to sign a mask mandate and hopes to safely reopen the majority of American schools by the end of his first 100-day run.
As the country slaps together a piecemeal shot distribution plan, states are disagreeing on which workers qualify as essential. More than 20 industry groups representing truck drivers, teachers, retail workers and more are pushing officials to prioritize their employees. States are largely following federal guidance to protect workers in the food and meat processing industries, but some are awaiting further guidance from the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
The San Francisco Bay Area is gearing up to start vaccinations as early as next week'--contingent on Pfizer's shot winning a speedy authorization from the FDA, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The city's Department of Public Health expects to receive some 12,000 initial doses out of the 2.1 million set aside for California. Across the state, vaccines will first go out to healthcare employees, long-term care facility residents, first responders and dialysis workers.
Revving up for a mass vaccination program, Indonesia on Sunday received its first, 1.2 million-dose vaccine shipment from China's Sinovac, the country's president said. The government plans to grab another 1.8 million doses in January and is awaiting shipments of raw materials to crank out 15 million doses this month, followed by materials for 30 million more doses in January, he added. Indonesia, which hasn't yet authorized the vaccine, started testing the shot in August.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Dec. 9 at 9:15 a.m. ET
Roche is teaming up with Moderna to include its Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S antibody test in the biotech's vaccine trial. Moderna will use the test to measure the immune response triggered by its mRNA shot. By providing a quantitative readout of antibody levels, the test could also help determine when or whether a patient needs revaccination, Roche figures. Story
People with a history of allergic reactions should not get Pfizer's COVID vaccine, the U,K,'s drug regulator said. The advice came after two National Health Service (NHS) staffers reported anaphylactoid reactions linked to taking the vaccine, Reuters reports. Both are recovering well, NHS medical director Stephen Powis said. Pfizer said it's supporting the country's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency as it seeks further information on the reactions.
Meanwhile, four patients in Pfizer's late-stage vaccine study experienced facial paralysis, prompting the need for further observation once the shot becomes widely available, the FDA said. No participants in the control group developed Bell's palsy, though the frequency of cases was ''consistent with the expected background rate in the general population,'' the FDA said. Story
AstraZeneca's vaccine could work at a single dose and prevent asymptomatic cases, but key efficacy questions remain after full late-stage data were published in The Lancet. The rate of asymptomatic infection in patients who received AZ's half-dose primer shot landed at 0.6%, compared to 1% in the full two-dose group. But trial protocols diverged greatly between sites, with patients in the U.K. and Brazil often receiving their second doses at different intervals in the study. That could affect efficacy if lag time between the prime and booster shot matter. Story
Sinopharm's experimental COVID-19 vaccine is 86% effective, the health ministry of the United Arab Emirates said, citing interim phase 3 data. UAE kicked off a late-stage trial of the shot in July. In September, it cleared the vaccine for emergency use in certain groups. Meanwhile, the state added that it had officially registered the shot, without clarifying whether that meant it had authorized the vaccine for wider use.
At least 110,000 doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine are expected to arrive in Israel Wednesday, with a slate of medical workers already in line to receive the first batch, The Jerusalem Post reports. The country has purchased 8 million doses from Pfizer and could see 4 million of those arrive before year-end, though the country will wait for the shot to snare U.S. FDA approval before giving it to the public, Chezy Levy, director-general of the Israeli Health Ministry, said.
Plus, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be the first person in the country to receive Pfizer's vaccine, BNN Bloomberg reports. ''I believe in this vaccine, I expect it to get the necessary approvals in the next few days,'' Netanyahu said, adding that he wanted to set an example for other Israelis to get vaccinated.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 2:45 p.m. ET
Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA vaccine starts to protect against COVID-19 after the first dose, according to FDA documents published ahead of Thursday's advisory panel meeting. The briefing docs reiterated that the shot was 95% effective after two doses. Efficacy was consistently high at 94.7% for participants over the age of 65 and 95.3% in those with underlying conditions. Story
AstraZeneca's vaccine is safe and effective at preventing COVID-19, researchers writing for The Lancet confirmed. Average efficacy landed at 70.4%, according to pooled data on 11,636 trial subjects from the U.K. and Brazil. As AZ previously revealed, a half-dose primer shot'--originally given to patients by mistake'--led to 90% efficacy, while the full two-dose course was 62.1% effective. Meanwhile, the British pharma has started submitting data to regulators and its supply chains are primed and ready to deliver hundreds of millions of doses globally, CEO Pascal Soriot said.
Speaking of supply chains, AstraZeneca tapped Dutch CDMO Halix to carry out large-scale commercial drug substance manufacturing for its University of Oxford-partnered vaccine. Halix will perform the work from its facility at the Leiden Bio Science Park in the Netherlands, the company said in a release. The CDMO was one of the original partners in Oxford's consortium to manufacture the shot, Halix added.
NeuroRx and Relief Therapeutics hit the enrollment target for a phase 2b/3 trial of their drug RLF-100, also known as aviptadil, in patients with COVID-19 respiratory failure. The drug has an FDA OK to test intravenous and inhaled versions of the therapy and snared a fast track tag, too.
An agency watchdog cleared the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) of fault in its plan to grant Kodak $765 million to enter drug manufacturing. In a copy of the review obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the agency's inspector general couldn't find "any evidence of misconduct" by DFC officials, though he did take issue with the timing of the loan's announcement. Story
California on Monday became the largest state to roll out Google and Apple's contact tracing tech for smartphones. The app lets users' devices communicate anonymously via Bluetooth and sends a tip to users when a recent contact tests positive.
India is weeks away from a vaccine approval, the country's federal health secretary said. Pfizer and AstraZeneca'--by way of the Serum Institute of India'--both filed their shots for an Indian OK over the weekend, while domestic shot maker Bharat Biotech has also submitted its candidate, Covaxin, to regulators.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 9:20 a.m. ET
The U.K., which kicked off its vaccination drive Tuesday, is plotting a "mix and match" trial of Pfizer and AstraZeneca's COVID-19 shots to see whether the vaccines work better as a team. The trial is pegged to start in January after AZ's shot wins a regulatory OK. Moderna's mRNA vaccine will also be thrown into the mix if it's cleared by U.K. regulators, too, Kate Bingham, head of the country's vaccine taskforce, said.
The U.S. is capped at the 100 million doses it already ordered from Pfizer until at least next June, The New York Times reports. During the supply deal's early days, Pfizer urged Operation Warp Speed to purchase an initial 200 million doses, enough to vaccinate 100 million people, but officials rejected that offer, sources told The Times. Just recently, the U.S. approached Pfizer for additional doses, but the drugmaker explained supplies had been snapped up by other countries. Story
Which are the top 10 manufacturers in the fight against COVID-19? Already a booming industry before the pandemic, the contract manufacturing field has taken off this year as drugmakers look to scale up production and lean on specialized knowledge to get their vaccines and meds to potentially billions of patients. Fierce Pharma's special report shows how companies such as Emergent, Serum Institute of India, Fujifilm and Phlow are pitching in. Story
The U.S. has the option to buy another 500 million Pfizer doses, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar reminded NBC News, but it may not be that simple. When the government passed on a larger dose order in July, Pfizer went on to ink a slate of multimillion-dose deals with the likes of Canada, the U.K. and the European Union. Now, supplies are limited, and ''any additional doses beyond the 100 million are subject to a separate and mutually acceptable agreement,'' the drugmaker said.
Meanwhile, The New York Times' take on the government's Pfizer order is "false," a Trump administration official told CBS News. The administration is "in the middle of negotiations right now and can't talk publicly about it," but feels confident that every American who wants a vaccine will get one, the official said.
Plus, Canada will start receiving doses of Pfizer's vaccine this week, with up to 249,000 doses expected by the month's end, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. If the country's drug regulator authorizes the shot this week, Canadians could start receiving vaccinations as early as next week.
Pfizer and Moderna won't attend an upcoming White House summit meant to build confidence in vaccines, Bloomberg reports. Operation Warp Speed had originally extended an invite to several shot developers, but once a Peter Marks presentation showed up on the docket, a decision was made to keep drugmakers separate from their regulator, the news outlet said. Marks heads up the FDA center that reviews vaccines.
The FDA Tuesday released a detailed analysis of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine to lay the groundwork for Thursday's emergency authorization review'--one from the FDA's own staff and scientists, and another from the companies themselves.
Don't throw out your masks once a vaccine is approved. While the shots from Pfizer and Moderna appear effective at preventing serious illness, the jury's still out on whether they curb the virus' spread, health experts told The New York Times.
UPDATED: Monday, Dec. 7 at 3:18 p.m. ET
President-elect Joe Biden tapped California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as his choice for Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, according to multiple reports. While the current Secretary Alex Azar'--a former Eli Lilly exec'--is seen as a friend to pharma, his replacement looks more like a critic. Early into his AG post, Becerra joined 39 other states in a federal antitrust lawsuit that accused six generic drugmakers of colluding in a price-fixing scheme. He's also led California's legal battle against Purdue Pharma for its role in the opioid crisis. Story
The FDA Friday approved its first at-home test kit that can detect COVID-19, plus influenza A and B. Developed by Quest Diagnostics, the test allows patients with signs of respiratory infection to collect a nasal sample and send it off to the company's labs to differentiate between the viruses and seek appropriate care. Available by prescription, the test is intended for those over the age of 18, while adolescents and children can be swabbed with adult supervision. Story
Qiagen rolled out a new blood test to detect the activity of T-cells, which studies have shown may provide longer-term protection against the coronavirus than antibodies, the diagnostics maker said. There's evidence to suggest T-cell responses may help predict disease severity and potential protection in COVID-19 patients post-recovery, too. Last month, Qiagen forged a COVID-19 pact with TScan Therapeutics to use the company's genome-based, high-throughput discovery platform for T-cell receptors to develop new in-vitro lab tests. Story
Researchers in California aim to develop a CRISPR-based COVID-19 test that runs on a smartphone and delivers results in less than 30 minutes. Most current molecular tests for the disease are based on PCR, which requires the virus' RNA to be converted into DNA and then amplified. The researchers' approach, meanwhile, uses CRISPR proteins designed to hunt directly for the virus' RNA, skipping those steps for swifter results. Story
Backed by an army of healthcare workers and tens of thousands of volunteers, the U.K. on Tuesday will start vaccinating the public with Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 shot'--with the goal to vaccinate more than 20,000 citizens in a few months time, The New York Times reports. Under the umbrella of the country's National Health Service, family doctors will be tasked with doling out many of the shots. Meanwhile, the country is setting up temporary vaccination sites and recruiting retired health care workers to see the massive effort through.
Meanwhile, Moscow on Saturday started distributing Russia's Sputnik V vaccine through 70 clinics, with the aim to get shots to the country's most exposed groups, Reuters reports. The vaccine, developed by the country's Gamaleya Institute, will first got out to healthcare workers, teachers and social workers. The age to receive a vaccine is capped at 50. Those with underlying health conditions, pregnant women and those who've had a respiratory illness for the past two weeks are ineligible, the news outlet wrote.
AstraZeneca's Chinese manufacturing partner for its COVID-19 vaccine, Shenzhen Kangtai, isn't immune to the corruption that's plagued many of the country's drugmakers, The New York Times reports. A government official was jailed in 2016 for taking bribes from Shenzen's chairmen, Du Weimin'--known in some circles as the "king of vaccines." Meanwhile, a former head of the Gates Foundation vouched for Shenzen's vaccine know-how, but critiqued its business practices, suggesting that to sell to local governments, "they have to do kickbacks, they have to bribe.''
Canada's AbCellera, tapped by Eli Lilly earlier this year to find the human antibody behind its recently-authorized COVID-19 drug bamlanivimab, plans to raise a hefty $357 million on the Nasdaq by offering 23 million shares at a price range of $14 to $17, with the company valued at the midpoint range at around $5 billion. The company, which uses AI to speed up drug research, in March got off a $105 million series B, partially funded by Lilly. In May, the company snared $175.6 million in support from the Canadian government. Story
UPDATED: Monday, Dec. 7 at 9:35 a.m. ET
Ahead of Pfizer's vaccine review this Thursday, Moncef Slaoui, head of the government's Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, plans to meet with President-elect Joe Biden to discuss the Trump administration's distribution scheme. Biden says he's yet to see a detailed outline of the plan, which he called expensive and difficult. Slaoui, for his part, told CBS' Face the Nation that the government's distribution effort is "very appropriately planned."
If FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn were to issue an emergency use authorization for Pfizer's vaccine candidate Thursday'--the same day a panel of FDA advisers will meet to assess the shot'--Americans could start receiving the vaccine in as little as 24 hours, James Hildreth, a member of the agency's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, told NBC. Meanwhile, "the minute it's approved, the shipments will start," Slaoui said.
It may be time to start scaring people about COVID-19, a New York Times op-ed argues. Much in the same way antismoking "scare" campaigns helped smoking rates plummet in the late 1960s and early 1970s, graphic reminders of COVID's physical toll could offer some perspective on the costs of catching the virus. California has come closest in one recent PSA'--a soft-focus video featuring the sounds of a person on a ventilator, with a voiceover appeal to mask up for the benefit of friends and family.
Bahrain, located in the Persian Gulf, became the second nation after the U.K. to approve Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA vaccine, a state-run news agency announced Friday. Both Pfizer and Bahrain are keeping details on the volume and timing of the country's vaccine order close to the vest. The country previously authorized a shot from China's Sinopharm and has so far vaccinated around 6,000 people.
Pfizer on Friday became the first company to seek emergency approval for a coronavirus vaccine in India. The country expects to have a vaccine available in the next few weeks and will kick off vaccinations as soon as a green light is granted, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
Meanwhile, Serum Institute of India on Monday filed for an emergency use authorization of AstraZeneca's vaccine there, CEO Adar Poonawalla tweeted. The app made SII the second company after Pfizer to apply for a vaccine nod in-country, though AZ's shot may be better suited to Indian distribution because it can shipped and stored at refrigerator temperatures.
Plus, India is speeding up reviews of AstraZeneca and Pfizer's vaccine candidates, a government official said Monday. Serum Institute, producing AstraZeneca's shot under the name Covishield in India, recently said it planned to continue testing two full doses of the vaccine after AZ revealed a half-dose primer shot might work better. With about 40 million doses already on hand, Serum Institute will first supply the Indian government, but then plans to sell 20 million to 30 million doses to private facilities there as early as March, Poonawalla told the Financial Times. The company will focus on Indian supplies before marketing the shot in other countries, pricing it at 1,000 rupees ($13.50) per dose for private markets, Poonawalla said.
Sinovac bagged $515 million from fellow Chinese firm Sino Biopharmaceutical to double capacity for its COVID-19 vaccine hopeful, CoronaVac. Sinovac expects to have capacity for 300 million doses per year, though it plans to wrap construction on a second production facility before the end of 2020 that would bump up its annual volume to 600 doses. The company has so far sold doses to Turkey, Brazil and Chile, and is in talks with the Philippines on a potential supply deal. Story
UPDATED: Friday, Dec. 4 at 3:15 p.m. ET
Antibody levels stayed elevated in the 90 days after patients received a second dose of Moderna's vaccine candidate, updated phase 1/2 data show, raising hopes that the vaccine could offer longer-term protection. Researchers noted a slight drop in binding and neutralizing antibodies over the period, though the average levels for both antibody types remained above the median of a panel of 41 recovered COVID-19 patients. Story
Pfizer is expected to provide enough initial shot doses for 3.2 million Americans if it wins clearance from the FDA'--not nearly enough for the country's 21 million healthcare workers, Reuters reports. Complicating matters further, those first doses are slated for delivery to five government agencies, officials have said. After that, vaccine distribution could cover 7 million to 10 million people per week, assuming Moderna's shot gets a thumbs up in the second half of December and Pfizer meets its estimates for followup deliveries, the news outlet predicts.
With the pandemic ushering in an industrywide pivot to digital, Omnicom Group's Tribal Worldwide is spinning out a new pharma specialty unit, Tribal Health, to help clients grapple with virtual realities of the modern age. Current Tribal clients GlaxoSmithKline and Gilead are among those moving to the new unit's roster. Meanwhile, boots-on-the-ground sales reps won't disappear completely'--they'll just become more digitally-focused, Jason Galla-Barth, a managing partner at Tribal who will lead Tribal Health, said. Story
Sales of Everlywell's at-home diagnostics, including a kit for COVID-19, are expected to quadruple this year. Investors have taken note, helping the company raise $175 million in its second venture capital funding round this year. Everlywell will use the cash to boost telehealth offerings, focusing on routine diagnostic tests to help manage chronic disease and track care in clinical trials. The company in February bagged an FDA emergency nod for its swab-based home collection kit, which users can ship to labs overnight for analysis with a range of tests. Story
Meanwhile, at-home saliva tests could offer a salve to the high demand and slow turnaround for swab-based diagnostics, The New York Times reports. Recently, more communities across the U.S. have started rolling out do-it-yourself spit tests. In Minnesota, for instance, at-home testing kits are typically shipped within 24 hours after an order is placed. Users are guided through the sample collection process with a healthcare worker over Zoom, and once samples are shipped to a lab, results are delivered in one to two days.
The White House could realistically achieve its goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans before year-end, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn told Reuters. Earlier this week, Hahn met with chief of staff Mark Meadows in what he called a "robust" discussion about vaccine approval timelines. To hit the Trump Administration's vaccination goal, the FDA would need to clear both Pfizer and Moderna's shots'--slated for review on Dec. 10 and Dec. 17, respectively'--within the month.
Meanwhile, Stephen Hahn took to Twitter Friday to help demystify the regulator's vaccine application review process.
Lexaria Bioscence published preclinical data showing its DehydraTECH platform'--designed to improve oral delivery of antiviral drugs'--could successfully deliver HIV meds from Johnson & Johnson and Bristol Myers Squibb in rats. Using the study as a launchpad, Lexaria in January plans to start testing the technology on antivirals used to treat HIV and COVID-19. Story
UPDATED: Friday, Dec. 4 at 9:19 a.m. ET
Once a COVID-19 shot snares approval, the next challenges will be rapid-fire production and equitable distribution across the U.S., top executives from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer told NBC. Access to vaccines in Black and Hispanic communities, which have been hit especially hard by COVID-19, is one major concern, J&J chief Alex Gorsky said. Meanwhile, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, M.D., said his company is working with regulators to find a way to vaccinate trial participants who received placebo, calling the move an "ethical dilemma and obligation." Story
NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, M.D., will keep his post under President-elect Joe Biden and will also serve as chief medical adviser to the White House, The New York Times reports. Biden also asked the nation's top infectious disease expert to join his COVID-19 team'--an offer Fauci said he accepted "right on the spot." Fauci has been sidelined by President Donald Trump in recent months as the two allegedly sparred over use of masks, the pandemic's trajectory and more.
Pfizer set the record straight on a Thursday report from The Wall Street Journal stating raw material shortages would cut the drugmaker's 2020 vaccine output from 100 million doses to 50 million doses. The information is correct, but outdated, a company spokesperson told Barron's. Pfizer on Nov. 9 announced it would scale back its 2020 production target, weeks before WSJ's report, and has used the updated figures in its public forecasts since. Story
Clover Biopharmaceuticals' protein-based S-Trimer vaccine candidates, in combination with adjuvants from either GlaxoSmithKline or Dynavax, triggered a safe and effective immune response in a 150-subject phase 1 study, the company said. Testing showed the vaccines were stable for six months at fridge temps of between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius (35.6 and 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and could last up to a month at room temperature, potentially easing future distribution. A phase 2/3 trial with GSK's adjuvant is slated to kick off in December, with a separate Dynavax adjuvant trial to follow in 2021. Story
Rich countries have cornered global supply of COVID-19 vaccines, suggesting low-risk people in nations like the U.S. will likely be immunized before high-risk people in poorer countries, NPR reports. The U.S. leads the pack with 2.6 billion potential doses locked down, followed by the EU with 2 billion prospective shots and India at 1.6 billion. Meanwhile, when shots become widely available next year, the U.S. will likely have enough doses to vaccinate its entire population twice over.
A blood test could help predict efficacy of coronavirus vaccines and pave the way for easier study of next-generation shots, a monkey trial published in Nature found. The study found telltale blood markers that predict whether a monkey's immune system is equipped to fight off the virus, raising hopes that researchers could look for those same markers in human vaccine trials.
UPDATED: Thursday, Dec. 3 at 3:24 p.m. ET
The pandemic has at times created huge surges in demand for medical supplies such as personal protective equipment and testing supplies. Now, with vaccines nearing potential rollouts, dry ice is becoming a crucial commodity to help keep the shipments cold, The Wall Street Journal reports. Companies involved in making dry ice expect to have a busy December, the newspaper reports.
With billions of vaccinations expected in the coming years, Becton Dickinson is gearing up to meet demand for prefilled syringes. The company is spending $1.2 billion on a new production site in Europe and investing in other existing facilities. Story
Inovio, aiming to boost potential capacity for its INO-4800 vaccine, inked a production deal with Kaneka Eurogentec. Specific details weren't disclosed. Inovio's program is in phase 2 testing, and while the company released interim phase 1 results, it has not released a full phase 1 readout. Release
UPDATED: Thursday, Dec. 3 at 9:35 a.m. ET
Results from AstraZeneca's late-stage U.S. vaccine trial will likely roll in by late January, Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui, M.D., said. That's important, because the large set of contrasting data from trials in the U.K. and Brazil may not be enough to convince the FDA to grant the British drugmaker an emergency nod, Slaoui said. AZ recently reported that its vaccine was 90% effective when given as a half-dose primer followed by a full-dose booster, while the intended two-dose regimen charted efficacy around 70%.
An editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine is challenging a large, WHO-run trial that found Gilead's antiviral Veklury, also known as remdesivir, did little to improve COVID-19 survival. Among the issues raised? WHO's trial took place across 30 countries, fueling inconsistencies in the data collected. Plus, the study researchers did not collect or record standard of care or healthcare capacity in any of the 400 hospitals tapped for the trial.
Former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton all volunteered to roll up their sleeves for a COVID-19 vaccine'--and they're willing to do it on camera to help persuade the public the shot is safe, CNN reports. Obama said he would feel confident in a vaccine endorsed by NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, though he acknowledged that some Black Americans might be more hesitant to get the shot because of historical racism in the healthcare system.
Meanwhile, Fauci, the U.S.' top infectious disease expert, slammed the U.K. for its speedy authorization of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine. ''If you go quickly and you do it superficially, people are not going to want to get vaccinated,'' Fauci told Fox News. The U.K. did not review its shot as carefully as the FDA plans to do, he said. "They got a couple of days ahead. I don't think that makes much difference."
England's National Health Service and Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency are scrambling to figure out how to deploy Pfizer's vaccine, which must be stored at a frigid minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, in care homes, Reuters reports, citing deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam. There;s "no absolute assurance" the U.K. can get the shot to those residents, Van-Tam said, arguing, "one thing we can't do is '... end up with a vaccine that's been handled incorrectly, and then isn't properly viable at the end of the distribution chain.''
Pfizer is committed to working with the Indian government to make its vaccine available in-country, the Hindustan Times reports, citing a company spokesperson. Back in November, V K Paul, who heads the country's COVID-19 task force, warned it might take months for Pfizer's shot to arrive in India, with cold chain arrangements the biggest hurdle the nation needs to overcome.
Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline plan to announce the price of their COVID-19 vaccine candidate upon the release of phase 1/2 trial results, expected before the end of the month, Thomas Triomphe, vaccines chief at Sanofi, said Thursday.
South Korea on Friday inked a deal to import doses of AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford's vaccine hopeful, public health authorities said. The government will hammer out the specific dose count and delivery timeline at a later date. Meanwhile, South Korea has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
IBM says it has uncovered a "global phishing campaign" targeting organizations focused on the COVID-19 vaccine cold chain. The report was reposted by The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in a warning to members of Operation Warp Speed. Bogus emails were sent to roughly 10 different organizations, with the European Commission's Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union the only group IBM cited by name.
Meanwhile, North Korean hackers are targeting vaccine makers Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, as well as South Korean drugmakers Genexine, Shin Poong Pharmaceutical and Celltrion'--all running earlier-stage trials of COVID meds, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources close to the matter. Meanwhile, Reuters reported Friday that North Korean hackers had attempted to breach AstraZeneca's systems, too. It's unclear whether the hackers purloined any information.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Dec. 2 at 3:17 p.m. ET
A quintet of top vaccine makers are set to split around $38.5 billion in sales next year'--and Pfizer, freshly armed with a U.K. approval, is in line for a $14.3 billion slice of the pie, Bernstein analysts figure. Moderna should expect to reap $10.9 billion, followed by $6.4 billion for AstraZeneca, $3.9 billion for Novavax and $3 billion for Johnson & Johnson. The analysts further predicted $23.1 billion in total vaccine sales in 2022, $12.6 billion in 2023 and $8.5 billion in 2024 before the market settles at around $6 billion in 2025. Story
Merck & Co. on Tuesday said it had divested its stake in Moderna, fueling "a small fourth-quarter gain." It's unclear how much Merck stands to make, but it's likely to be significant: Moderna went public in December 2018 at a price of $23 per share, while Tuesday's closing price was $142. Merck first pumped $100 million in cash and stock into Moderna in 2015 to partner on five preclinical mRNA projects, later investing another $125 million in 2018. Story
The Trump Administration aims to vaccinate 100 million people by February'--enough to cover all healthcare workers and the country's at-risk population, Operation Warp Speed (OWS) officials said Wednesday. Twenty million people are expected to get a shot by year-end, followed by 30 million people in January and another 50 million by February, Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui said. Story
Roche got a thumbs up from the FDA for its Elecsys quantitative antibody test, a more accurate blood test able to measure the levels of specific antibodies that target the coronavirus's spike protein. The test could help weigh the efficacy of vaccines and ID recovered patients with potential to serve as convalescent plasma donors, the company said. Running on Roche's cobas e analyzers, the test provides a result in about 18 minutes. Story
Nova Scotia, Canada-based drugmaker Appili Therapeutics on Wednesday said investigators had dosed the first patient in a phase 3 trial assessing Fujifilm's flu med Avigan, also known as favipiravir, in COVID-19. One of three Appili-run Avigan trials, the so-called Preseco study will test whether the drug can alleviate symptoms and prevent disease progression in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. The study will look to enroll 826 subjects, with early results expected in the first half of 2021, Appili said.
Move over hackers: Organized criminal networks could be the latest group to target COVID-19 vaccines, and they may even look to sell counterfeit shots, the international police organization Interpol warned Wednesday. "[Criminal organizations] are planning to infiltrate or disrupt supply chains," Interpol's secretary general said in a warning to the agency's 194 member countries. "Criminal networks will also be targeting unsuspecting members of the public via fake websites and false cures."
The European Union is none too pleased with the U.K.'s rapid fire authorization of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, Reuters reports. Through an emergency approval process, the U.K.'s drug regulator was able to temporarily OK the shot only 10 days after starting its review of data from large-scale trials. The European Medicines Agency argued its longer approval process is better suited to the task, because it calls for more data and involves more checks than the U.K.'s emergency procedure.
On orders from President Vladimir Putin, Russia will kick off a voluntary mass vaccination campaign next week, with teachers and doctors likely among the first to receive the shot. The country will have produced 2 million vaccine doses within the next several days, Putin added. Russia has already vaccinated more than 100,000 high-risk people with its Sputnik V vaccine, the country's health minister said during a United Nations presentation on the shot.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Dec. 2 at 9:03 a.m. ET
The U.K.'s Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency Wednesday doled out an emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine. The U.K. has a contract for 40 million doses. Shipments are expected to start rolling in immediately, and shots will be made available across the country starting next week. Meanwhile, Pfizer's shot is due for a Dec. 10 advisory committee review in the U.S. Story
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Tuesday kicked off a rolling review of Johnson & Johnson's recombinant vector vaccine candidate. The hastened process will allow Europe's health regulator to assess J&J's shot in real time as data trickles in. The EMA previously initiated rolling reviews on shots from AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Pfizer and BioNTech.
Serum Institute of India will continue testing a full two-dose regimen of AstraZeneca's vaccine'--despite a recent data reveal showing an initial half-dose primer might spark greater efficacy. At two full doses, AstraZeneca's shot proved 62% effective in phase 3, well below the figures presented by Pfizer and Moderna. That said, ''Anything which is beyond 50% is always going to be a plus," Suresh Jadhav, an executive director at SII, told Reuters. He added that changing dosing now would also delay trials.
The CDC's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 13-1 Tuesday to recommend healthcare workers and long-term care residents get first dibs on an authorized COVID-19 vaccine. ACIP also recommended vaccinating nursing home staffers alongside residents. The committee is due to meet again after a Dec. 10 advisory committee review of Pfizer's shot hopeful, where it will vote to recommend whether an authorized shot should go out to the public.
While the leading slate of vaccines have been well-tested in adults, there's a dearth of information on how those shots might work in younger children. Now, pediatricians are urging drugmakers to step up their game. The American Academy of Pediatrics, for instance, has called on researchers to expand clinical trials to include children of all ages as soon as possible. Others argue that a vaccine that works in children is a critical step to reopening classrooms. Pfizer, for its part, started including children ages 12 and older in its trial this fall.
President Donald Trump has summoned vaccine manufacturers, drug distributors and government officials for a White House COVID-19 summit on Dec. 8, just days before planned reviews of Pfizer and Moderna's vaccine candidates. Industry officials aware of the plan painted the move as an opportunity for the White House to pressure the FDA to quickly issue emergency approvals for the shots. Pfizer and Moderna, plus companies like McKesson, Walgreens, CVS Health, Fedex and more are reportedly among those invited.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Dec. 1 at 3:19 p.m. ET
Regeneron tapped gene therapy pioneer Jim Wilson and the University of Pennsylvania to help deliver its antibody cocktail as a prophylactic nasal spray. The biotech's recently-authorized therapy is injected, but Regeneron and Penn aim to leverage Wilson's gene therapy expertise to attempt an intranasal formulation using adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors. By introducing the therapy via single dose of AAV, Wilson's team thinks the drug could provide protection on par with Regeneron's cocktail, but ''for potentially a longer duration.'' Story
Amgen, Takeda and UCB kicked off an adaptive trial to see whether any one of a trio of drugs could curb the unchecked inflammatory response seen in some COVID patients. The trial will assess Amgen's psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis med Otezla; Takeda's IV formula of its hereditary angioedema therapy Takhzyro; and UCB's experimental autoimmune drug zilucoplan. The study will recruit a range of hospitalized patients, from those with mild disease to patients requiring ventilation or oxygen support. Story
Scott Atlas, pandemic adviser to President Donald Trump, resigned Monday. A neuroradiologist without an infectious disease or public health background, Atlas drew fire for suggesting the virus should be allowed to spread among young, healthy people to help the U.S. hit "herd immunity." Atlas allegedly sparred with fellow task force members Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci over boosting testing efforts, too, and forwarded fringe theories about the ineffectiveness of masks and social distancing.
Only 10% to 15% of subjects in Pfizer and Moderna's late-stage vaccine trials reported "significantly noticeable" side effects, Moncef Slaoui, head of the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed program, said. Participants hit with side effects reported pain at the injection site, fever, chills, muscle aches and headaches, with most reactions lasting up to a day and a half. While the short- and "mid-term" effects of the vaccines are now well known, longer-term safety "is not yet understood by definition," Slaoui cautioned.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Tuesday that it plans to meet by Dec. 29 to weigh Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine hopeful for a possible emergency approval, with a review for Moderna's mRNA-based candidate pegged for Jan. 12. Pfizer, which earlier Tuesday asked the European Union's drug regulator for a speedy review, now has a slimmer chance of rolling out its shot in the bloc before year-end, though the EMA said it could bump up the meeting date if data comes in quickly.
Meanwhile, Germany aims to start vaccinating vulnerable people and caregivers by January, health minister Jens Spahn told the German broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. The country is setting up special vaccination centers, pegged to come online in mid-December, to grapple with the cold storage requirements for Pfizer and BioNTech's shot, which must be kept at a frigid minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Spahn last month said he expected Germany to receive upward of 100 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine.
SAB Biotherapeutics bagged $57.5 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and the Department of Defense to help manufacture its experimental polyclonal antibody, SAB-185. The antibody was developed using SAB's DiversitAb Rapid Response Antibody Program and is currently in a phase 1 trial in healthy volunteers and a phase 1b study in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.
As the push to vaccinate looms, dentists and optometrists are seeking clearance to administer COVID shots during routine eye exams and teeth cleanings, NBC News reports. Professional organizations representing dentists and optometrists in California are in talks with state officials to expand their roles to include vaccination, while Oregon has already started training and certifying dentists to dole out shots. Meanwhile, at least half of U.S. states have considered deputizing dentists as vaccinators, according to the American Association of Dental Boards.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Dec. 1 at 8:45 a.m. ET
Having already filed their mRNA-based vaccine for emergency use in the U.S. and the U.K., Pfizer and BioNTech have now submitted the shot at the European Medicines Agency. The partners filed for the FDA's approval late last month after unveiling interim late-stage data showing their shot hit a 90% efficacy mark; a recent update boosted that number to 95%.
As the FDA reviews Pfizer's shot, the agency has also set a date to consider another mRNA-based coronavirus vaccine from Moderna that posted even more impressive first-round data. The FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will pore over Moderna's late-stage stats on Dec. 17, the agency said in a release, setting the stage for an emergency use authorization to follow.
Looking for a win in the waning days of Donald J. Trump's presidency, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows called FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn into an early morning meeting Tuesday to quiz him about why Pfizer's vaccine hasn't scored an EUA already, Axios reported. In a statement to the news outlet before that meeting, Hahn said agency scientists would "take the time that's needed" for a review, potentially putting him on a bad footing with the White House. The shot is scheduled for an FDA advisory panel review Dec. 10. Story
The NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases kicked off the fourth iteration of its catchall COVID-19 trial, investigating leading treatments for moderate-to-severe COVID-19. Patients in one arm of the study will receive a combo of generic steroid dexamethasone and Gilead Sciences' remdesivir, marketed as Veklury in the U.S. Meanwhile, a second arm will receive remdesivir and Eli Lilly's Olumiant (baricitinib).
Amid rising domestic case counts and deaths, Russia is seeking to import a swath of foreign drugs to help fight a surge in COVID-19, Reuters reported. The nation has worked to develop its own treatments for the virus, with names like Coronavir and Avifavir, but has run into chronic shortages in some regions.
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the earliest cases of COVID-19 were likely on the West Coast as early as December 2019, potentially weeks before global health regulators became aware of a growing outbreak in Wuhan, China, the Wall Street Journal reported.
More research from the University of Oxford suggests the risk of long-term lung damage in COVID-19 patients'--defined as aftereffects that last more than three months'--is higher than previously known.
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 30 at 3:11 p.m. ET
Novavax is facing "additional questions" from the FDA over its decision to tap Fujifilm Diosynth's North Carolina plant for commercial-scale manufacturing of its vaccine for a phase 3 North American trial, pushing the study start date into late December at the earliest. The FDA's line of questioning remains unclear and a Novavax spokeswoman couldn't clarify the regulator's inquiries over email. While Novavax's U.S. trial is delayed, the biotech has finished enrollment for a 15,000-person U.K. phase 3 and is wrapping up a phase 2b study in South Africa, the company said. Story
Pfizer has been running "dry rehearsals" of its shot deployment scheme at more than 50 U.S. distribution sites, Operation Warp Speed's Gen. Gustave Perna said last week. Pfizer has also created YouTube videos for staffers to consult as they receive, store and dispatch the vaccine. ''As Pfizer has walked the administration sites through the execution, we see growing confidence in everybody,'' Perna said, adding that he'd personally gone through the process, which he described as "very, very doable." Story
Meanwhile, Pfizer's shot could snare approval "within days" of its Dec. 10 advisory panel review, Department of Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar said Monday. "Moderna is basically one week behind that," he added. After that, it will be up to governors to decide who receives the first slate of shots. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is continuing talks on how to divvy up vaccines, Azar said, and he expects more information on those priorities this week.
Kantaro Biosciences, a joint venture between Mount Sinai Health System and RenalytixAI, won an emergency nod for its COVID-19 antibody diagnostic, COVID-SeroKlir. The diagnostic provides a semi-quantitative blood test that measures the amounts of IgG antibodies'--specifically those that target the virus's spike protein and its receptor-binding domain, potentially slowing the course of an infection. The diagnostic won a CE mark in Europe in late October and Kantaro aims to crank out up to 10 million tests per month through a commercial partnership with Bio-Techne. Story
Northwestern University researchers say they've developed an AI algorithm to automatically detect signs of COVID-19 on a basic X-ray of the lungs. The AI could be used to rapidly screen patients upon entry into the hospital, especially for reasons unrelated to coronavirus symptoms, triggering protocols to help protect healthcare workers. Story
The FDA delayed a decision on Revance's frown-line injection daxibotulinumtoxinA thanks to COVID-19 restrictions that kept agency inspectors from assessing the company's Newark, California manufacturing facility on time. The delay didn't turn up any immediate manufacturing or data issues, and Revance's drug could still snare approval in the first half of 2021, Mizuho analysts wrote. Story
The European Medicines Agency's safety committee, PRAC, has called for a labeling update on all products containing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine about the risk of suicidal behavior and psychiatric disorders. Neither drug is approved to treat COVID-19, but both have been used off label in the disease despite underwhelming readouts in large clinical trials.
Scientists and COVID trial participants are combatting vaccine misinformation on TikTok. One user, Dr. Noc, hard at work developing an antibody treatment for COVID-19 when not posting on the video sharing platform, has been uploading science-based videos since February. Meanwhile, Ashley Locke, who posted about her experience in AstraZeneca's vaccine trial, has racked up more than 2 million views on her post. Since then, she's made videos and answered questions from her comments section about side effects, use of masks post-trial and more.
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 30 at 9:56 a.m. ET
Moderna said it will apply on Monday for an emergency use authorization from the U.S. FDA and for conditional marketing authorization from the EMA, with rolling review underway in other territories. The company slightly adjusted its mRNA-1273's efficacy stat to 94.1% from the previous 94.5% now that it has accrued 196 infected cases from a phase 3 trial. Still, no severe COVID-19 cases have cropped up in the vaccine arm, while the placebo group had 30. Story
AstraZeneca isn't so lucky with its University of Oxford-partnered AZD1222. The company now expects to run another phase 3 trial as scientists raised doubts about its existing data. The company previously revealed that the experimental shot was 90% effective in a subgroup of phase 3 trial participants who got a half-dose of the vaccine by mistake, while the correct dosing only demonstrated efficacy of about 60%. ''Now that we've found what looks like a better efficacy, we have to validate this, so we need to do an additional study,'' CEO Pascal Soriot told Bloomberg. Story
Meanwhile, the AZ shot is facing an adverse reaction allegation in India, where its partner Serum Institute of India is running a trial. A 40-year-old man claims he suffered serious ''neurological and psychological'' symptoms after receiving the vaccine, according to Reuters. The trial volunteer is seeking 50 million rupees ($676,288) in compensation and suspension of activities around the vaccine. The Indian Council of Medical Research is looking into the matter but has so far recommended that the trial proceed.
Another vaccine that has reported phase 3 data, Pfizer and BioNTech's BNT162b2, has already started commercial deliveries from its manufacturing site. A first batch of the vaccine reportedly arrived at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in a chartered flight from Brussels in what the Federal Aviation Administration described as the first ''mass air shipment'' of a COVID shot. The Pfizer vaccine is expected to be authorized for emergency use by mid-December. Until then, no vaccine can be shipped to administration sites. Story
With BNT162b2, the U.K. is poised to become the first Western country to approve a COVID-19 vaccine. Domestic health regulators are on track to greenlight the Pfizer-BioNTech shot within days, and deliveries will begin within hours of authorization, the Financial Times reported, citing government officials.
The U.K. has appointed Nadhim Zahawi, a member of the U.K. parliament, as a new minister to oversee the rollout of COVID vaccines in England. Britain has gained access to 357 million doses of vaccines from seven developers, including an additional 2 million doses of Moderna's mRNA-1273 that it just secured on top of the original 5 million agreed. It has also placed orders for 100 million doses of the AZ-Oxford vaccine and 40 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's.
Also in the U.K., efforts remain ongoing in the search for effective COVID therapeutics under the Recovery master trial. Colchicine, a drug used to treat gout and Beh§et's disease, has been included in the trial. Investigators expect to enroll at least 2,500 patients to the colchicine arm to evaluate its ability to reduce dangerous immune overreactions in hospitalized patients, including its impact on death rate, hospital stay and need for ventilator support.
In the U.S., antibody therapies by Regeneron and Eli Lilly have already won emergency nods for outpatients, and the Trump administration has secured 300,000 doses from each company. But experts raised concerns that it would be difficult for medical centers to keep their infusion sites separate from those used by patients not infected with Sars-CoV-2.
As research around COVID presses on, accusations of attempts to steal those discoveries have pointed at Russia, China and Iran. Now, North Korean hackers have been fingered in a seemingly failed attempt to infiltrate AstraZeneca and its vaccine work. The hackers posed as recruiters and approached AZ staffers with fake job offers, and then sent malicious emails designed to gain illegal access to company computers, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Story
COVID has obviously attracted a lot of research resources during the pandemic, causing delays to clinical trials in other areas. The lockdowns also restricted scientists from accessing crucial research facilities and equipment. A survey of scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research in London found that oncology experts on average expect an average six-month delay to their scientific advances.
Indian generics player Hetero penned a deal to produce more than 100 million doses per year of Russia's COVID vaccine Sputnik V in India starting from 2021, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Russia's sovereign wealth fund and backer of the shot, said Friday. The adenovirus-vectored vaccine recently touted a 91.4% efficacy at an interim analysis involving nearly 19,000 volunteers.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Nov. 25 at 9:30 a.m. ET
Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine candidate could roll out shortly after Dec. 10, Alex Azar said. ''We believe we can distribute vaccine to all 64 jurisdictions within 24 hours of FDA authorization," he said, adding that the hope is to kick start vaccinations as soon as shipments arrive. By mid-December, 6.4 million Pfizer doses are expected to go out to states and territories, out of a total 40 million doses slated for delivery this year, General Gustave Perna, who oversees Operation Warp Speed, said. Warp Speed will also run test shipments this week to prepare for its distribution push.
COVAX, the World Health Organization's equitable vaccine distribution scheme, has secured hundreds of millions of AstraZeneca doses, said Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance'--co-leader of the initiative. Gavi hailed AZ's recent data reveal as "positive news for the COVAX vision of equitable access." Even more promising, AZ's shot can be shipped and delivered using traditional refrigeration and storage methods, and the company has pledged to supply shots at no profit while the pandemic persists, Seth Berkley, CEO at Gavi, said.
BioNTech and Shanghai Fosun plan to launch a phase 2 trial of the German biotech's vaccine hopeful, BNT162b2, in China, the companies said Wednesday. Testing is slated to take place at Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention and will assess safety, plus the shot's ability to provoke an immune response.
Sinopharm filed a request with the National Medical Products Administration to start marketing at least one of its COVID-19 vaccine candidates in China, Xinhua Finance News reports, citing deputy general manager Shi Shengyi. The report did not specify which'--or how many'--of the drugmaker's two inactivated candidates, both still in late-stage testing, were up for approval. Meanwhile, an anonymous Sinopharm exec told South China Morning Post the Xinhua report was "inaccurate" and the company had yet to file for a marketing nod.
States are on the hook to prioritize who gets the first coronavirus vaccine doses, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said. While a CDC advisory committee plans to meet immediately after an approval to hash out early access, governors will have "final say," which could lead to widely differing distribution schemes across the nation. The CDC's panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, on Monday said distribution should aim to tackle health inequities and disproportionate infections, deaths and hospitalizations among Black, Latino and Native American populations.
The European Union wants to accelerate the process for issuing compulsory licenses, which could allow the bloc to bypass intellectual property rights on generic drugs to shore up supply during the pandemic, Reuters reports. The move would serve as a "last resort" and "safety net," an EU document said, essentially giving EU states the ability to manufacture generic meds without drugmakers' consent. Compulsory licensing is allowed by the World Trade Organization as a means to waive normal regulations during an emergency.
Plus, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) thinks it could issue a "positive opinion" on a vaccine before Christmas, Emer Cooke, executive director of the agency, told the Irish news outlet RTE. Cooke on Tuesday said the EMA aims to make an authorization decision around the same time as the U.S. FDA, which plans to review Pfizer's shot in mid-December.
Public health officials and drugmakers should be transparent about unpleasant vaccine side effects to ensure people return for a second dose, doctors said during a meeting with CDC advisors. High fever, body aches, headaches, exhaustion and other symptoms were reported by participants in Moderna and Pfizer's vaccine trials in September. While unpleasant, symptoms usually passed after about a day, participants said. Those side effects are "no walk in the park," but messaging must be clear so that patients aren't deterred from getting a second dose, doctors said.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Nov. 24 at 3:08 p.m. ET
AstraZeneca's late-stage vaccine proved 90% effective in a small group of subjects that received a half-dose primer followed by a full-dose booster'--but that was never the plan. "It was a mistake," Mene Pangalos, EVP at the company, told Reuters. The error became apparent when some participants had milder-than-expected side effects, which led researchers to realize they'd "underpredicted the dose of the vaccine by half,'' he said. It's unclear how effective the primer-dose regimen truly is. Only 2,741 subjects received the half dose in a more than 30,000-person phase 3. Story
Among more than 74% of Americans who've heard about Pfizer's promising vaccine data, 48% now report a more positive view of the company, The Harris Poll found. Meanwhile, 41% of respondents said they've developed a more favorable view of drugmakers involved in the pandemic vaccine race, while 40% report a sunnier outlook on the industry as a whole. Forty-six percent of people polled also had a more favorable view of the vaccine development process, while 39% adopted a more positive outlook on the approval process. Story
GE Healthcare launched an AI algorithm that can read X-rays to pin down proper placement of ventilator tubes in patients under critical care. As many as one in four patients intubated outside of an emergency room may have a misplaced endotracheal tube, the company estimates, which can lead to severe complications like over-inflating or collapsing of a lung. The algorithm, included in GE's Critical Care Suite, works on the mobile X-ray scanner itself and automatically detects the tube in chest X-ray images, helping flag potential dangers. Story
Two single-domain antibodies, or nanobodies, developed by Twist Bioscience protected coronavirus-infected hamsters from weight loss'--a key indicator of disease severity, the biotech said. The weight-loss protection was comparable to results with convalescent plasma in previous clinical studies. Armed with positive hamster data, Twist is now weighing its options, including potentially licensing out the assets for further development, a company spokesperson said. The candidates could be used to develop a preventive daily nasal spray, Twist added. Story
More than 175 U.S. patients with critical COVID-19 respiratory failure and a severe comorbidity have entered into an expanded access protocol (EAP) with NeuroRx and Relief's RLF-100, also known as aviptadil. Of the 90 patients who've so far reached 28 days followup, 72% survived to day 28, the companies said. In a previous comparison between 21 patients given RLF-100 and 24 on standard of care, only 17% of those in the control group survived to day 28, while survival rate with RLF-100 was similar to the 72% figure reported Tuesday, the companies said.
Thirteen African nations are teaming up on a clinical trial to test whether drugs for malaria, HIV, certain cancers and other diseases could prevent moderate COVID-19 cases from becoming more severe, The New York Times reports. The trial will be carried out by ANTICOV, a consortium of 26 African and European clinical institutions. Testing has already kicked off in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with Kenya close behind. Meanwhile, the Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Sudan and Uganda are waiting on regulatory approval to pitch in.
Reckitt Benckiser's latest campaign for its over-the-counter cold and flu brand Mucinex encourages patients to "be an ally" to doctors by saying thanks and posting an online review. That support is more important than ever during the pandemic, Claudine Patel, general manager of marketing for RB's North America Consumer Health unit, said. The company has partnered with Healthgrades.com to set up a dedicated page slated to roll out digital ads and social efforts from physician influencers. RB's thinking is backed by data, too: A recent Mucinex and Harris Poll found that 80% of Americans who left online doctor reviews did so to report a positive experience. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, Nov. 24 at 9:30 a.m. ET
The European Union on Wednesday is expected to approve a deal securing up to 160 million doses of Moderna's vaccine candidate, Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, said. The bloc in August said it had wrapped preliminary talks with Moderna to lock down 80 million initial doses and an option to purchase 80 million more. Moderna last week revealed its shot was 94.5% effective in phase 3. Story
Plus, Moderna tapped Swedish drugmaker Recipharm to carry out fill and seal packaging on its mRNA-based vaccine candidate. Work will take place at Recipharm's manufacturing unit in Monts, in central France.
Thanks to a rolling EU review, AstraZeneca thinks it could see a "relatively fast approval" for its shot candidate in Europe, Iskra Reic, EVP of the company's Canadian and European operations, told Euronews. Should the vaccine pass the European Medicines Agency's bar, Reic said she was "absolutely convinced" AZ could deploy the shot to all EU member states in roughly the same timeframe. She added the company was still parsing the biology behind Monday's puzzling data reveal and cautioned against the unreliability of cross-trial comparisons.
M(C)decins Sans Fronti¨res (MSF) called on AstraZeneca to re-commit to its no-profit vaccine pledge and urged the drugmaker to open the books on its licensing and purchase deals so that people and governments could demand a fair price. AZ has said it won't profit off its shot during the pandemic, but terms of a deal disclosed by the Financial Times show the drugmaker can declare the pandemic over as early as next July'--well before MSF thinks COVID-19 will be under control. That could open the floodgates for steep shot pricing in 2021's second half, MSF warned.
Meanwhile, Italy is set to receive 16 million AstraZeneca doses in early 2021 through the European Union's supply deal, a government source told Reuters. The country will receive an initial 4 million doses in January, followed by another 12 million between February and April, the source said. Plus, Italy is also in line to receive 3.4 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's shot as early as January.
Brazil has collected enough infection data from a phase 3 trial of Sinovac's shot hopeful to potentially unveil interim data in early December, Reuters reports, citing trial organizers from the country's Butantan Institute. The study now has 74 confirmed cases, passing the threshold of 61 infections needed for an interim analysis, Dimas Corvas, the institute's director, said. Brazilian health officials have pegged a possible approval of Sinovac's shot for December or January.
The Nanovaccine Institute at Iowa State University is teaming up with drug delivery device specialist Zeteo Biomedical to develope a next-generation nasal spray vaccine for COVID-19. The single-dose prophylactic, designed for stability at room temperature, could potentially be self-administered using Zeteo's intranasal delivery device. Meanwhile, the university in late October scored $2 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to support its development efforts. Story
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine proved 91.4% effective in a second interim analysis from the country's 40,000-person phase 3. The second analysis was carried out after 39 cases were confirmed in the trial'--31 in the placebo arm and 8 in the group who received the vaccine. No unexpected health scares were observed, with typical side effects including injection site soreness, fever, fatigue, weakness and headache. Russia plans to unveil further data once 78 infections have been confirmed. Story
And Russia plans to sell Sputnik V for less than $10 per dose internationally and make it free for its own citizens, the Russian Direct Investment Fund said. The country's current deals with foreign drugmakers provide capacity for enough doses for 500 million people per year, starting in 2021, though Russia says it's on the hunt for additional deals to boost supply. Meanwhile, Russia expects to send the first doses out to customers in January.
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 23 at 3:35 p.m. ET
Moderna will submit its shot for emergency authorization by month's end, with a review slated to take place on Dec. 17, Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui told ABC News. Meanwhile, an FDA advisory committee is set to review Pfizer's vaccine data Dec. 10, he said, and some doses could start rolling out the very next day if the shot snares a swift authorization. It remains unclear how long the review process will take. Story
Merck struck a $425 million cash deal to buy OncoImmune and its coronavirus treatment CD24Fc, aimed at the sickest COVID-19 patients. Interim data from a phase 3 trial showed improvements against the virus after a separate study showed gains in stem cell transplant patients earlier this year. Currently Merck has two COVID-19 vaccines in the clinic and an antiviral in phase 2/3 development. Story
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine candidate can be stored and transported at normal refrigerator temperatures for at least six months, allowing it to be easily administered in a wider variety of healthcare settings'--including in low- and middle-income countries. These properties could give the viral-vector shot a logistical leg up over its mRNA-based rivals, which require ultra-cold storage. Story
Following its FDA authorization over the weekend, the federal government will begin distributing Regeneron's antibody therapy on Tuesday, starting with more than 30,000 courses of treatment, according to a report from Reuters.
The NIH awarded nearly $45 million to expand its efforts aimed at providing access to COVID-19 diagnostics among underserved populations. The federal program added 20 institutions across seven states and territories to its research network, bringing its total funding amount to over $283 million and 55 participating organizations.
A mathematical model by the University of Colorado at Boulder showed that screening half the U.S. population regularly with cheap, rapid COVID-19 tests could help completely eliminate the virus within weeks. Combined with personal quarantines, restaurants and schools would be able to stay open, the researchers said.
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 23 at 9:15 a.m. ET
On average, two separate regimens of AstraZeneca's vaccine candidate proved 70% effective in late-stage trials, the drugmaker said. Most subjects'--8,895, to be exact'--received two full doses of the shot, which boasted 62% efficacy in that group. Meanwhile, a smaller cohort of 2,741 subjects got a half-dose for their first shot, followed by a booster; efficacy was 90% in that arm. Nobody who received the shot was hospitalized or had a severe case of COVID-19 and no serious side effects linked to the vaccine have been confirmed, AZ said. Story
AstraZeneca should have enough of its candidate vaccine to produce 200 million doses by year-end, with enough drug substance to crank out 700 million doses globally by the end of 2021's first quarter, operations exec Pam Cheng said Monday. The drugmaker will keep the "active" drug substance in stock as it awaits approval worldwide, she added. The company aims to provide the U.K. with about 4 million finished doses this year, followed by an estimated 40 million doses in Q1, though AZ could double that supply if it proceeds with an initial half-dose, Cheng said.
Regeneron's antibody cocktail bagged an emergency nod from the FDA Saturday to treat mild- to-moderate, non-hospitalized patients at high risk for progressing to severe COVID-19. The therapy'--a combination of the monoclonal antibodies casirivimab and imdevimab'--was shown to reduce viral load significantly better than placebo in a phase 1/2 trial and, more importantly, lowered the risk of hospitalization within 28 days. Regeneron aims to make the treatment available for around 80,000 patients this month and 300,000 patients by the end of January. Story
Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine hopeful could win U.K. authorization in as little as a week'--ahead of U.S. clearance, government sources told The Telegraph. British regulators are about to start their assessment of the shot, and the country's National Health Service has been told to prepare to start administering the vaccine by Dec. 1. Pfizer has pledged to provide 10 million doses to the U.K. this year out of a total 40 million-dose order.
India's Bharat Biotech expects its vaccine hopeful, Covaxin, to boast at least 60% efficacy, Sai Prasad, president of quality operations at the company, said. Bharat kicked off phase 3 trials on Nov. 20 and plans to launch its shot in 2021's second quarter. Covaxin is being developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research's National Institute of Virology.
UPDATED: Friday, Nov. 20 at 3:05 p.m. ET
Novartis pitched in $50 million upfront to snare a global license to develop and market Mesoblast's cell therapy remestemcel-L in COVID-19. The FDA last month rejected Mesoblast's filing for the treatment in children with steroid-resistant graft-versus-host disease, though the company in May had already kicked off a phase 3 trial to see whether its cell therapy could help COVID patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Novartis, which already boasts an approved cell therapy, will also help scale up commercial manufacturing to meet pandemic demand. Story
Cue Health's rapid, point-of-care coronavirus diagnostic test will be shipped out to Alaska, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey and Texas in a government pilot program under the Department of Health and Human Services. The molecular test, which uses nasal swabs and a cartridge-based reader that sends results to a connected smartphone, won FDA authorization in June, and should tee up diagnoses in healthcare settings with larger groups of people at high risk for COVID-19, like nursing homes and long-term care centers. Story
A pre-engineered version of Adagio's experimental antibody, ADG20, protected against SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2'--the virus that causes COVID-19'--in mice, the company reported on the preprint site bioRxiv. In lab tests, the drug was also able to neutralize two related coronaviruses circulating in bats'--potentially giving it an edge over other antibodies in the works, which tend to trade breadth of activity in multiple viruses for potency against SARS-CoV-2 specifically, said Laura Walker, Ph.D., chief scientists at Adagio. Story
Serum Institute of India, which has already produced millions of doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine candidate, will seek emergency approval in-country as soon as regulators in the U.K. clear the shot for use among the general public, CEO Adar Poonawaala said. The company is almost on "autopilot" as it awaits vaccine results; SII can then start cranking out "hundreds of millions" more doses, Poonawalla said.
The United States, the European Union and several other wealthy nations on Friday pushed back on a proposal to waive certain intellectual property rights for COVID-19 drugs and vaccines, Reuters reports, citing three trade sources. That lack of support means the proposal will likely fail when it goes before the World Trade Organization next month. The waiver has been backed by a slate of developing countries, China, the World Health Organization and M(C)decins Sans Fronti¨res.
Hungary's plans to test and potentially produce Russia's controversial Sputnik V vaccine could strain its relationship with the European Union and undermine public confidence in a vaccine, the European Commission said. The vaccine must be authorized by the European Medicines Agency before it can go out to EU states, though the regulator says it has yet to receive any data from Russia. Meanwhile, Hungary on Thursday imported its first doses of Sputnik V, which it will study to "make a well-founded decision on potential usability and approval," the country's foreign minister said.
UPDATED: Friday, Nov. 20 at 9:29 a.m. ET
Eli Lilly and Incyte's rheumatoid arthritis med Olumiant, in tandem with Gilead's Veklury (remdesivir), won an emergency nod from the FDA to treat hospitalized COVID patients requiring oxygen support, mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. An NIAID trial of the drug showed patients on the combo had a median recovery time of seven days, compared to the placebo and Veklury arm's eight days. Patients on the combo were also less likely to die or need mechanical ventilation after 29 days and had better odds of improvement at day 15 versus the control group. Story
Meanwhile, a World Health Organization panel on Thursday advised against the use of Gilead's Veklury to treat COVID-19. The panel's guidance, published in the journal BMJ, "concluded that the evidence did not prove that remdesivir has no benefit; rather, there is no evidence based on currently available data that it does improve patient-important outcomes." Gilead, for its part, told The Wall Street Journal it was "disappointed" that the WHO's Veklury guidelines came at a time when cases are mounting worldwide. Story
The European Union has agreed to pay '¬15.50 ($18.34) per dose for Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine candidate, Reuters reports, citing an EU official close to the matter. That would put the EU on the hook to pay up to '¬3.1 billion ($3.7 billion) for its 200 million-dose order, rising to '¬4.65 billion ($5.51 billion) if the bloc chooses to purchase another 100 million doses. Separately, the EU confirmed it would pay '¬10 ($11.84) per dose for CureVac's mRNA-based vaccine, for an initial supply of 225 million doses. The block this week secured up to 405 million doses of CureVac's shot hopeful.
Roche is poised to start delivering Regeneron's two-antibody cocktail in 2021's first quarter, CEO Severin Schwan told Bloomberg. An emergency nod for Regeneron's antibody cocktail could be granted "very soon," though initial demand is sure to outstrip supply, Schwan said. The companies will have a combined capacity of roughly 2 million doses next year. Meanwhile, Roche is working to ramp up production as fast as possible, Schwan added.
Sinovac could have phase 3 data on its vaccine hopeful, CoronaVac, by next month, Weining Meng, senior director of the Chinese biotech, said Friday. The shot is in late-stage testing in Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey. Sinovac earlier this week published early- to mid-stage data showing CoronaVac sparked a swift immune response but lower antibody levels than those seen in patients who've recovered from COVID-19.
ApiJect Systems on Thursday was approved by the U.S. government for a $590 million loan to produce single-dose injectors for COVID-19 vaccine candidates. ApiJect's self-contained device has yet to pass the FDA's bar, prompting health experts to question the government's loan. The company, meanwhile, plans to build a facility with capacity for 3 billion pre-filled injectors annually. The facility would be able to support candidates that require standard cold storage or ultra-cold storage up to -94 degrees Fahrenheit'--the temperature required for Pfizer's vaccine. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, Nov. 19 at 3:20 p.m. ET
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech plan to file for an emergency use authorization for their shot in the U.S. Friday, BioNTech CEO UÄur Åahin told CNN. Depending on the speed of the review process, the partners' vaccine could snare authorization or conditional approval in 2020, with distribution efforts kicking off before year-end, Åahin said. Pfizer on Wednesday announced its vaccine had shown 95% efficacy in phase 3.
Meanwhile, BioNTech is working on a new formulation for its shot that could enable shipping at room temperature, Åahin said during his CNN interview. The development process is happening "in parallel" with Pfizer and BioNTech's current efforts and could bear fruit as early as the second half of 2021, he said. Concerns have mounted over storage and shipping requirements for the partners' candidate, which must be kept at -94 degrees Fahrenheit'--far colder than than the requirement for most vaccines.
And Pfizer aims to start distributing its vaccine "within hours" of scoring an emergency nod, starting with shipments wherever the shot is cleared first, CEO Albert Bourla told Sky News. This could spark a "race to regulate" as authorities hustle to review data and lock down doses for their countries, he added. If one regulator OKs the shot before another, the "ethical" move would be to start sending doses to people in that jurisdiction, though patience is crucial, since demand will outpace supply early in the vaccination process, Bourla said. Story
AstraZeneca's vaccine could launch with little lag behind Pfizer and Moderna's candidates, currently at the head of the pack, Andrew Pollard, head of the University of Oxford's vaccine trial, said. Still, he emphasized that AZ and Oxford aren't rushing, nor are they competing with other developers. Phase 3 data is expected before Christmas, at which point it will be sent off to regulators. If that process moves at a pandemic-appropriate pace, "it's possible that things could line up so there is not very much difference in timing between the various different vaccines,'' Pollard said.
Siemens Healthineers developed a quantitative test that measures the antibodies able to neutralize coronavirus. The IgG antibody test'--a new version of the serology test Siemens launched over the summer, which estimates the numbers of coronavirus antibodies in a person's bloodstream'--boasts a CE mark in Europe and is under review for emergency use at the FDA. The test should help gauge the level of immunity conferred by a vaccine, and the company plans to make it available internationally via its Atellica, Advia Centaur and Dimension laboratory hardware. Story
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) put the kibosh on a $15 million contract that would have helped secure celebrities to feature in the agency's controversial $250 million ad campaign to "defeat despair and inspire hope" amid the pandemic. While Hollywood will no longer make an appearance, HHS is pressing on with a new, "science-based" approach to its campaign. Story
M(C)decins Sans Fronti¨res (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, has called for governments to support a request to waive certain intellectual property rights on COVID-19 drugs and vaccines during the pandemic, slated for consideration at an upcoming World Trade Organization meeting. Kenya, Eswatini, India and South Africa are co-sponsoring the waiver, which so far has the support of 99 countries. ''All COVID-19 health tools and technologies should be true global public goods," Sidney Wong, executive co-director of MSF's Access Campaign, said.
UPDATED: Thursday, Nov. 19 at 9:30 a.m. ET
In late October, AstraZeneca teased phase 2 data showing its vaccine spurred an immune response in patients both young and old. Now, those results have been peer reviewed and published in The Lancet. Healthy adults over the age of 56 showed a similar immune response to that of younger patients, and the oldest participants, whose median age was between 73 and 74, experienced milder side effects than the younger cohort. AZ's phase 2 enrolled 560 adults, 240 of whom were over the age of 70. Story
If Pfizer's shot wins an emergency nod, vulnerable groups'--most likely healthcare workers, first responders and elderly Americans living in nursing homes'--could start receiving the vaccine in December, HHS secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday. By January, there should be enough Pfizer doses for everyone in that initial group and by March or early April, Azar expects to have enough vaccines from Pfizer and other developers for all Americans.
Roche's arthritis med Actemra, also known as tocilizumab, hit a "key efficacy endpoint" among seriously ill COVID-19 patients. It's unclear if the drug helped people stay alive or shortened the time on intensive care support like mechanical ventilation, though more details should be published in a matter of weeks, Anthony Gordon, lead investigator of the 303-patient trial, said.
Later today, the U.S. International Development Finance Corp (DFC) will likely reveal that it's extended its $590 million loan to ApiJect'--maker of an unproven injection device still awaiting FDA clearance, NPR reports. The single-use device is meant to offer an alternative to vials and syringes, supplies that could become strained as shots start to roll out. Having a backup plan for glass vials is important, but the fact that the government has invested so much in a technology that has yet to go through the FDA is cause for concern, one health expert told the news outlet.
Close to 1 million people have received Sinopharm's experimental COVID-19 vaccine, the Chinese drugmaker said Wednesday. Since July, the country has allowed essential workers and other limited groups to take three separate vaccine candidates'--two from Sinopharm and one from Sinovac'--none of which have completed phase 3 testing. No serious side effects have been reported by those receiving the experimental shot in emergency use, Liu Jingzhen, chairman of Sinopharm, said, though it's unclear which vaccine he was referring to.
The concept of "herd immunity" comes with some big caveats, health experts told Reuters. It would not imply individual protection from the virus, since the thrust of the idea is to protect the vulnerable. Meanwhile, we still don't know how fast the virus spreads under normal circumstances, without travel and social restrictions in place, Winfried Pickl, professor of immunology at the Medical University of Vienna, said. Finally, while the first vaccines poised to hit the market will likely prevent individual COVID-19 cases, they may not stop the spread of the virus to unvaccinated individuals.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 2:50 p.m. ET
The FDA approved Lucira Health's all-in-one COVID-19 diagnostic, which people over the age of 14 can use at home with a prescription. The kit'--which relies on a swab and aims to deliver results in about 30 minutes'--shrinks a molecular test for the virus' genetic code down to a handheld unit, complete with all the necessary chemical reagents. The company expects the test to become available nationwide early next spring with a price tag of $50. Story
AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford have enlisted research services firm CCT Research to help recruit 1,500 patients for a vaccine trial in Arizona. CCT works as a clinical site network, embedding research studies within local communities. The Arizona trial, slated to run at Bayless Integrated Healthcare's site in downtown Phoenix, will compare AZ's shot hopeful against placebo in healthy patients over the age of 18. Story
Johnson & Johnson over the next five years will invest $100 million to help address racial inequities in healthcare, drawn into sharp focus against the backdrop of COVID-19. J&J's efforts are threefold: work with local communities; expand and add partnerships; and increase internal efforts to hire and promote people of color to the management level and above. In one snapshot of the drugmaker's community outreach efforts, J&J plans to grow its support of mobile health clinics'--already delivering COVID-19 testing and information on clinical trial inclusivity'--for communities of color. Story
With cases mounting in the U.S., drug and vaccine trials are receiving an unexpected tailwind, The New York Times reports. Moderna, which announced positive early results on its shot hopeful Monday, had originally aimed to submit data to experts after observing 53 COVID-19 cases in its phase 3 trial, but higher infection rates allowed the biotech to base its readout on 96 sick subjects. Enrollment in Regeneron's antibody cocktail trial has also hastened this month, a company spokeswoman told the news outlet.
In late October, 58% of Americans said they would get a COVID-19 vaccine'--up eight points from a low of 50% in September, a new Gallup poll found. Meanwhile, 42% of the 2,985 American adults surveyed said they definitely wouldn't get a vaccine, down slightly from 50% in September. Thirty-seven percent from that group cited rushed vaccine development as the main cause for concern, while another 26% said they wanted to wait for confirmation that an approved shot is safe.
Hummingbird Bioscience could roll out its experimental antibody in Singapore and other countries by early 2021, Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, co-founder of the company, told CNBC. Small-scale trials of the treatment, dubbed Hummingbird 115, kicked off in Singapore last month, with phase 3 studies expected to start in December. ''We're aiming for early 2021 for widespread accessibility of this therapy to patients,'' Boyd-Kirkup said.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 9:25 a.m. ET
Pfizer has obtained the necessary follow-up safety data to pursue an emergency nod for its shot, CEO Albert Bourla , Ph.D., said. The company on Wednesday published detailed data from its phase 3, which showed its mRNA-based vaccine was 95% effective. In the control group, 162 patients developed COVID-19, compared to eight subjects in the vaccine arm. Nine severe cases were observed in the placebo group, versus the vaccine cohort's one. Story
Roche successfully tested its ability to churn out large quantities of Regeneron's experimental antibody cocktail and is ready to kick off manufacturing should the treatment snare approval, George Yancopoulos, Regeneron's chief scientific officer, told Reuters. The Swiss drugmaker could start producing the treatment in 2021's first quarter, a Roche spokesperson added. Regeneron is on deck to provide 300,000 doses of its treatment to the U.S. as early as January, with 50,000 doses already stockpiled.
Sinovac's experimental vaccine can induce an antibody response within four weeks of immunization by giving two doses of the shot at a 14-day interval, the Chinese biotech said in a publication of its phase 1/2 trial in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases. Sinovac's early- and mid-stage tests took place in April and May. The biotech is now plowing ahead with late-stage trials, although one phase 3 study was stopped in Brazil this month after reports of a serious safety scare. Story
Meanwhile, Brazil's Sao Paulo state will start importing an initial 46 million doses of Sinovac's shot this week, which could be made available in January if the vaccine passes muster with local regulators, the director of the state's Butantan Institute biomedical center said. Butantan, which is organizing phase 3 trials of the shot in-country, said last week's pause was unrelated to the vaccine. Meanwhile, Brazil said it would also look to purchase Pfizer's vaccine if the shot is proven effective and registered with the country's health authority, Anvisa.
With lives at stake, the Trump Administration needs to share critical COVID-19 data with President-elect Joe Biden's team, including information on the supply of therapeutics, testing materials, personal protective equipment, ventilators, hospital bed capacity and workforce availability, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association and the American Hospitals Association said. Leaders from the trio of healthcare juggernauts signed a letter making their position known a day after Biden warned that more people would die if Trump failed to concede.
It will likely take weeks to determine whether a potential vaccine is worthy of an emergency nod, Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told Business Insider. Marks added that the FDA will make the process "very open" and said he hopes the extra review time will help boost faith in a final product. "Everything that we are trying to do here, this is all about ensuring the public re-develops the kind of trust they once had in vaccines." Story
Celltrion will likely pursue an emergency nod for its monoclonal antibody, CT-P59, in South Korea before year-end, group chairman Seo Jung-jin said. The company is currently "wrapping up" a phase 2 trial of the drug, he added. Earlier this year, the company announced that its antibody could shorten patients' recovery time with no reported side effects, adding that the drug could neutralize the virus within four to five days, potentially protecting patients with mild symptoms from developing severe disease.
A scant 15% of airlines feel prepared to transport Pfizer's vaccine hopeful at the required, ultra-cold temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit, a recent survey by an air cargo association and drug shipper's group found. Around 60% said they'd be able to transport Moderna's shot candidate, which must be kept at -4 F. Meanwhile, as airlines scramble to lock down specialized shipping containers, cold storage specialists like Cryoport and Germany's va-Q-tec have seen shares soar, Reuters reports. Story
UPDATED: Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 3:16 p.m.
The U.K. hastily secured 5 million doses of Moderna's vaccine candidate Monday, hours after the biotech unveiled positive phase 3 data on its mRNA-based shot, health secretary Matt Hancock said. The U.K. chose not to purchase Moderna's vaccine earlier this year over concerns about vaccine nationalism and Moderna's then-lack of a dependable European supply chain, The Guardian reported, citing sources close to the matter. Moderna has since signed on manufacturing partners in Switzerland and Spain.
The FDA postponed its decision on Bristol Myers Squibb's CAR-T hopeful liso-cel'--picked up in its $74 billion Celgene buyout'--thanks to COVID-19 restrictions that kept the regulator from inspecting a Lonza facility in Texas, slated to help churn out viral vectors for the cell therapy. The FDA did not provide a new anticipated action date, BMS said, dimming hopes of a liso-cel approval before year-end. Story
Infectious disease experts now expect a COVID-19 vaccine by May 2021'--a month sooner than previously predicted'--but that slightly sped-up timeline is joined by growing reluctance to give an authorized shot to patients, a new survey by InCrowd showed. Just 47% of U.S. infectious disease experts said they would feel "highly confident" in prescribing an FDA approved vaccine, InCrowd's October survey found. Respondents further predicted that 40% of patients would also be wary of getting the vaccine.
Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman will roll up his sleeve to take part in Johnson & Johnson's phase 3 vaccine trial. He hopes the move will encourage others to enroll in ongoing U.S. shot studies and reassure the public about the safety and efficacy of vaccines once they've moved through clinical trials and the FDA.
New Jersey-based CDMO Cambrex is plugging $50 million into four additional active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) facilities at its Charles City, Iowa, small-molecule drug site. The investment is set to boost capacity by 30% and meshes with the CDMO's goal to offer stateside API production to drugmakers looking for a "reliable" supply chain. U.S. lawmakers have called for more investment in domestic drug production this year as the pandemic puts pressure on an increasingly global pharmaceutical supply chain. Story
China's plan to vaccinate the public with unproven shots may be working too well, The New York Times reports. Five-hundred doses sent to the city of Yiwu were snapped up in a matter of hours. Other cities are limiting doses and asking people to prove they are traveling to qualify. Meanwhile, scalpers are charging as much as $1,500 for vaccine appointments, the news outlet wrote. And while China says it's monitoring vaccinated patients, a consent form for one candidate reviewed by the Times made no mention of the fact that the product was still in testing.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 9:13 a.m.
Pfizer kicked off a pilot delivery program for its vaccine in Rhode Island, Texas, New Mexico and Tennessee, selecting the states for their differences in size, diversity, vaccine infrastructure and patient populations split between rural and urban areas, Reuters reports. Pfizer's BioNTech-partnered shot must be stored and shipped at -94 degrees Fahrenheit, fueling recent concerns about widespread storage and distribution.
Germany's CureVac is ramping up manufacturing to produce "pandemic scale" volumes of its vaccine candidate, CVnCoV, the drugmaker said in a release. The company plans to build an integrated European manufacturing network, leveraging CDMOs for each step of the production process. CureVac aims to boost vaccine capacity to upward of 300 million doses in 2021 and up to 600 million doses by 2022. It's also working on an additional, large-scale production facility at its headquarters in T¼bingen, Germany. Story
Samsung Biologics is mass producing Eli Lilly's recently authorized monoclonal antibody, bamlanivimab, the South Korean drugmaker said Tuesday. Samsung in May entered a production deal with Lilly and said it has a long-term contract with the antibody developer, but didn't share further details. Lilly is gunning to produce 1 million doses of its antibody by year-end and expects supply to increase in 2021 as more manufacturing resources go live. Story
Meanwhile, U.S. hospitals are already facing high demand and tight supplies of Lilly's antibody, Reuters reports. At $1,250 per dose, the U.S. has so far bought 300,000 doses of bamlanivimab'--enough for about a week's worth of new infections at the current rate, health experts said. Doctors also called for "more conservative criteria" on who should be eligible for the treatment; under the current label, the drug is OK'd to treat older patients recently diagnosed with mild to moderate disease, as well as those with risk factors like obesity and diabetes.
India's Bharat Biotech launched a 26,000-person phase 3 trial of its vaccine candidate, Covaxin, developed with the Indian Council of Medical Research. Volunteers will receive two injections of either vaccine or placebo 28 days apart, and Bharat plans to monitor patients over the next year to screen for incidences of COVID-19. The trial is both India's "first phase 3 efficacy study for a COVID-19 vaccine" and the largest late-stage efficacy trial ever conducted in the country, Bharat said in a statement.
The Indian government is in talks with Moderna after the Massachusetts-based biotech unveiled strong data on its mRNA-based vaccine hopeful Monday, the Hindustan Times reports. The country is also holding discussions with domestic vaccine makers like Serum Institute of India, Bharat and Zydus Cadila, along with Pfizer, for potential shot doses, the news outlet reported, citing a senior government official.
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 16 at 3:07 p.m.
After several months of discussion, the European Union has agreed to purchase up to 405 million shot doses from German vaccine maker CureVac, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. The commission will authorize the deal on Tuesday and expects a signature to come sometime this week, she added. If the shot passes muster in the clinic, the EU would receive 225 million initial doses, with the option to later purchase another 180 million. CureVac in September snared $299 million in German funding for its vaccine work. Story
Former FDA commissioner and Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb suggested the entry of two "highly effective" vaccines into the market'--namely Pfizer's and Moderna's'--"could effectively end this pandemic in 2021," CNBC reports. Gottlieb's prediction hinges on the efficacy of those mRNA-based shots once full data are released, combined with the fact that many people will have already had COVID-19 by 2021.
But even with mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna posting strong data in rapid succession, it's essential that people not become complacent about the virus, the World Health Organization warned Monday. The agency is concerned about mounting case numbers'--particularly in Europe and the U.S.'--as health workers and healthcare systems in those regions are "pushed to the breaking point," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said via Twitter.
States, cities and hospitals across the U.S. are vying for ultra-cold freezers as Pfizer's vaccine rollout looms, Reuters reports. The CDC in August told healthcare providers not to invest in specialty freezers for the shot'--which must be stored at -94 degrees Fahrenheit'--as it works on its own solution. Meanwhile, states like California, Rhode Island and New Mexico told the CDC they anticipate challenges due to limited freezer supplies, while around half a dozen states said they're looking to secure their own units.
New York, California, Connecticut, West Virginia and the District of Columbia have established committees to vet a potential COVID-19 vaccine once it passes the FDA's bar, while Washington, Oregon and Nevada are each adding a representative to California's panel. The effort, primarily in Democratic-led states, follows mounting vaccine skepticism and concerns that the Trump Administration has prioritized speed above all else in the race for a vaccine. Some health experts, like HHS' deputy chief of staff for policy, Paul Mango, fear those states' reviews could undermine the FDA.
Meanwhile, social media has become a battleground for vaccine misinformation, fueling skepticism that could prevent the U.S. from controlling the virus' spread once a shot is approved, Richard A. Stein, M.D., Ph.D., an adjunct professor at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and senior editor with the International Journal of Clinical Practice, told Yahoo Finance. Facebook, for its part, has started placing links to the CDC's website on the pages of certain groups circulating false information, while YouTube has started demonetizing anti-vaccine content.
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 16 at 9:30 a.m. ET
Moderna's mRNA-based vaccine candidate boasted nearly 95% efficacy in the first interim analysis of the drugmaker's phase 3 data. The review covered 95 confirmed cases from the study'--90 from the placebo arm and five cases from the group that received the shot, dubbed mRNA-1273. The company submitted data on 11 severe cases of COVID-19, all recorded in the control group. No significant side effects were observed, and Moderna said it would use the data to file for an emergency nod "in the coming weeks." Story
Moderna's shot should remain stable at 36 degrees Fahrenheit to 46 degrees Fahrenheit'--about as cold as your standard fridge'--for 30 days, new stability testing unveiled by the company shows. Moderna had earlier estimated its vaccine could remain at those temperatures for around a week. Meanwhile, the shot could be kept for up to six months when stored at -4 F, or standard freezer temp. Once removed for administration, the shot can remain at room temperature for up to 12 hours, Moderna said. Story
The European Commission hailed Moderna's "encouraging" vaccine results. The bloc is inking a supply deal with Pfizer and BioNTech later this week, with "more to come soon," EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides said.
Johnson & Johnson on Monday kicked off a phase 3 trial assessing a two-dose regimen of its vaccine hopeful. The company aims to enroll up to 30,000 subjects; 6,000 are expected to be recruited in the U.K., along with subjects from countries with high case counts, including Germany, Belgium, Spain, the Philippines and the U.S. Participants will receive a second dose of vaccine or placebo 57 days after their first doses, J&J said, with the aim to test whether an additional shot will help protect against the disease for longer. Story
Strong data on Pfizer's shot candidate could convince more people to get vaccinated, NIAID director Anthony Fauci, M.D., told Bloomberg. ''What I would hope is that even though there's a degree of skepticism about vaccines in general, that when the general public sees how effective this vaccine is, we might see a turnaround of the attitude toward vaccination,'' he said. Last week, Pfizer announced its shot had so far shown more than 90% efficacy in phase 3.
President-elect Joe Biden's coronavirus team plans to meet with major vaccine makers this week, including Pfizer, Biden's newly elected chief of staff, Ron Klain, said. President Donald Trump's failure to concede the election has hindered the transition of power, keeping Biden's top health officials from working with the government, Klain said. Manufacturing and distribution will pose a significant early challenge to Biden's team. To that end, it's crucial the transition team meet with the HHS "as quickly as possible," Klain added.
Come spring, Russia aims to mainly produce a freeze-dried version of its vaccine, Sputnik V, in a bid to eliminate ultra-cold shipping requirements, Reuters reports. Currently, Russia's shot must be kept at -18 degrees Celsius, or -0.4 degrees Fahrenheit, but the country is working on a lyophilized, powdered version that should remain stable at 35.6 F to 46.4 F. Russia plans to mainly produce that version starting in February, the head of the country's sovereign wealth fund said.
UPDATED: Friday, Nov. 13 at 3:32 p.m. ET
Operation Warp Speed is seeking White House approval to connect with President-elect Joe Biden's transition team, Moncef Slaoui told the Financial Times. Slaoui, a GlaxoSmithKline vet who heads up the government program, said he wants to make sure the effort remains on track, no matter the administration in charge, and he needs a green light from President Donald Trump's team to reach out to Biden's. Trump so far has refused to concede the election, complicating the transition of power.
Qiagen kicked off marketing and distribution of its QIAreach antigen test in the U.S., where the portable diagnostic is under FDA review for emergency lab use. The company hopes to amend the authorization before year-end to enable use in hospitals and other point-of-care settings, and it's pursuing an in vitro diagnostic CE mark in Europe. QIAreach uses a digital hub and interchangeable test-stick cartridges to process more than 30 samples per hour. Story
The European Society of Intensive Care Medicine says Gilead's remdesivir, now known as Veklury, should not be used in COVID-19 patients requiring critical care, the group's president, Jozef Kesecioglu, told Reuters. The European medical association and the U.S. Society of Critical Care Medicine will state the recommendation in an upcoming paper on COVID-19 meds, Kesecioglu added. The advice follows a large WHO study that found the antiviral did little to help hospitalized patients. Gilead, for its part, has contested those results. Story
Patients taking the popular over-the-counter sleep aid melatonin were 28% less likely to test positive for COVID-19, a new study from the Cleveland Clinic found'--though more testing is needed before the supplement could be widely used in treatment, the study's senior author said. Researchers used an AI tool to screen data from 26,779 people in the clinic's COVID-19 registry, of whom 8,274 tested positive. Story
The antidepressant fluvoxamine, if taken within the first week of COVID-19 symptoms, could reduce the risk of breathing problems and hospitalization in patients with mild disease, a study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found. The COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund will provide additional funding to the university for an 880-person trial to confirm the results.
Among those benefiting from Pfizer's strong vaccine results this week? German brothers Andreas and Thomas Struengmann'--founders of the generic drugmaker Hexal, bought by Novartis in 2005. The pair have collectively grown about $8 billion richer this year thanks to their stake in Pfizer's German mRNA partner, BioNTech, BNN Bloomberg reports. Back in 2008, the brothers helped to give BioNTech '¬150 million in startup funds. They now own around half of the company.
In recent months, state hackers from Russia and North Korea have targeted "seven prominent companies directly involved in researching vaccines and treatments for COVID-19" in Canada, France, India, South Korea and the U.S., said Tom Burt, Microsoft VP of customer security and trust.
Tesla's Elon Musk may have COVID-19, but he wouldn't know it from the tests he's taken. Musk was tested four times Thursday, all with the same BD rapid antigen test, receiving two positive and two negative results, he alleged on Twitter. "Something extremely bogus is going on," he said. Musk's view on the pandemic has been divisive'--he later tweeted that the daily testing rate has gone "ballistic" in the U.S. and implied mounting case numbers were due to false positives.
The U.S. recorded more than 160,000 new cases Thursday, a little more than a week after logging 100,000 new infections in a single day for the first time, The New York Times reports. Meanwhile, COVID-19 hospitalizations reached 67,096 Thursday, setting a record for the third straight day, the news outlet said.
The U.S. has an undeniable "independent spirit," but it's time for the public to start following the rules when it comes to preventing the coronavirus' spread, NIAID director Anthony Fauci said. Speaking with other health experts at Washington National Cathedral Thursday, Fauci acknowledged that it's difficult to compare the U.S.' coronavirus response to other nations, given the country's size, but argued that stricter adherence to public safety guidelines would likely prevent another lockdown.
UPDATED: Friday, Nov. 13 at 9:56 a.m. ET
A vaccine ought to be required once one is proven safe and effective, Roche Chairman Christoph Franz told the Swiss newspaper Handelszeitung. He acknowledged that such a move would be controversial, but argued that a mandate would create "freedom in other areas" by halting the virus' spread and potentially ending lockdowns. Franz's statement is his own "personal opinion," Roche told Reuters. The Swiss drugmaker isn't developing a COVID shot but has teamed up with Regeneron to help produce its antibody cocktail.
The pressure is on for China to share data on its COVID-19 vaccine candidates. Brazil suspended a late-stage trial of Sinovac's shot on Monday after a serious patient health scare'--right around the time Pfizer revealed its BioNTech-partnered vaccine had so far shown more than 90% efficacy in phase 3. Now, lack of transparency threatens to put China's vaccine diplomacy in jeopardy, health and political experts warn.
Shanghai-based Fosun, which has exclusive rights to Pfizer and BioNTech's shot in the Greater China region, has ID'd a storage site near the Hong Kong airport that could allow the drugmaker to store large amounts of the shot at ultracold temperatures, South China Morning Post reports. Meanwhile, some experts raised concerns that cold-chain hurdles associated with Pfizer's product may outweigh the potential benefits in China.
Meanwhile, Fosun snared a green light from China's National Medical Products Administration to run a phase 2 trial of Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA-based vaccine hopeful in-country.
And Israel secured 8 million doses of Pfizer's shot'--enough to vaccinate around half of the country's population of 9 million'--Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Pfizer confirmed Thursday a deal was in the works but did not divulge financial details. Deliveries are expected to start in January if the shot wins out in the clinic, Netanyahu said. Israel also has an agreement with Moderna for future purchase of its mRNA-based candidate.
Switzerland's drug regulator Swissmedic kicked off a rolling review of Moderna's vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, potentially teeing up a swift approval for the Massachusetts-based biotech's shot. The process will allow Swissmedic to screen data from ongoing clinical trials as soon as it becomes available. Moderna last month completed enrollment for its phase 3 vaccine study and yesterday announced it had accrued enough cases for the first interim analysis.
The U.K. is weighing whether to tap U.S. data analytics company Palantir to improve the country's struggling contact tracing program, which has been hit with IT glitches, slow testing turnaround, user errors and more since its launch. The move could prove controversial, however; civil liberties groups have knocked Palantir for its work with the U.S. immigration service and for its links to national security agencies; the optics of the company handling hundreds of thousands of personal case contacts per week "are just not good," a person familiar with the talks told the Financial Times.
Synairgen's inhaled formulation of interferon beta-1a was well-tolerated in hospitalized COVID-19 patients and led to greater odds of recovery than placebo, and more quickly, too, the company said in a release. One hundred and one patients received either the drug or placebo once daily for 14 days. Those on Synairgen's drug, dubbed SNG001, were also more likely to recover to "no limitation of activity" during treatment, the drugmaker said. Story
Hungary is set to receive a sample of Russia's controversial vaccine within a week-and-a-half for laboratory testing, with plans to kick off clinical studies in December, the country's minister of foreign affairs and trade said. If all goes to plan, Hungary would become the first EU member state to trial Russia's shot. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Brazil, Mexico and former Soviet republics have so far expressed interest in the vaccine.
And Russia on Wednesday said its shot candidate, Sputnik V, has so far shown 92% efficacy in a late-stage trial. The data are based on the first 16,000 patients who received either the shot or placebo in Russia's 40,000-person phase 3. Researchers were able to confirm 20 COVID-19 cases among that group, split between those given the vaccine and the control arm. The results are set to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, Russia's sovereign wealth fund said.
UPDATED: Thursday, Nov. 12 at 3:15 p.m. ET
While mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are already in phase 3, German biotech CureVac is touting a storage advantage for its midstage candidate. The late-stage shots require storage at subzero temperatures, complicating distribution and use, while CureVac's candidate can be kept at refrigerated temperatures. Story
Incorporating GlaxoSmithKline's adjuvant technology, Canadian biotech Medicago pushed its COVID-19 vaccine into phase 3 testing. The plant-derived vaccine candidate recently succeeded in a phase 1 trial, but it'll now face a bigger and more important study. Story
A few days after Eli Lilly scored an FDA emergency use authorization for bamlanivimab, analysts are concerned the med's restrictive label may shrink sales of that medicine and Regeneron's antibody, which is under FDA emergency consideration. Story
Johnson & Johnson, in phase 3 testing with its COVID-19 vaccine, is well on its way to producing 1 billion doses in 2021 as planned and is looking ahead to 2022, VP of strategic initiatives Paul Lefebvre said in an interview. While manufacturing has set back some players, the company took a deliberate approach in preparing to deliver on its lofty goals. Story
The early data for Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA vaccine candidate "open the floodgates" for the vaccine technology for infectious diseases, SVB Leerink analyst Daina Graybosch said in an interview. But that doesn't mean the tech will succeed in other disease areas. Story
UPDATED: Thursday, Nov. 12 at 9:22 a.m. ET
Moderna hit the needed number of patient infections in its phase 3 vaccine trial to move ahead with the first interim analysis. Because of a significant uptick in observed COVID cases across trial sites last week, the drugmaker expects its first data analysis to cover substantially more than 53 cases'--the target required to kick off an initial review of its mRNA shot.
AstraZeneca's cancer med Calquence failed to help patients hospitalized with respiratory symptoms of COVID-19, the drugmaker said in a release. The BTK inhibitor missed its primary endpoint in the drugmaker's phase 2 to "increase the proportion of patients who remained alive and free of respiratory failure." No new safety signals arose, AZ said.
In the race for a vaccine, drugmakers aren't competing with one another, but against the virus itself, Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky said. "The best possible position we could be in is where we have four or five or six of these vaccines available in the year 2021," he said. Gorsky said that mounting case numbers underline the importance of sustained efforts to prevent the virus' spread, adding that the pandemic has exposed a need to improve public health worldwide.
Amgen and Japanese drugmaker Eisai signed on to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center trial aiming to use artificial intelligence to assess and adjust COVID-19 treatments. Amgen's newly acquired Otezla (apremilast) and Eisai's experimental eritoran'--both anti-inflammatory drugs'--will be evaluated by reinforcement learning, a type of AI that can modify treatment protocols in real time according to data on each patient's reaction to the drug.
Meanwhile, Serum Institute of India completed enrollment for its phase 3 trial of AstraZeneca's vaccine candidate, the company said in a statement. The Institute has so far produced 40 million doses of the shot. AZ's vaccine is the 'most advanced' shot in clinical testing in the country, the Indian Council of Medical Research said.
M(C)decins Sans Fronti¨res (MSF) wants governments to push drugmakers to open the books on their vaccine licensing deals so that the public, countries and treatment providers can secure shots at a fair price. ''As long as we don't know what's in these deals, pharma will continue to hold the power to decide who gets access when, and at what price,'' said Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy advisor for MSF's Acces Campaign. The current lack of transparency puts equitable access to a COVID-19 vaccine "in jeopardy," she added.
A viral mutation could dampen hopes for the leading pack of vaccines, which tackle the current version of the virus, Bloomberg analyst Sam Fazeli wrote in an op-ed. He cited Denmark's recent culling of its mink population after the virus spread through the animals and mutated before jumping back into humans. Meanwhile, mutations could easily crop up in people too, if the virus continues to spread unchecked.
Mallinckrodt is teaming up with Pharmerit to run a retrospective chart review study assessing its INOmax nitric oxide gas as an inhalation therapy for patients with COVID-19 respiratory complications. The drug is approved to treat respiratory failure associated with pulmonary hypertension in infants. The partners will collect data from around 200 hospitalized patients treated with INOmax for at least 24 hours between January 1 and July 31 of this year.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Nov. 11 at 3:00 p.m. ET
Vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi and Novavax may be better suited to global distribution than Pfizer's candidate, which requires two doses and ultracold storage. J&J's shot, in testing at a single dose, is expected to remain stable for two years at minus 20 degrees Celsius and for upward of three months at refrigerator temps. Meanwhile, Sanofi and GSK's two-dose recombinant protein vaccine can be stored at 35.6 to 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit, a spokeswoman said. Story
Pfizer is already weighing options for a second-generation version of its vaccine, including a powder formulation that could eliminate the need for ultracold storage, chief scientific officer Mikael Dolsten told Business Insider. That formulation, storable via refrigeration, could roll out as early as next year, he added. Story
On Monday, as strong efficacy data on Pfizer's shot raised the company's shares nearly 8%, CEO Albert Bourla sold off 132,508 shares, more than 60% of his total holdings, for $5.6 million. Bourla sold the shares under a SEC rule that allows company insiders to arrange stock sales in advance, before they have access to "material nonpublic information." Story
Kaiser Health News posed a slate of questions about Pfizer's vaccine after Monday's data reveal. The length of immunity conferred by the shot and its efficacy in at-risk groups topped the list. KHN also wondered whether a quick authorization could derail ongoing trials of other candidates, among other things.
More than a few people are struggling with the name for Eli Lilly's antibody therapy bamlanivimab, which won an emergency OK on Tuesday in non-hospitalized COVID patients at high risk of severe disease. The tongue-twisting drug name even received some gentle ribbing on Fallon Tonight:
Meanwhile, Qiagen teamed up with cell therapy-focused startup TScan Therapeutics to develop a COVID-19 diagnostic designed to offer a comprehensive profile of a person's immune response to the disease. TScan will pivot its genome-based, high throughput discovery platform for parsing T-cell receptors to determine how those immune cells react to COVID-19. By focusing on T cells rather than antibodies'--which may diminish over time'--TScan figures its test could offer a more reliable way to screen for the virus over a longer period after infection. Story
UPDATED: Wednesday, Nov. 11 at 9:30 a.m. ET
Pfizer and BioNTech clinched a deal to supply 200 million doses of their experimental vaccine to the EU, with an option for another 100 million doses. The partners will crank out shots at BioNTech's German manufacturing sites and Pfizer's production site in Belgium, and aim to start deliveries by year-end, should the vaccine pass muster in the clinic. Story
And if everything goes to plan with Pfizer's data submission, the U.S. could start immunizing people in December, Health Secretary Alex Azar said. Pfizer expects to have safety data for an emergency nod as early as next week. After authorization, the U.S. would receive around 20 million doses per month and aim to vaccinate nursing home residents, healthcare workers and first responders by the end of January.
WHO director general Tedros Ghebreyesus welcomed "promising news" on the efficacy of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, while reiterating the agency's commitment to fair distribution of an eventual shot. Ultracold storage requirements for the partners' mRNA-based vaccine have raised concerns about access in low- and middle-income regions. Meanwhile, the shot "presages significant cold-chain challenges for African countries," the WHO's regional director for Africa said.
And the Indian government ought to hammer out a vaccine distribution strategy to ensure Pfizer's shot is made widely available, lawmaker Rahul Gandhi said Wednesday. For its part, Pfizer is "exploring opportunities" to make the shot available in-country, the drugmaker told Business Standard. The country's health secretary confirmed India was in talks with Pfizer and said it could could strengthen its cold-chain capacity for the vaccine.
Rural hospitals in the U.S. also lack funds to secure the ultracold freezers needed to store Pfizer's vaccine, Stat reports. The CDC has recommended against state health departments purchasing the high-end freezers, given that other shots with less stringent storage requirements are likely on the way. Meanwhile, areas with smaller populations may struggle to use up Pfizer's 1,000-to-5,000 dose shipments before they expire. Pfizer, for its part, is working on smaller-dose shipments for 2021.
Plus, states say they still lack government funding necessary to meet widespread vaccination goals in the U.S. The CDC in September announced $200 million in grants designed to support shot planning, while organizations representing state health officials and immunization managers have called for around $8.4 billion more, the Chicago Tribune reports. Among the mounting costs states will face? Securing ultracold freezers, setting up and staffing vaccination centers, running vaccination messaging campaigns and more.
Meanwhile, the technology behind Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine may have lasting effects beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. "It provides a glidepath for using mRNA technology for other vaccines, including cancer, autoimmune disorders, and other infectious diseases, as well as vehicles for genetic therapies," said Peter Hotez, vaccine researcher and dean at Baylor's National School of Tropical Medicine. "It really does help accelerate the whole biomedical field."
New daily cases in the U.S. passed 139,000 yesterday as COVID-19 hospitalizations hit an all-time high of 61,964, The New York Times reports. The country is now averaging more than 111,000 new cases per day, according to The Times' database.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 3:12 p.m. ET
CureVac, advancing an mRNA vaccine candidate, unveiled more data showing that the vaccine triggers potentially protective immune responses. Still it isn't known whether the vaccine can match the high efficacy bar just hit by Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine in interim data, and tolerability questions linger. Story
Investigators paused a trial of a vaccine in development by China's Sinovac after a participant died in Brazil. A source told Reuters the death was a suicide. FierceBiotech story | Reuters story
After Pfizer unveiled positive interim findings for its mRNA vaccine Monday, HHS secretary Alex Azar said in network interviews the government has plans in place to begin vaccinations next month and into January, contingent on a review of the data and regulatory recommendations. Reuters story
Four months after launching, Massachusetts biotech Adagio Therapeutics scored an $80 million series B to push its COVID-19 antibody into the clinic next year. FierceBiotech story
UPDATED: Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 9:15 a.m. ET
Amid ongoing hype'--and questioning'--about Pfizer's vaccine results, CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC he'd be willing to get the vaccine first to ease concerns about its risk-benefit profile'--but he's not sure that would be ethical given other populations might need it more. Forbes story
Pfizer partnered with Germany's BioNTech to advance the vaccine, which was originally developed by the husband-and-wife duo of Ugur Sahin and Oezlem Tuereci. Both are the children of Turkish immigrants. Reuters story
As it was advancing the program, Pfizer prioritized transparency, diversity and funding independence. There are numerous reasons behind those decisions, including vaccine skepticism, a failed historical experiment and more, outlined in a new Marketplace article.
Since Pfizer unveiled the results in a Monday press release, scientists have been pushing for more details. The "encouraging" figures are still the "earliest of results possible," Mayo Clinic vaccine researcher Gregory Poland told Reuters. It also isn't clear yet how well the vaccine protects older trial participants, whether it reduces severe disease or how long protection lasts. Another vaccine expert, Peter Hotez, told Science it's "always hard to read the tea leaves of a company press release." Reuters story | Calgary Herald story | Science story
While the vaccine data are "very good news," science writer Laurie Garrett pointed out that serious concerns remain, including the pandemic's current resurgence in the U.S. and the lame-duck leadership in federal government. Plus, there's much more to learn about the vaccine given the current state of the research.
President Donald Trump on Twitter alleged Pfizer waited to share the early data until after the election. Bourla, for his part, told CNN the company delivered the news "when the science told us the data was available." Business Insider story
The vaccine is expected to reach different countries at different time. India's Economic Times reports that country won't see it "anytime soon" and that ultracold temperature requirements would make it tough for a national immunization strategy there. The U.S., U.K. and other countries have placed advanced orders, the report says. Story
In China, Fosun Pharma's stock price soared after the news on hopes that the company will be able to launch the shot there. The drugmaker is partnered with BioNTech and may be able to launch after a bridging study, the South China Morning Post reports.
After efforts to re-purpose medicines and manufacture needed drugs to help fight the pandemic, Africa's Aspen is pivoting to focus on vaccines. The company recently signed on to help manufacture Johnson & Johnson's candidate. Bloomberg story
And as Novavax pushes forward with its late-stage candidate, the company is moving to raise $500 million through stock sales. The biotech recently picked up an FDA fast track designation.
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 9 at 3:28 p.m. ET
After Pfizer reported promising efficacy data for its vaccine, experts and analysts started weighing how other companies might fare with their own programs. Because Moderna is also advancing an mRNA program, the company is in a solid position with its mRNA-1273, experts said.
The Pfizer results "provide strong validation" of the mRNA vaccine platform, Chardan analyst Geulah Livshits wrote to clients. The biotech's vaccine has less restrictive cold chain requirements than Pfizer's does, so its program wouldn't necessarily need to meet the 90% efficacy mark to be used widely, the analyst wrote. In all, the Pfizer news is an "important positive read-across" for Moderna given the biotech's significant investment in its mRNA vaccine franchise.
Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID, also said the Pfizer news bodes well for Moderna. Speaking with Stat, Fauci said Moderna "will likely have similar results."
Still, Evercore ISI analyst Josh Schimmer said the mRNA vaccines take longer to scale up than the subunit adjuvant program at Novavax and the viral vector program from AstraZeneca. The "right mix of approved vaccines" could mean adequate supply for the U.S. and well beyond" by next year's first quarter, he said. But if it's all up to mRNA vaccine players to deliver the needed doses, it could be the third quarter before adequate supplies are available.
Meanwhile, positive vaccine news could raise questions for companies working on leading COVID-19 therapeutics. Gilead, Eli Lilly and Regeneron are key players, and Barclays analysts wrote that the Pfizer news ''should raise further questions around the mid-to-long-term durability" of revenue from potential coronavirus therapeutics. The analysts noted that drugs will still be needed even after vaccines launch. Story
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 9 at 9:23 a.m. ET
Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, boasted more than 90% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in patients without prior evidence of infection, interim data from the partners' phase 3 showed. That number could change as more data roll in, Pfizer said. The interim analysis covered 94 patients; the company will need to submit data on 164 patients and build up at least two months' worth of safety data before it can file for an emergency nod, potentially around Thanksgiving. Story
Novavax's recombinant nanoparticle-based vaccine won fast track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The drugmaker aims to kick off late-stage trials in the U.S. and Mexico by the end of November and expects an ongoing phase 3 in the U.K. to complete enrollment in that same timeframe. Interim data from that trial could be ready as early as the first quarter of 2021, Novavax said.
President-elect Joe Biden plans to convene a 12-member coronavirus task force Monday, led by former surgeon general Vivek Murthy and ex-FDA commissioner David Kessler. Biden has already set forward a number of COVID-19 goals, including doubling the number of drive-through testing sites, establishing a U.S. public health job corps and boosting production of masks, face shields and other protective equipment.
Plus, some Biden advisers have already met with drug and vaccine makers that are part of the government's Warp Speed program, Bloomberg reports. According to the news service's sources, advisers told the companies that his administration wouldn't want to disrupt the program's work in getting new drugs and vaccines to market. Instead, it wants to be ready to help when Biden moves into the Oval Office.
Serum Institute of India has produced up to 30 million vials of AstraZeneca's vaccine hopeful, dubbed Covishield in-country, the joint commissioner of the Pune division of the Food and Drug Administration said. The company is now seeking an emergency license for the shot. Results from an Indian phase 3 are expected by year-end, and Serum Institute has kicked off production to meet demand ahead of an authorization.
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca agreed to supply around 22 million vaccine doses to Argentina, with plans to start distributing the shots in the first half of 2021. That delivery timeframe is subject to the success of ongoing trials and local regulatory approval, AZ said in a statement circulated by the Argentine government Saturday.
Sanofi, Eli Lilly Korea and Roche Korea are tapping their early retirement programs to scale back sales forces amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Korea Biomedical Review reported. The move comes as more drugmakers turn to digital sales tools'--a transition already in the works back in 2019 and accelerated by the pandemic. Specifically, Sanofi plans to encourage some of its chronic disease sales reps to choose early retirement, while Lilly aims to dial back drug reps in the country by 20%.
UPDATED: Friday, Nov. 6 at 9:19 a.m. ET
Novartis' arthritis med Ilaris, also known as canakinumab, failed to keep seriously ill patients off ventilators and didn't beat standard of care at preventing deaths, phase 3 data showed. The trial tested the drug in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and cytokine release syndrome. Novartis is also testing Jakafi against the disease and joined forces with Molecular Partners in October to develop two DARPin therapies as potential treatments.
AstraZeneca plans to bring ex-U.S. vaccine data before the FDA once it obtains results from its British, South African or Brazilian trials'--even if those data precede a readout from the drugmaker's U.S. phase 3, EVP of biopharmaceuticals R&D Mene Pangalos told Reuters. The FDA has set expectations for safety and efficacy, but hasn't said those data must come from U.S. studies, Pangalos said, adding that an approval would be unlikely to disrupt its ongoing stateside trial.
The U.K.'s Recovery Trial on Friday started investigating aspirin to see whether the cheap and widely-available drug could reduce the risk of blood clots in hospitalized COVID patients. The trial expects to dose at least 2,000 patients with aspirin plus standard of care and will primarily assess mortality after 28 days. The researchers are also curious whether the drug can reduce the length of hospitalization and need for ventilation.
Regeneron is optimistic the FDA will authorize its antibody cocktail but still doesn't know the timeline for that decision, CEO Leonard Schleifer said on a Thursday earnings call. The company earlier this year said clinical data showed the drug reduced medical visits in patients with mild or moderate disease. Regeneron could make about 80,000 doses available by the end of this month and have 300,000 doses ready by the end of January, the company said. Story
Amgen staffers who have worked remotely since March will continue to work from home until the end of June 2021, Judy Brown, SVP and site head at Amgen's global headquarters, said in an email obtained by Acorn. Brown reasoned that the Greater Los Angeles area, where the company is based, is unlikely to see a drop in cases before spring, adding that a vaccine probably wouldn't become available during that timeframe, either.
UPDATED: Thursday, Nov. 5 at 3:55 p.m. ET
Hologic's revenue may have slipped last quarter, but its COVID-19 testing business has continued to soar, helping the company net more than $1.3 billion in sales in the final quarter of its 2020 fiscal year. The company's molecular diagnostics division alone managed to pull $818.9 million for the period'--almost as much as the $865.8 million in total revenues Hologic made during the last quarter of 2019. Story
Children with COVID-19 produce fewer, weaker antibodies than adults, a study published in Nature Immunology found. While both adults and children in the study produced COVID-19 antibodies, children mainly produced one kind, called IgG, which binds to the virus' spike protein. Adults, meanwhile, made multiple types of antibodies'--better than IgG at neutralizing the virus'--that bound to the spike protein and other viral proteins, too.
Contract research organization Parexel teamed up with bioanalytics firm Synexa Life Sciences and blood-drawing specialist Drawbridge Health to offer Synexa's serology test, which can help identify whether a person has had a virus such as SARS-CoV-2, and Drawbridge's OneDraw remote blood collection device to customers as part of the company's myriad COVID-19 projects and trials. Parexel cited an "urgent need" for accurate serology testing that also limits risk of exposure to COVID-19'--which it thinks its new pact can deliver on. Story
The time has come for the U.S. to develop a testing strategy to track asymptomatic spread of COVID-19, CDC director Robert Redfield said. The CDC in August issued a recommendation that people who had come into close contact with an infected person didn't necessarily need to get tested unless they were at higher risk of infection or severe disease. The agency changed its tune in September, urging anyone who has been in close contact with an infected individual to get tested, even if they don't display symptoms.
An oversight panel called for changes at the World Health Organization, stressing that it was essential the agency maintain "neutrality and political independence." The panel urged the U.N. agency to establish a graded system to "alert and engage the wider international community at an earlier stage in a health crisis," and also said the WHO's Emergency Program is in "a constant struggle to mobilize resources, with staff forced to juggle competing priorities simultaneously."
UPDATED: Thursday, Nov. 5 at 9:30 a.m. ET
AstraZeneca is poised to supply "hundreds of millions" of vaccine doses on a rolling basis once its shot is authorized, CEO Pascal Soriot told Bloomberg, despite delays in early U.K. shipments. Soriot added that a recent resurgence in cases had enabled scientists to gather necessary clinical data. A day earlier, Kate Bingham, chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, had said just 4 million AZ doses would be ready by year-end in the U.K., rather than the 30 million doses the drugmaker had hoped to deliver by September.
Chile's drug regulator green lighted a clinical trial of AstraZeneca's vaccine, the country's President, Sebastian Pinera, said. The AZ study joins a Chilean trial of Johnson & Johnson's shot, plus a separate test of Sinovac's pandemic hopeful. The country has penned a deal for 10 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's shot and is looking to ink similar agreements with AstraZeneca, J&J and Sinovac, Pinera said. Elsewhere, Peru said J&J and AZ would kick off vaccine trials in the country next week.
And Bangladesh locked down 30 million AstraZeneca doses through Serum Institute of India (SII). The country will purchase 5 million doses from SII per month through Bangladeshi drugmaker Beximco, provided the shot is cleared by regulators, the country's health minister said.
The World Health Organization is going all-in on monoclonal antibodies, dexamethasone and repurposed meds'--but not Gilead's Veklury (remdesivir)'--in its scheme to provide COVID-19 drugs to low-income countries, an internal document obtained by Reuters showed. Unitaid, a health partnership co-leading the effort, confirmed that the scheme would not include Veklury, though it didn't comment on the reason for excluding the antiviral. A WHO trial reported in October found Gilead's drug offered little benefit in COVID-19 patients; Gilead has disputed those findings.
The U.S. charted more than 107,800 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, according to The New York Times, setting a grim record for daily infections. Meanwhile, Maine, Minnesota, Indiana, Nebraska and Colorado also hit single-day case records.
Bharat Biotech could launch its shot as early as February, jumping ahead of its previously stated second-quarter rollout goal, a senior scientist at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) told Reuters. Bharat plans to kick off a late-stage study of its shot, Covaxin, this month. ''It is expected that by the beginning of next year, February or March, something would be available," he added.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Nov. 4 at 3:00 p.m. ET
Britain will receive an estimated 4 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine by year-end, rather than the 30 million doses AZ had hoped to supply by September, UK Vaccine Taskforce chief Kate Bingham told lawmakers Wednesday. Earlier in the day, the chief investigator of the University of Oxford's vaccine trial said he was "optimistic" that AZ could deliver late-stage trial data before year-end, adding that doses were already in production. The U.K. in May penned a deal for 100 million doses of AZ's shot, which should now be available in the first half of 2021, Bingham said.
Russia aims to provide its citizens with tens of millions of doses of its Sputnik V vaccine by year-end, but production and quality control hurdles may deflate that number, The Bell reported. "We can't stabilize the vaccine, no one yet can," an unnamed exec at one of the Gamaleya Institute's four Russian manufacturing partners told the news outlet. Meanwhile, vaccine batches frequently miss the institute's quality control bar and attempts to launch bioreactors at scale have been "generally unsuccessful."
A COVID-19 breathalyzer test from Singapore's Breathonix achieved at least 90% accuracy when screening participants on-site for 60 seconds, the company said. An ongoing pilot study in 180 people showed an overall sensitivity of 93% and a specificity of 95%. The test, which uses a one-way valve and disposable mouthpiece, could be used for mass screening in high-traffic areas, Breathonix figures. Story
BD inked a contract with the Dutch Ministry of Health to supply an initial 1.2 million units of its rapid antigen diagnostic, the hand-held Veritor Plus system, this month, with another 8 million slated for delivery to the Netherlands by June of next year. The portable, point-of-care system won an emergency coronavirus nod from the FDA in July and a CE mark in September. Story
The FDA on Tuesday warned healthcare professionals that antigen tests could deliver false positives if users fail to follow instructions. The regulator encouraged labs to perform follow-up testing with a molecular assay when appropriate and cautioned that improper storage, failure to read testing results at the correct time and cross-contamination could all lead to inaccurate readouts. The warning follows reports of false positives from antigen tests in nursing homes and other healthcare settings.
UPDATED: Wednesday, Nov. 4 at 9:12 a.m. ET
Australia locked down 40 million vaccine doses from Novavax, plus 10 million doses from Pfizer and BioNTech, bringing the country's total vaccine investment up to more than $3.2 billion. If the shots win approval, they're expected to become available in Australia during the first half of 2021. The country earlier this year secured doses from AstraZeneca and the University of Queensland.
China's Fosun Pharma stopped development on BioNTech's first COVID-19 vaccine and will instead seek Chinese approval for the German shot maker's second candidate, currently in late-stage testing in the U.S. Fosun aims to run a bridging study that may enable it to use global data on the second candidate, BNT162b2. Pfizer and BioNTech chose that shot as their phase 2/3 candidate after it turned up a lower rate of side effects than their first prospect. Story
Speaking of Pfizer and BioNTech, the chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, Kate Bingham, is hopeful that strong interim data from the mRNA partners, plus AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, will emerge in early December, potentially teeing up a vaccine rollout before year-end.
For its part, the University of Oxford is "optimistic" that it could unveil late-stage results on its AstraZeneca-partnered shot this year, said chief investigator of the university's vaccine trial, Andrew Pollard. As for whether the shot might be available before Christmas, "[there] is a small chance of that being possible but I just don't know," he said, adding that a shot would not be a panacea. ''We will still have people getting this virus because it is just too good at transmitting.'' Story
In people with symptomatic COVID-19, Quidel's rapid Sofia test was able to detect more than 80% of cases found by the slower, gold-standard PCR test'--but when Quidel's test was used to randomly screen asymptomatic patients, it only picked up 32% of infections caught by the PCR method, a University of Arizona study found. It's possible the rapid test missed asymptomatic cases ID'd by the lab test because those people were carrying too little of the virus to spread it to others, one study author said.
The U.S. FDA ordered NovaBay Pharmaceuticals to stop claiming that its Avenova antimicrobial eyelid and eyelash spray can kill the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The company's website asserts that "an independent third-party laboratory study" confirmed its spray can fully inactivate the virus and recommends using it to eliminate airborne respiratory droplets. In a warning letter, the FDA pointed out that the NovaBay spray has no human data to back it up.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Nov. 3 at 3:16 p.m. ET
While most vaccine makers will pass their shots off to McKesson for U.S. distribution, Pfizer is taking matters into its own hands, Tanya Alcorn, VP for biopharma global supply chain at the company, said. Pfizer has developed a GPS and temperature-tracked thermal cooler to help transport its vaccine, along with a control tower that provides real-time alerts if temperatures deviate or a shipment runs late. Still, some officials remain concerned that vaccination centers won't have the cold-storage capabilities to house Pfizer's shot. Story
T cell immunity to the coronavirus may outlast antibodies in patients who've recovered from COVID-19, a recent U.K. study showed. Analyzing the blood of 100 patients six months after they had asymptomatic or mild disease, researchers found that while antibody levels dropped in some patients, T cell response endured. T cell response was also higher in patients who displayed symptoms while infected.
61,000 new coronavirus cases cropped up in children last week, more than any previous week in the pandemic, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reported. Severe illness due to COVID-19 in children is rare, but there is an "urgent need" to collect more data on the long-term impact of the disease in kids, AAP said.
Colorado State University is using the fecal matter and pooled spit of undergraduates to catch COVID-19 cases early, Kaiser Health News reports. The school's sewage review follows emerging research suggesting people shed the virus in feces early in their infections. The school is also conducting "paired" pooling of saliva samples, which allows testing of multiple samples at once without the need for much retesting if a pool of samples turns up positive.
UPDATED: Tuesday, Nov. 3 at 9:30 a.m. ET
Advocacy group Public Citizen urged Gilead Sciences to give up the priority review voucher it earned alongside its FDA approval of Veklury, also known as remdesivir. The voucher can be used to speed up FDA review time for another drug or sold'--and previous sales have netted hundreds of millions of dollars. Public Citizen called the incentive "unnecessary" and "inappropriate" given Gilead's expected Veklury sales. Story
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will fund development of Clover Biopharmaceuticals' protein-based S-Trimer vaccine through a global phase 2/3 trial, bringing its total investment in the program to upward of $328 million. Beyond the upcoming efficacy trial, pegged to start before year-end, CEPI's investment will fund studies in people with autoimmune conditions, children, pregnant women and more. If the shot clears the clinic, Clover and CEPI aim to make hundreds of millions of doses available per year through the WHO's Covax effort. Story
Israel dosed the first two patients in a phase 1 trial of its coronavirus vaccine, Brilife, developed by the Israel Institute for Biological Research. A phase 2 trial that seeks to enroll 960 healthy volunteers is expected to kick off in December, while a 30,000-person phase 3 is pegged to start in April or May 2021 if warranted.
The pandemic is entering a new, "deadly phase," White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx said in a private memo to White House officials obtained by The Washington Post. Birx called for consistent messaging about masks, hand-washing and social distancing. It's not about lockdowns, she wrote, but rather, "an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented.'' Her comments put her at odds with President Donald Trump, who says the nation is "rounding the corner" on the pandemic.
Scientists at the University of Washington School of Medicine developed a nanoparticle vaccine candidate that sparked neutralizing antibody levels in mice ten times higher than those seen in recovered patients'--and at a much lower dose than required for vaccination with the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The University licensed its candidate to Icosavax for further study. Amgen agreed to manufacture a key intermediate for initial R&D while South Korea's SK Bioscience advances its own studies on the shot.
South Korea's new minister for food and drug safety, Kim Gang-lip, made his first goal to "mobilize our regulatory capacity as much as possible to help develop a Covid-19 treatment and vaccine that people can trust.'' Kim also aims to boost the Korean drug regulator's global competitiveness and is seeking "international regulatory harmonization."
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 2 at 3:20 a.m. ET
CureVac aims to build an mRNA vaccine that generates a balanced immune response similar to the body's natural reaction, and now it's armed with interim phase 1 data supporting that goal. In the dose escalation study, CureVac's highest 12-microgram dose'--pegged to advance into a phase 2b/3'--raised binding and neutralizing antibody levels to those seen in a set of 67 seriously ill COVID-19 patients, the company said. Story
Pfizer and Bristol Myers Squibb launched a new campaign to promote doctor visits amid the pandemic. "No Time to Wait," which covers broadcast and streaming TV and radio, as well as digital and social media, focuses on three conditions: atrial fibrillation, deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, all treated by the partner's anticoagulant Eliquis. Story
Johnson & Johnson's weekly video series, "The Road to a Vaccine," has racked up more than 100 million views since launching in April. Hosted by journalist Lisa Ling, the show features J&J researchers and execs, public health officials and advocates in conversation about vaccine development, mental health, racial disparities and more. ''At the end of the day, science is about society, and society has to understand the processes of science,''J&J communications exec Seema Kumar said of the series during Fierce Pharma Marketing's Digital Pharma Innovation Week. Story
Massachusetts-based biotech incubator LabCentral, together with lab facility provider BioLabs, launched the Cambridge Consortium for Rapid COVID-19 Tests (CCRCT) to assess and validate COVID-19 diagnostics that people can use at home. CCRCT last month started a trial of a 15-minute, self-administered antigen test made by LabCentral alum E25Bio. Story
Hologic snared a $119 million contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense to help expand production facilities in three states, with the goal to provide 13 million COVID tests per month by January 2022. The company's Panther Fusion and Aptima SARS-CoV-2 assays won emergency nods in March and May, respectively, and the FDA in September OK'd Hologic's Panther Fusion test to screen asymptomatic patients. Story
Novavax inked a 15-year lease for about 122,000-square-feet of offices in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for manufacturing, office space and R&D, while an affiliate of the company bought 9.7 acres in Gaithersburg for future development. Novavax has scored up to $2 billion from the U.S. government and CEPI for its COVID-19 vaccine program; the company's shot is currently in late-stage testing in the U.K. and a large phase 3 trial in the U.S. and Mexico is set to kick off later this month. Story
Fifty-nine percent of Russians say they wouldn't get the country's Sputnik V vaccine, an October poll from Russia's Levada Center showed. That number rose from 54% of respondents unwilling to get the shot in August. Meanwhile, just 31% of people polled in October said they would get the shot, down nearly nine percentage points from August. Levada polled 1,601 Russians between Oct. 22 and Oct. 28.
UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 2 at 9:15 a.m. ET
Johnson & Johnson hopes to start testing its vaccine in children ages 12 to 18 as soon as possible, said Jerry Sadoff, a vaccine research scientist at J&J's Janssen unit. The company could eventually test its shot in even younger children, Sadoff said. The vaccine platform J&J's using for its COVID-19 shot, AdVac, is also used in an Ebola vaccine that's been given to infants, children and pregnant women.
Africa's biggest drugmaker, Aspen Pharmacare, struck a preliminary deal to produce Johnson & Johnson's vaccine in South Africa. The company would carry out manufacturing and packaging work at its Port Elizabeth plant, which boasts capacity for 300 million doses a year, if the shot snares regulatory approval in the country.
The UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) awarded £1.5 million ($1.9 million) to GenPact for an artificial intelligence tool to process potential side effects and safety signals from an approved vaccine. Based on historical vaccination data, the MHRA expects to see between 50,000 and 100,000 side effect reports for every 100 million doses administered over a six to 12 month span.
Bharat Biotech aims to launch its vaccine hopeful in the second quarter of 2021, pending an approval in India, the company's executive director said. The shot, Covaxin, has a ways to go: Bharat expects to kick off recruitment for a phase 3 trial this month.
At a rally early Monday morning, President Donald Trump floated the possibility of firing the nation's top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, after the election. During the event, Trump once again said the country has "turned the corner" on the pandemic. But in a Washington Post article published Saturday, Fauci said the U.S. "could not be positioned more poorly" ahead of the winter. Story
The U.S. needs to make an "abrupt change" in public health practices and behaviors to counter the pandemic, Anthony Fauci told The Washington Post. The coronavirus task force is meeting infrequently and has much less influence with the President now, Fauci said. And the NIAID chief said Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist who has become Trump's favored pandemic advisor is "a smart guy who's talking about things that I believe he doesn't have any real insight or knowledge or experience in."
Meanwhile, Thanksgiving will be a COVID-19 "inflection point," former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said. "There are about 23 states that are accelerating the spread right now," he added. It's unlikely that the entire country would lock down again, as Europe is doing, though Gottlieb said he expects states to take local action as hospitals become overwhelmed.
The U.K.'s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy came to the defense of Kate Bingham, chair of the country's vaccine task force, after The Sunday Times published an article alleging she had disclosed "sensitive" information about U.K. investments in COVID vaccines and therapeutics. Her presentation, for a U.S. women's conference, had been cleared by the government, the department said, and Bingham said little that experts at the conference couldn't deduce themselves.
Siberia-based drugmaker Pharmasyntez asked the Russian government for permission to produce a generic version of Gilead Sciences' Veklury, or remdesivir, despite lacking a patent or license. The drugmaker wrote to Gilead in July but did not hear back, and it is now asking the Russian government for a compulsory license, which would allow it to make a remdesivir generic without Gilead's OK.
Editor's note: This article was corrected to show that the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, not BIA, issued the statement about Kate Bingham.
Read our prior COVID-19 news here >>
Oregon Health Authority reports five new deaths related to COVID-19, 678 new cases | | kptv.com
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 13:29
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US Delivers Military Cargo to Ukraine as it Hypes Russian Military Movements - News From Antiwar.com
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 13:29
While hyping the movement of Russian troops near the border with Ukraine, the US has delivered multiple military shipments to Kyiv.
A Newsweek report that cited local media said that over the past two weeks, the US had made three military cargo deliveries to Ukraine. On March 25th, 350 tonnes of cargo was delivered by ship to the Black Sea port city of Odessa in southern Ukraine. Included in the delivery were 35 Humvees.
On April 2nd, a US Air Force C-17A Globemaster III military transport aircraft flew to Kyiv from a US base in Germany. On April 4th, another C-17A Globemaster III landed in the western city of Lviv. It's not clear what the planes were carrying, but the C-17A Globemaster IIIs can transport up to 102 troops and 77 tons of cargo.
Since the US-backed coup in Kyiv in 2014 that sparked the fighting in the eastern Donbas region, the US has provided Ukraine with more than $2 billion in military aid. The Pentagon recently announced a new $125 million package for Ukraine that includes armed patrol boats, and another $150 million is expected to be provided sometime this year.
The news of the military deliveries come as tensions in the region are skyrocketing. Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky is calling for Ukraine to become a full-fledged member of NATO and is traveling to the conflict zone in Donbas on Thursday.
Cicada: The Other, Other White Meat - The Washington Post - 2004
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 13:09
When buzzing hordes of 17-year cicadas rise from the earth next month, some people will marvel, some will cower, some will shrug their shoulders.
Jacques Tiziou, a Frenchman-turned-American who lives in a tree-fringed colonial in Northwest, will gather as many as he can, eating a few right away and saving the rest for later. Silver-bearded and gentle of disposition, he speaks in accented English that makes even bugs sound irresistible.
"You're going to grab one and put it in your mouth alive," he says with a twinkle in his eye. "You have to."
Tiziou offers a guest two ways of consuming a few of the cicadas he still has in his freezer from 1987, the year of their last emergence in the Washington area. Some he sautes, leaving them enrobed in parsley and butter. And some he presents plain, black things about as big as the top half of your pinky, wingless but still leggy, on a little white saucer.
Cicada-eating has a long history on this continent. The original inhabitants ate them. The current population is less enthralled, or maybe less hungry. Either way, some people are trying to revive human cicada consumption.
At Fahrenheit, a restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Georgetown, cicadas almost made the menu this year. "The soft-shelled cicada, it's done just like a soft-shelled crab," says executive chef Frank Belosic, describing how freshly molted cicadas should be rolled in flour, pan-fried in olive oil, and finished with a sauce of white wine, butter and shallots. Served as an appetizer, the dish would have cost diners $10 or so.
"Higher-ups," Belosic adds, crushed the idea, in order not "to scare people away."
Such is the hard slog of the enterprising American entomophage -- the eater of insects. In many parts of the world, people ingest bugs with regularity and even delight. In Western countries, insect-eating triggers the gag reflex.
Consider Kara Watkins, a waitress from Modesto, Calif., who consumed three live potato bugs on an April episode of NBC's "Fear Factor" as her co-contestants giggled convulsively.
"They were freaky-looking," she says of her six-legged snacks in an interview on the show's Web site. "They were huge. I didn't want them to bite me so I bit off their heads first and then popped in their bodies. They tasted like vomit."
"They're totally in the process of making things look yucky," sighs David George Gordon, a science writer in Port Townsend, Wash., and the author of "The Eat-A-Bug Cookbook." For him, insects are items of haute cuisine, and the cicadas about to emerge in the eastern United States should be considered a delicacy. "They have a nutty flavor," he says, "almost like a pistachio nut."
Gordon's cookbook offers a recipe for cicada-topped pizza. As an accompaniment, he suggests a crisp chardonnay or a semillon blanc. He also recommends you begin drinking as you cook, "to fortify yourself."
Although Americans are gradually increasing their intentional insect intake -- a few bug parts get into everything from apple butter to wheat flour -- the practice remains more a matter of novelty than nutrition. But when the billions of cicadas belonging to Brood X (the X stands for 10) leave their underground habitats next month, people who want to taste a bug may find their garage doors laden with opportunities.
The brood is one of 15 batches of periodical cicadas, a set of species unique to the eastern United States. The insects spend 13 or 17 years underground before emerging into a cacophonous adulthood that lasts only a few weeks and consists of mating, egg-laying and dying. Entomologists expect the cicadas to emerge in the District and about 15 states beginning in mid- to late May.
The males will create their trademark din, and cicadas of both sexes may startle and annoy the people in their midst, but the insects do not sting or bite. For many birds, mammals and reptiles, the cicadas will provide weeks of meals.
Experienced cicada-eaters advise would-be entomophages to be alert for the mass emergence that will begin one May evening, when nymphs -- as many as 1.5 million per acre -- will crawl out of the soil and head for a vertical surface, usually a tree.
There they will molt, taking about an hour to squeeze out of their dust-colored skins. Once they have broken free, it is your moment to strike: Pluck the creamy white adults off the trees. Gather as many as you desire for the culinary adventures ahead. Admire their red eyes and furled wings.
Do hurry. The exoskeletons of the newly molted adults will turn black within about 12 hours and harden over the next couple days. Once that happens, the cicadas remain eminently edible but they lose their soft-shell cachet. They're also easier to apprehend in their just-molted stage.
If you don't want to eat your cicadas right off the tree, cookbook author Gordon recommends placing your bounty in the freezer. "It's a dignified death; they drift off into a deep sleep and never feel any pain," he says.
With your cicada supply on ice, the options unfold.
Native Americans dry roasted them using fire-heated rocks. John Zyla, an amateur naturalist in Ridge, in southern St. Mary's County, suggests laying a few dozen on a cookie sheet and baking them in a 350-degree oven for five minutes.
Then serve with toothpicks and a selection of condiments for dipping, ranging from sweet to savory: chocolate sauce, honey, melted cheese, ketchup, mustard. Viola: cicada fondue.
The females, loaded with eggs, are more of a bite than the males, whose abdomens are largely hollow, in part because of the anatomical structures that allow them to make noise. Zyla likens the dry-roasted males to an "air-puffed Cheeto."
Some purists simply boil cicadas for a minute or two, in order to better appreciate their flavor. Other entomophages recommend stir-frying them; they will absorb the flavors of the rest of the dish. Some aficionados like their cicadas battered and deep-fried.
Grubco Inc., a Fairfield, Ohio, company that is one of the nation's leading suppliers of edible insects, reports that human consumption is rising. Company President Dale Cochran estimates that he sells 20,000 crickets, mealworms and wax worms every week to people who will eat the insects or serve them to others. A decade ago, he sold a quarter as many bugs for human consumption. "It goes in cycles," he says. "The 'Fear Factor' show has kind of increased demand, and at Halloween time we get quite a few people ordering them."
"The overall idea of eating insects is probably more widely accepted than it was 20 years ago in the U.S.," adds Tom Turpin, professor of entomology at Purdue University and founder of the Bug Bowl, an annual festival focused on insects that begins today in West Lafayette, Ind.
More than 30,000 people were expected to attend this year's two-day event, three times the number that showed up five years ago. Thousands of Bug Bowl-goers consume a stir-fried mealworm or a chocolate-dipped grasshopper.
Still, persuading people to eat a bug isn't easy. "We've all grown up to think of insects as basically the enemy," says Michael Schauff, a research entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Not so in Asia, where Thais munch on fried grasshoppers and Japanese eat the rice grasshopper known as hashi, a practice that curbs the need to use pesticides in the paddies. Africans adore locusts and many varieties of caterpillars. Many people in Central and South America consume ants, grasshoppers, stink beetles, and, well, the list is long.
Bug-eating enthusiasts suggest that Americans should include a few more insects in their diet. At a time when the safety of many sources of protein -- from beef to salmon -- is being called into question, insects offer an alternative. Shrimp and lobsters, part of the same biological phylum that includes bugs, are essentially sea insects. No one thinks twice about spreading toast with honey, known among wise-cracking entomologists as "bee vomit."
"If we broadened our palate," says Gordon, "we'd have a much better time of surviving in large numbers."
Chez Tiziou, the buffet awaits. "By itself, [a cicada] doesn't have much taste, you know," he says.
He's right. His delightful parsley-and-garlic butter certainly perks up the insect's gastronomic appeal. Served plain, cicadas have more crunch than flavor.
Once they're in the mouth, the unmistakable feeling is one of anticlimax. In the end, a cicada is just another creature available for the eating. And like anything else that's been frozen for 17 years, the plain ones taste like freezer.
Jacques Tiziou of Northwest likes to enjoy cicadas raw, or sauteed in butter and parsley.
Empty Middle Seats on Planes Cut Coronavirus Risk in Study - The New York Times
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 11:29
Health | Empty middle seats reduce virus risk on planes, a new study says, taking no account of mask-wearing. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/health/covid-plane-middle-seat.html The study used aerosol dispersal data from before the coronavirus pandemic that did not take into account any protective effect of masks worn by passengers. Credit... Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times Keeping the middle seats vacant during a flight could reduce passengers' exposure to airborne coronavirus by 23 to 57 percent, researchers reported in a new study that modeled how aerosolized viral particles spread through a simulated airplane cabin.
''Farther is always better in terms of exposure,'' said Byron Jones, a mechanical engineer at Kansas Sate University and co-author of the study. ''It's true in airplanes, it's true in movie theaters, it's true in restaurants, it's true everywhere.''
But the study may have overestimated the benefits of empty middle seats because it did not take into account mask-wearing by passengers.
''It's important for us to know how aerosols spread in airplanes,'' said Joseph Allen, a ventilation expert at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who was not involved in the study. But he added, ''I'm surprised to see this analysis come out now, making a big statement that middle seats should stay open as a risk-reduction approach, when the model didn't include the impact of masking. We know that masking is the single most effective measure at reducing emissions of respiratory aerosols.''
Although scientists have documented several cases of coronavirus transmission on planes, airplane cabins are generally low-risk environments because they tend to have excellent air ventilation and filtration.
Still, concern has swirled around the risk of airplane travel since the pandemic began. Planes are confined environments, and full flights make social distancing impossible. Some airlines began keeping middle seats vacant as a precaution.
The new paper, published Wednesday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, is based on data collected at Kansas State University in 2017. In that study, the researchers sprayed a harmless aerosolized virus through two mock airplane cabins. (One was a five-row section of an actual single-aisle plane; the other was a mock-up of a double-aisle wide-bodied plane.) The researchers then monitored how the virus dispersed through each cabin.
For the new study, researchers from Kansas State and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used the 2017 data to model how passengers' exposure to an airborne virus would change if every middle seat remained open in a 20-row single-aisle cabin.
Depending on the specific modeling approach and parameters they used, keeping the middle seats vacant reduced the total exposure passengers experienced in the simulation by 23 to 57 percent, compared with a fully occupied flight.
''Some airline carriers have been operating with a vacant seat policy, and this study supports the effectiveness of that intervention, in the context of other measures that are in place,'' a C.D.C. spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
This reduction in risk stemmed from increasing the distance between an infectious passenger and others as well as from reducing the total number of people in the cabin, which lowers the odds that an infectious passenger would be aboard in the first place.
The laboratory experiments on virus dispersal in aircraft cabins were conducted several years before the current pandemic began, and did not account for any protection that wearing masks could provide.
Masking would reduce the amount of virus that infectious passengers emit into the cabin air and would likely lower the relative benefit of keeping middle seats open, Dr. Allen said.
Dr. Jones concurred. ''In general, I would think that wearing a mask would make this effect much less pronounced,'' he said. He also noted that simply being exposed to the virus does not mean that someone will be infected by it.
''The extent to which exposure reduction might decrease transmission risk is not yet understood,'' the C.D.C. spokesperson said.
The cost-benefit analysis is tricky for airlines. But purely from a health perspective, keeping middle seats open would be helpful, providing a buffer between an infectious person and others nearby, according to Alex Huffman, an aerosol scientist at the University of Denver who was not involved in the study. ''Distance matters, for both aerosols and droplets,'' he said.
Austin police searching for burglary suspects at Mellow Johnny's bike shop
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 11:18
AUSTIN (KXAN) '-- Police are searching for several unidentified suspects who were involved in a robbery at Mellow Johnny's bike shop in downtown Austin.
Local bike shop will stop selling bicycles to Austin Police DepartmentPolice say the incident happened around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday at 400 Nueces Street.
Police have not made any arrests. Anyone with information should call the APD Burglary Unit at (512) 974-6941.
VIDEO-Jordan Peterson: From the Barricades of the Culture Wars - YouTube
142 Fully Vaccinated People in Houston Test Positive for COVID-19
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 03:46
More than 140 people in Houston have tested positive for COVID-19 more than two weeks after being fully vaccinated against the virus that causes it, health experts in the Texas city confirmed.
According to data provided by the Houston Health Department, the number of Houstonians who caught the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus after being fully vaccinated is 142'--or 0.02 percent of residents in the city who have been fully vaccinated, The Houston Chronicle reported.
The data of the potential so-called vaccine ''breakthrough cases'' go back to January when the first wave of recipients received a full vaccination. Breakthrough cases refer to COVID-19 cases that appear in people more than two weeks after they have been fully vaccinated against the CCP virus.
COVID-19 is caused by the CCP virus, commonly referred to as the novel coronavirus, which originated in China in late 2019.
Dr. David Persse, the city's chief medical officer, said residents getting infected after being fully vaccinated is ''not unexpected'' because the jab doesn't grant recipients 100 percent immunity.
''This vaccine is not dissimilar from other vaccines in that it gives you some level of protection, but no vaccine is 100 percent effective,'' Persse said.
''While tens of hundreds of thousands have been vaccinated, in a community that still has viral spread, it's not too big of a surprise there are a small number of people who have become infected,'' he added.
None of the Houstonians that tested positive for COVID-19 after receiving the jab required hospitalization, Persse said, saying symptoms are usually incredibly mild with vaccinated people testing positive compared to unvaccinated people.
Fully vaccinated refers to people receiving both doses of the vaccines produced by Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech. A third option, from Johnson & Johnson'--which is currently suspended in the United States after reports of rare blood clots among recipients'--is a single dose.
According to U.S. drug regulators, Pfizer's vaccine is 95 percent effective in preventing infection of the CCP virus. Moderna's was shown in a clinical trial to be 94.1 percent effective, while Johnson & Johnson's was 66.9 percent effective. The percentages are for two weeks after the final vaccination.
A number of U.S. states have recently seen similar infections among Americans who are fully vaccinated, including Idaho, Florida, Michigan Minnesota, South Carolina, and Washington.
Michigan data shows 246 residents tested positive for COVID-19 more than two weeks after being fully vaccinated. Eleven of the residents were hospitalized and three died, a spokesperson with the state Department of Health and Human Services (MDDHS) told The Epoch Times via email. The people who died were all 65 years of age or older.
In Washington, more than 100 people tested positive after being fully vaccinated, authorities said on March 31. Of those recipients, eight patients required hospitalization, and two have died. All contracted the virus more than two weeks after being fully vaccinated.
''Finding evidence of vaccine breakthrough cases reminds us that, even if you have been vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask, practice socially distancing, and wash your hands to prevent spreading COVID-19 to others who have not been vaccinated,'' Washington Secretary of Health Umair Shah said in a statement.
Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters during a virtual briefing the number of so-called breakthrough COVID-19 cases is not a cause for concern.
''I think the important thing is to look at what the denominator of vaccinated people is, because it is very likely'--and what we're hearing at least indirectly, and we're certainly going to be confirming that'--that that number of individuals who were breakthrough infections is not at all incompatible with a 90-plus percent vaccine efficacy. So, I don't think that there needs to be concern about any shift or change in the efficacy of the vaccine,'' Fauci said.
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
How Many Times Has The Number Of Seats On The Supreme Court Changed? | Crooks and Liars
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 01:02
Seven times, according to the Constitution Center.
... the Constitution allows for Congress to decide on how many Justices sit on the Supreme Court's bench. Article III, Section 1, starts with a broad direction to Congress to establish courts. ''The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,'' it reads.
The Judiciary Act of 1789 established the first Supreme Court, with six Justices. ''Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the supreme court of the United States shall consist of a chief justice and five associate justices, any four of whom shall be a quorum, and shall hold annually at the seat of government two sessions, the one commencing the first Monday of February, and the other the first Monday of August,'' the act read.
Since 1789, Congress changed the maximum number of Justices on the Court several times. In 1801, President John Adams and a lame-duck Federalist Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the Court to five Justices in an attempt to limit incoming President Thomas Jefferson's appointments to the high bench. Jefferson and his Republicans soon repealed that act, putting the Court back to six Justices. And in 1807, Jefferson and Congress added a seventh Justice when it added a seventh federal court circuit.
In early 1837, President Andrew Jackson was able to add two additional Justices after Congress again expanded the number of federal circuit court districts. Under different circumstances, Congress created a 10th circuit in 1863 during the Civil War, and it briefly had a 10th Supreme Court Justice. However, Congress after the war passed legislation in 1866 to reduce the Court to seven Justices. That only lasted until 1869, when a new Judiciary Act sponsored by Senator Lyman Trumbull set the number back to nine Justices, with six Justices required at a sitting to form a quorum. President Ulysses S. Grant eventually signed that legislation and nominated William Strong and Joseph Bradley to the newly restored seats.
The number of seats on the Supreme Court is not enshrined in the Constitution. The Founders' generation, in particular, did not regard the number of seats on the Court as fixed. If we're about to seat a Supreme Court justice who considers herself an "originalist," that ought to be relevant at this moment.
Posted with permission from No More Mr. Nice Blog
J&J, African Union in deal for up to 400 million COVID-19 shots | Article [AMP] | Reuters
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 23:43
Mon Mar 29, 2021 / 9:50 AM EDT
(Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson will supply the African Union (AU) with up to 400 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine beginning in the third quarter, the drugmaker said on Monday, as the continent grapples with vaccinating 60% of its people.
The virus has killed almost 121,000 people across Africa and infected 4.18 million.
J&J unit Janssen Pharmaceutica NV has entered into a deal with the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) to deliver 220 million doses of its single-dose shot.
AVAT could order an additional 180 million doses through 2022.(refini.tv/3cyeFiB)
The deal follows months of negotiations with the AU, which announced a provisional agreement in January to buy 270 million doses of vaccines from J&J, AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech.
The status of the talks with the other two companies is not known.
J&J's vaccine came to the market much later than those of AstraZeneca and Pfizer but has recently gained widespread acceptance globally, especially in Africa.
"J&J requires just a single dose, it makes it a very good programmatically to rollout," said John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
He said the price of the J&J's dose is likely to be $10.
In February, South Africa put use of AstraZeneca's shot on hold after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild-to-moderate infection caused by the country's dominant variant.
Several countries in Europe have suspended using AstraZeneca's vaccine as they investigate a small number of reports of rare blood clotting in people who got the vaccine. Global regulators have said the shot is safe and effective.
Pfizer's shot has more complex storage and transportation needs than other vaccines, making it more challenging to deploy in warmer climates or in poorer countries.
AVAT said on Monday that many of the AU's 55 member states had shown a strong preference for J&J.
Africa is also grappling with a more-infectious variant identified in South Africa amid concerns about delays of deliveries of AstraZeneca shots via the COVAX scheme which is aimed at supplying poorer countries.
The continent is far behind nations, including Israel, the United States and Britain in its vaccination rollout. Almost half of Britons have received their first dose, while in contrast only 0.4% of South Africa's population has received one dose.
"We need to immunise at least 60% of our population in order to get rid of the virus from our continent. The J&J agreement enables us to move towards achieving this target," Nkengasong said.
Most of the supplies will be produced by Aspen Pharma in South Africa, AVAT said in a statement.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday that South Africa will get 30 million vaccines from Aspen's facility while a total roughly 250 million will be distributed across the continent from the facility.
Aspen has contracted with J&J to manufacture 300 million doses.
As part of the AU vaccine plan, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has approved up to $2 billion in finance for countries to buy shots via the AU.
Europe approved J&J's single dose vaccine earlier this month. The United States, Canada and Bahrain have also approved the shot.
Late last year, J&J said it and the GAVI vaccine alliance expected to enter into a deal that would provide up to 500 million doses of the vaccine to COVAX through 2022.
(Reporting by Nandakumar D in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Giulia Paravicini in Addis Ababa and David Lewis in Nairobi; writing by Josephine Mason in London; editing by Nick Macfie and Jason Neely)
Would Israel Blackmail a US Congressman?, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 20:58
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE BENEFICIENT, THE MERCIFUL.
April 6, 2021
Brothers and Sisters of the Black Community, members of the press, and the American People:
We have prepared this statement to answer some of the many inquiries that we have had over the last few days about Mr. Noah Green. Naturally, we, like most of you, were disturbed watching the news of an assault on the U.S. Capitol where one police officer was killed, one was injured, and Mr. Green was killed.
We speak on behalf of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, the members of his family, all of the registered Muslim members of the Nation of Islam, and all people of good will everywhere, in that, we are in sympathy with the victims of this tragedy. And we are in sympathy with the families of these victims. And we, like you, can only offer them condolences and our deepest sympathy for their loss. Our prayers are for the full recovery of the officer who was injured.
The Nation of Islam has no history of violence against the government. Federal, state, and local law enforcement are all well aware of our history.
We have held four national marches, including the Historic 1995 Million Man March, which we know to be one of the largest gatherings in the history of the United States of America and the most peaceful on the U.S. Capitol grounds. We had a good working relationship with the U.S. Capitol police during each of these historic events.
It is being reported that Noah Green was a 'follower' of the Nation of Islam. This young man, Noah Green, we believe may have attended our Saviours Day convention in Detroit, MI in February 2020. In March of 2020, due to the COVID 19 pandemic, we closed our Mosques, and began conducting meetings and classes remotely. A search of our records indicates Noah Green was not a registered member of the Nation of Islam. It appears that in late summer (August-September) of 2020, he started the process to begin his study to become a member, but he did not complete the process.
He did make a donation to the Saviours Day Gift. Every year, the followers and supporters make a charitable donation to the Nation of Islams Saviours Day Gift charity. Every donor who makes a donation of $1000 or more is issued a Certificate of Completion. This certificate does not establish that the donor is a member in good standing in the Nation of Islam.
Mr. Noah Greens alleged use of an automobile as a weapon and the alleged possession of a knife as reported, violates our teachings. We absolutely disavow this act that resulted in the senseless loss of life. It is shocking for us to learn that someone who was attempting to be a part of our ranks may have been involved in something as tragic as this.
But, we respectfully say to the members of the media and to the American people, Timothy McVeigh confessed that he was a Christian, but nobody blames the church for his misconduct. No one would blame Jesus or their pastor for unlawful and immoral behavior that is contrary to the teachings of Jesus. You have criminals, people that do horrific things, but we never know their religion. Its not important because religion does not teach criminal behavior. Criminal behavior is an aberration. Criminal behavior is a violation. Criminal behavior is absolute rebellion toward what God teaches through the mouth of His prophets.
When thousands of American citizens engaged in an attempted insurrection, attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, resulting in the deaths of five persons and injuring many, the news media did not question what their religion was.
Nowhere in the teachings of Islam, nowhere in the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, could we countenance any man taking the life of an innocent human being. For us, human life is sacred. And the violation of human life is a violation of God, Himself, because Hes the giver of life and Hes the ultimate cause of death. But He doesnt give us the right to kill innocent people. That is against our law.
We are taught 'to never be the aggressor in word or in deed', for Allah (God) hates aggression and is not with the aggressor. This is our teaching. In fact, all of us who are members of the Nation of Islam have been instructed not to carry any weapons--not so much as a penknife--not on our persons and not in our homes. We do not rely on weapons of war to defend us. We rely on our belief and our faith in Allah (God).
We condemn the wicked mischaracterization of some media reports trying to tie this tragic incident to the teachings of the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, and all people of good will should do the same as well.
So, most of us, like you, are questioning why would this young man allegedly do such an act? If he did, what happened to him? What caused this? The family released a statement published in the Washington Post saying of Noah Green, he 'was not a terrorist by any means.' He had been studying for his masters degree in business administration but had also suffered from 'depression and potential mental illness.'
It has also been reported in an article from CNN, that he shared on social media, 'I have suffered multiple home break-ins, food poisoning, assaults, unauthorized operations in the hospital, mind control.'
This young man had struggled in his early life but overcame much as a student to graduate with a degree in finance. He had a wonderful, noble idea to help the black and brown people through his knowledge of finance. 'I am sure,' Minister Farrakhan states, 'had he been blessed to come through the crisis that he was going through, he would have been a star in the mission of the resurrection of our people. We need to know what happened to our brother.'
So, our research is continuing into what happened to this young man and we cannot rest until we find out what caused him to take a turn like this. We are saddened by the loss of this brother with such great potential.
With heavy hearts we offer sympathy and condolences to his mother, father, family and friends.
Ukraine redux: war, Russophobia and Pipelineistan - Asia Times
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 20:39
Ukraine and Russia may be on the brink of war '' with dire consequences for the whole of Eurasia. Let's cut to the chase, and plunge head-on into the fog of war.
On March 24, Ukrainian President Zelensky, for all practical purposes, signed a declaration of war against Russia, via decree No. 117/2021.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint press conference with European Council President in Kiev on March 3, 2021. Photo: AFP / Sergey DolzhenkoThe decree establishes that retaking Crimea from Russia is now Kiev's official policy. That's exactly what prompted an array of Ukrainian battle tanks to be shipped east on flatbed rail cars, following the saturation of the Ukrainian army by the US with military equipment including unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare systems, anti-tank systems and man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS).
More crucially, the Zelensky decree is the proof any subsequent war will have been prompted by Kiev, debunking the proverbial claims of ''Russian aggression.'' Crimea, since the referendum of March 2014, is part of the Russian Federation.
It was this (italics mine) de facto declaration of war, which Moscow took very seriously, that prompted the deployment of extra Russian forces to Crimea and closer to the Russian border with Donbass. Significantly, these include the crack 76th Guards Air Assault Brigade, known as the Pskov paratroopers and, according to an intel report quoted to me, capable of taking Ukraine in only six hours.
It certainly does not help that in early April US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, fresh from his former position as a board member of missile manufacturer Raytheon, called Zelensky to promise ''unwavering US support for Ukraine's sovereignty.'' That ties in with Moscow's interpretation that Zelensky would never have signed his decree without a green light from Washington.
On March 8, 2021, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks during observance of International Women's Day in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. Photo: AFP / Mandel NganControlling the narrativeSevastopol, already when I visited in December 2018, is one of the most heavily defended places on the planet, impervious even to a NATO attack. In his decree, Zelensky specifically identifies Sevastopol as a prime target.
Once again, we're back to 2014 post-Maidan unfinished business.
To contain Russia, the US deep state/NATO combo needs to control the Black Sea '' which, for all practical purposes, is now a Russian lake. And to control the Black Sea, they need to ''neutralize'' Crimea.
If any extra proof was necessary, it was provided by Zelensky himself on Tuesday this week in a phone call with NATO secretary-general and docile puppet Jens Stoltenberg.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg gives a press conference at the end of a NATO Foreign Ministers' meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels on March 24, 2021. Photo: AFP / Olivier HosletZelensky uttered the key phrase: ''NATO is the only way to end the war in Donbass'' '' which means, in practice, NATO expanding its ''presence'' in the Black Sea. ''Such a permanent presence should be a powerful deterrent to Russia, which continues the large-scale militarization of the region and hinders merchant shipping.''
All of these crucial developments are and will continue to be invisible to global public opinion when it comes to the predominant, hegemon-controlled narrative.
The deep state/NATO combo is imprinting 24/7 that whatever happens next is due to ''Russian aggression.'' Even if the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) launch a blitzkrieg against the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics. (To do so against Sevastopol in Crimea would be certified mass suicide).
In the United States, Ron Paul has been one of the very few voices to state the obvious: ''According to the media branch of the US military-industrial-congressional-media complex, Russian troop movements are not a response to clear threats from a neighbor, but instead are just more 'Russian aggression.'''
What's implied is that Washington/Brussels don't have a clear tactical, much less strategic game plan: only total narrative control.
And that is fueled by rabid Russophobia '' masterfully deconstructed by the indispensable Andrei Martyanov, one of the world's top military analysts.
A possibly hopeful sign is that on March 31, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, talked on the phone about the proverbial ''issues of mutual interest.''
Days later, a Franco-German statement came out, calling on ''all parties'' to de-escalate. Merkel and Macron seem to have gotten the message in their videoconference with Putin '' who must have subtly alluded to the effect generated by Kalibrs, Kinzhals and assorted hypersonic weapons if the going gets tough and the Europeans sanction a Kiev blitzkrieg.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks as German Chancellor Angela Merkel looks on after a German-French Security Council video conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on February 5, 2021. Photo: AFP / Thibault CamusThe problem is Merkel and Macron don't control NATO. Yet Merkel and Macron at least are fully aware that if the US/NATO combo attacks Russian forces or Russian passport holders who live in Donbass, the devastating response will target the command centers that coordinated the attacks.
What does the hegemon want?As part of his current Energizer bunny act, Zelensky made an extra eyebrow-raising move. This past Monday, he visited Qatar with a lofty delegation and clinched a raft of deals, not circumscribed to LNG but also including direct Kiev-Doha flights; Doha leasing or buying a Black Sea port; and strong ''defense/military ties'' '' which could be a lovely euphemism for a possible transfer of jihadis from Libya and Syria to fight Russian infidels in Donbass.
Right on cue, Zelensly meets Turkey's Erdogan next Monday. Erdogan's intel services run the jihadi proxies in Idlib, and dodgy Qatari funds are still part of the picture. Arguably, the Turks are already transferring those ''moderate rebels'' to Ukraine. Russian intel is meticulously monitoring all this activity.
A series of informed discussions '' see, for instance, here and here '' is converging on what may be the top three targets for the hegemon amid all this mess, short of war: to provoke an irreparable fissure between Russia and the EU, under NATO auspices; to crash the Nord Steam 2 pipeline; and to boost profits in the weapons business for the military-industral complex.
So the key question then is whether Moscow would be able to apply a Sun Tzu move short of being lured into a hot war in the Donbass.
On the ground, the outlook is grim. Denis Pushilin, one of the top leaders of the Lugansk and Donetsk people's republics, has stated that the chances of avoiding war are ''extremely small.'' Serbian sniper Dejan Beric '' whom I met in Donetsk in 2015 and who is a certified expert on the ground '' expects a Kiev attack in early May.
The extremely controversial Igor Strelkov, who may be termed an exponent of ''orthodox socialism,'' a sharp critic of the Kremlin's policies who is one of the very few warlords who survived after 2014, has unequivocally stated that the only chance for peace is for the Russian army to control Ukrainian territory at least up to the Dnieper river. He stresses that a war in April is ''very likely''; for Russia war ''now'' is better than war later; and there's a 99% possibility that Washington will not fight for Ukraine.
On this last item at least Strelkov has a point; Washington and NATO want a war fought to the last Ukrainian.
Rostislav Ischenko, the top Russian analyst of Ukraine whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Moscow in late 2018, persuasively argues that, ''the overall diplomatic, military, political, financial and economic situation powerfully requires the Kiev authorities to intensify combat operations in Donbass.
''By the way,'' Ischenko added, ''the Americans do not give a damn whether Ukraine will hold out for any time or whether it will be blown to pieces in an instant. They believe they stand to gain from either outcome.''
Gotta defend EuropeLet's assume the worst in Donbass. Kiev launches its blitzkrieg. Russian intel documents everything. Moscow instantly announces it is using the full authority conferred by the UNSC to enforce the Minsk 2 ceasefire.
In what would be a matter of 8 hours or a maximum 48 hours, Russian forces smash the whole blitzkrieg apparatus to smithereens and send the Ukrainians back to their sandbox, which is approximately 75km north of the established contact zone.
In the Black Sea, incidentally, there's no contact zone. This means Russia may send out all its advanced subs plus the surface fleet anywhere around the ''Russian lake'': They are already deployed anyway.
Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on as Novator Design Bureau director-general Farid Abdrakhmanov and Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko shake hands during a signing ceremony for government contracts in Alabino, Moscow region, Russia. on June 27, 2019. Photo: AFP / Alexei Druzhinin / SputnikOnce again Martyanov lays down the law when he predicts, referring to a group of Russian missiles developed by the Novator Design Bureau: ''Crushing Ukies' command and control system is a matter of few hours, be that near border or in the operational and strategic Uki depth. Basically speaking, the whole of the Ukrainian 'navy' is worth less than the salvo of 3M54 or 3M14 which will be required to sink it. I think couple of Tarantuls will be enough to finish it off in or near Odessa and then give Kiev, especially its government district, a taste of modern stand-off weapons.''
The absolutely key issue, which cannot be emphasized enough, is that Russia will not (italics mine) ''invade'' Ukraine. It doesn't need to, and it doesn't want to. What Moscow will do for sure is to support the Novorossiya people's republics with equipment, intel, electronic warfare, control of airspace and special forces. Even a no-fly zone will not be necessary; the ''message'' will be clear that were a NATO fighter jet to show up near the frontline, it would be summarily shot down.
And that brings us to the open ''secret'' whispered only in informal dinners in Brussels, and chancelleries across Eurasia: NATO puppets do not have the balls to get into an open conflict with Russia.
One thing is to have yapping dogs like Poland, Romania, the Baltic gang and Ukraine amplified by corporate media on their ''Russian aggression'' script. Factually, NATO had its collective behind unceremoniously kicked in Afghanistan. It shivered when it had to fight the Serbs in the late 1990s. And in the 2010s, it did not dare fight the Damascus and Axis of Resistance forces.
When all fails, myth prevails. Enter the US Army occupying parts of Europe to ''defend'' it against '' who else? '' those pesky Russians.
That's the rationale behind the annual US Army DEFENDER-Europe 21, now on till the end of June, mobilizing 28,000 soldiers from the US and 25 NATO allies and ''partners.''
This month, men and heavy equipment pre-positioned in three US Army depots in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands will be transferred to multiple ''training areas'' in 12 countries. Oh, the joys of travel, no lockdown in an open air exercise since everyone has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
Pipelineistan uber alles Nord Stream 2 is not a big deal for Moscow; it's a Pipelineistan inconvenience at best. After all the Russian economy did not make a single ruble out of the not yet existent pipeline during the 2010s '' and still it did fine. If NS2 is canceled, there are plans on the table to redirect the bulk of Russian gas shipments towards Eurasia, especially China.
Connecting German infrastructure for Nord Stream 2 is in place. In this handout photo released February 4, 2020, by the press service of Eugal, a view shows the Eugal pipeline, in Germany. The Eugal pipeline, which will receive gas from Nord Stream 2 in the future, has reached full pumping capacity, and the second line of the pipeline has been introduced. Photo: AFP / Press-service of Eugal / SputnikIn parallel, Berlin knows very well that canceling NS2 will be an extremely serious breach of contract '' involving hundreds of billions of euros; it was Germany that requested the pipeline to be built in the first place.
Germany's energiewende (''energy transition'' policy) has been a disaster. German industrialists know very well that natural gas is the only alternative to nuclear energy. They are not exactly fond of Berlin becoming a mere hostage, condemned to buy ridiculously expensive shale gas from the hegemon '' even assuming the egemon will be able to deliver, as its fracking industry is in shambles. Merkel explaining to German public opinion why they must revert to using coal or buy shale from the US will be a sight to see.
As it stands, NATO provocations against NS2 proceed unabated '' via warships and helicopters. NS2 needed a permit to work in Danish waters, and it was granted only a month ago. Even as Russian ships are not as fast in laying pipes as the previous ships from Swiss-based Allseas, which backed down, intimidated by US sanctions, the Russian Fortuna is making steady progress, as noted by analyst Petri Krohn: one kilometer a day on its best days, at least 800 meters a day. With 35 km left, that should not take more than 50 days.
Conversations with German analysts reveal a fascinating shadowplay on the energy front between Berlin and Moscow '' not to mention Beijing. Compare it with Washington: EU diplomats complain there's absolutely no one to negotiate with regarding NS2. And even assuming there would be some sort of deal, Berlin is inclined to admit Putin's judgment is correct: the Americans are ''not agreement-capable.'' One just needs to look at the record.
Behind the fog of war, though, a clear scenario emerges: the deep state/NATO combo using Kiev to start a war as a Hail Mary pass to ultimately bury NS2, and thus German-Russian relations.
At the same time, the situation is evolving towards a possible new alignment in the heart of the ''West'': US/UK pitted against Germany/France. Some Anglosphere exceptionals are certainly more Russophobic than others.
The toxic encounter between Russophobia and Pipelineistan will not be over even if NS2 is completed. There will be more sanctions. There will be an attempt to exclude Russia from SWIFT. The proxy war in Syria will intensify. The hegemon will go no holds barred to keep creating all sorts of geopolitical harassment against Russia.
What a nice wag-the-dog op to distract domestic public opinion from massive money printing masking a looming economic collapse. As the empire crumbles, the narrative is set in stone: it's all the fault of ''Russian aggression.''
We have now reached the "get a V tattoo to show you've been vaccinated" stage | Not the Bee
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 20:38
Umm...
The heck is wrong with people?
That balloonhead shared their permanent vaccine branding as a reply to this equally balloonheaded tweet:
"I don't get what's the big deal about the vaccine passports."
Best reply to this broken person's V tattoo photo:
Nailed it ðI swear, it's like people have become so soft that they're BEGGING to live in a dystopian hellscape so long as it means that they don't ever have to make any decisions on their own or adopt any sort of meaningful responsibility in life.
Don't be surprised to see this V tattoo catch on as a trend.
Balloon Juice | Is President Biden Looking Out For YOU?
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 19:56
This ad had me in stitches.
SCARY VOICEOVER: Joe Biden'... is he looking out for YOU?
Yeah, it kinda looks like it. pic.twitter.com/bQKwBdhIqH
'-- Invest in America (@InvestNowUSA) April 9, 2021
So I've been holding off sharing some interesting news about the covid vaccine and me.
As you may or may not know, I had Covid almost a year ago (4 days to my Covid-versary). And while my actual 10 days were probably considered mild (though looking back on it, there were a couple of very scary days), the ''recovery' has been year-long. In October, I thought I was through the worst of it, but Dec to March proved to be extremely difficult and my symptoms escalated '' debilitating fatigue, severe brain fog, and still some shortness of breath. My general rule was to get all I could get done before noon, because after that I was about useless.
Last Thursday afternoon I received my vaccination. No biggie. Friday came without any real reaction. I had meetings all day and by 4 pm, once I was done, I thought, I'm going to need a nap. But a funny thing happened'...I did a couple of chores and then a few more things, and the next thing I knew, it was 10 pm. I felt great. Still didn't think much of it, I've had good days here and there, only to be followed by several really bad days.
But Saturday came and then Sunday and it was like I was fueled by Death Wish Coffee. My mind was not just clear, but racing with things to do, stuff to organize and create, and my physical energy matched it. Now we are at a full eight days of '... well '... being normal. Although it feels super-charged. I haven't gone a full week of feeling good since Covid. My fingers are crossed that this is for real, not just for me, but for other long-haulers.
There's been some anecdotal evidence of the vaccine effect '' which people started sending me in March, but I ignored it, not wanting to get my hopes up. But now, well, I'm paying attention.
CNN:
''The issue is thus far that it's anecdotal,'' said Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 17. ''Many people get better anyway, and if you get vaccinated and get better, you are not sure whether it's the vaccine or the spontaneous recovery. So you'll have to do a randomized trial in order to determine that.''
Still, though, anecdotal reports can start to stack up, especially for doctors who have been treating long haulers for months.
''It's getting to be a large number of reports, hundreds of reports of patients that we've been caring for with Covid almost a year now,'' said Dr. Daniel Griffin, chief of infectious disease at ProHealth and an instructor in clinical medicine at Columbia University. ''They are reporting that following vaccination they're having significant, if not complete, resolution of their long Covid symptoms.
He estimated that as many as 30% to 40% of his long Covid patients said they were feeling better after vaccinations, and the boost in energy and mental clarity appeared to be coming from all three vaccines currently authorized in the US.
Everything changed after she got her COVID-19 vaccine.
''I was like a new person, it was the craziest thing ever,'' says Dodd, referring to how many of her health problems subsided significantly after her second shot.
And she's not alone. As the U.S. pushes to get people vaccinated, a curious benefit is emerging for those with this post-illness syndrome: Their symptoms are easing and, in some cases, fully resolving after they get vaccinated.
''I didn't expect the vaccine to make people feel better,'' says Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at the Yale School of Medicine who's researching long COVID.
''More and more, I started hearing from people with long COVID having their symptoms reduced or completely recovering, and that's when I started to get excited because this might be a potential cure for some people.''
While promising, it's still too early to know just how many people with long COVID are feeling better as a result of being vaccinated and whether that amounts to a statistically meaningful difference.
WaPo has a longer article, which I can't seem to access right now, something funky going on with my subscription.
Anyone else have a similar experience? I know a few of us here have had Covid, but I'm not sure about long-haulers. I have a client whose symptoms are on par with mine, though more severe and I've encouraged him to check out the studies (and he's now scheduled for his vaccine, I'm hoping he'll have an experience similar to mine).
Moderna hits safety problems in bold bid to reinvent medicine
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 19:11
S AN FRANCISCO '-- Moderna Therapeutics, the most highly valued private company in biotech, has run into troubling safety problems with its most ambitious therapy, STAT has learned '-- and is now banking on a mysterious new technology to keep afloat its brash promise of reinventing modern medicine.
Exactly one year ago, Moderna CEO St(C)phane Bancel talked up his company's ''unbelievable'' future before a standing-room-only crowd at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference here. He promised that Moderna's treatment for a rare and debilitating disease known as Crigler-Najjar syndrome, developed alongside biotech giant Alexion Pharmaceuticals, would enter human trials in 2016.
It was to be the first therapy using audacious new technology that Bancel promised would yield dozens of drugs in the coming decade.
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But the Crigler-Najjar treatment has been indefinitely delayed, an Alexion spokeswoman told STAT. It never proved safe enough to test in humans, according to several former Moderna employees and collaborators who worked closely on the project. Unable to press forward with that technology, Moderna has had to focus instead on developing a handful of vaccines, turning to a less lucrative field that might not justify the company's nearly $5 billion valuation.
''It's all vaccines right now, and vaccines are a loss-leader,'' said one former Moderna manager. ''Moderna right now is a multibillion-dollar vaccines company, and I don't see how that holds up.''
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Bancel made no mention of the Crigler-Najjar drug when he spoke Monday before a similarly packed room at this year's J.P. Morgan conference.
His presentation instead focused on four vaccines that the company is moving through the first phase of clinical trials: two target strains of influenza, a third is for Zika virus, and the fourth remains a secret. Bancel clicked through graphs of data from animal studies before hurrying on to tout Moderna's balance sheet and discuss the company's cancer vaccines, slated for clinical testing later this year.
When STAT asked Bancel after the presentation about Crigler-Najjar, he deferred to Alexion.
In need of a Hail MaryFounded in 2012, Moderna reached unicorn status '-- a $1 billion valuation '-- in just two years, faster than Uber, Dropbox, and Lyft, according to CB Insights. The company's premise: Using custom-built strands of messenger RNA, known as mRNA, it aims to turn the body's cells into ad hoc drug factories, compelling them to produce the proteins needed to treat a wide variety of diseases.
But mRNA is a tricky technology. Several major pharmaceutical companies have tried and abandoned the idea, struggling to get mRNA into cells without triggering nasty side effects.
Bancel has repeatedly promised that Moderna's new therapies will change the world, but the company has refused to publish any data on its mRNA vehicles, sparking skepticism from some scientists and a chiding from the editors of Nature.
The indefinite delay on the Crigler-Najjar project signals persistent and troubling safety concerns for any mRNA treatment that needs to be delivered in multiple doses, covering almost everything that isn't a vaccine, former employees and collaborators said.
The company did disclose a new technology on Monday that it says will more safely deliver mRNA. It's called V1GL. Last month, Bancel told Forbes about another new technology, N1GL.
But in neither case has the company provided any details. And that lack of specificity has inevitably raised questions.
Three former employees and collaborators close to the process said Moderna was always toiling away on new delivery technologies in hopes of hitting on something safer than what it had. (Even Bancel has acknowledged, in an interview with Forbes, that the delivery method used in Moderna's first vaccines ''was not very good.'')
Are N1GL and V1GL better? The company has produced no data to answer that question. When STAT asked about new technologies, Bancel referred questions to the company's patent filings.
The three former employees and collaborators said they believe N1GL and V1GL are either very recent discoveries, just in the earliest stages of testing '-- or else new names slapped on technologies Moderna has owned for years.
''[The technology] would have to be a miraculous, Hail Mary sort of save for them to get to where they need to be on their timelines,'' one former employee said. ''Either [Bancel] is extremely confident that it's going to work, or he's getting kind of jittery that with a lack of progress he needs to put something out there.''
Former employees and collaborators who spoke with STAT requested anonymity because they had signed nondisclosure agreements '-- which the highly secretive Moderna requires even some job candidates to sign.
A STAT investigation last year found that Bancel had driven away top talent from Moderna with a culture of recrimination and a caustic work environment, including on-the-spot firings for failed experiments.
The company, based in Cambridge, Mass., seems to have repaired its reputation among many rank-and-file employees, winning workplace accolades from Science Magazine and the Boston Globe, but Moderna has lost more than a dozen top scientists and managers in the past four years, despite its vast financial resources.
Moderna CEO St(C)phane Bancel in the company's headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. Aram Boghosian for STATA bug in the softwareBancel, a first-time biotech CEO, has dismissed questions about Moderna's potential. He describes mRNA as a simple way to develop treatments for scores of ailments. As he told STAT over the summer, ''mRNA is like software: You can just turn the crank and get a lot of products going into development.''
It seems clear, however, that the software has run into bugs.
Patients with Crigler-Najjar are missing a key liver enzyme needed to break down bilirubin, a yellowish substance that crops up in the body as old red blood cells break down. Without that enzyme, bilirubin proliferates in the blood, leading to jaundice, muscle degeneration, and even brain damage.
In Moderna's eyes, the one-in-million disease looked like an ideal candidate for mRNA therapy. The company crafted a string of mRNA that would encode for the missing enzyme, believing it had hit upon an excellent starting point to prove technology could be used to treat rare diseases.
But things gradually came apart last year.
Every drug has what's called a therapeutic window, the scientific sweet spot where a treatment is powerful enough to have an effect on a disease but not so strong as to put patients at too much risk. For mRNA, that has proved elusive.
In order to protect mRNA molecules from the body's natural defenses, drug developers must wrap them in a protective casing. For Moderna, that meant putting its Crigler-Najjar therapy in nanoparticles made of lipids. And for its chemists, those nanoparticles created a daunting challenge: Dose too little, and you don't get enough enzyme to affect the disease; dose too much, and the drug is too toxic for patients.
From the start, Moderna's scientists knew that using mRNA to spur protein production would be a tough task, so they scoured the medical literature for diseases that might be treated with just small amounts of additional protein.
''And that list of diseases is very, very short,'' said the former employee who described Bancel as needing a Hail Mary.
Crigler-Najjar was the lowest-hanging fruit.
Yet Moderna could not make its therapy work, former employees and collaborators said. The safe dose was too weak, and repeat injections of a dose strong enough to be effective had troubling effects on the liver in animal studies.
The drug, ALXN1540, has since been delayed, as Moderna works on ''new and better formulations'' that might later reach human trials, Alexion said in an emailed statement.
A huge valuation but a modest pipelineThe failure in its first and most advanced therapy casts doubt on Moderna's other goals for the rare disease space.
It also calls into question Moderna's valuation, pegged at $4.7 billion by Pitchbook. The company has raised nearly $2 billion in cash from investors and partners. But it has done so by promising a revolutionary technology safe enough to deliver repeated doses of mRNA.
The drugs it is pushing along now, by contrast, are more modest, relying on single administrations of mRNA. Beyond the four vaccines, it has one early-stage clinical trial targeting cardiac disease, launched just last month by partner AstraZeneca. The treatment involves a one-time dose and doesn't use the tricky nanoparticle casing.
Vaccines are not nearly as lucrative as the rare disease space that Moderna hoped to dominate. The market is also much more crowded; at least seven Zika vaccines, for instance, are either in clinical testing or are expected to enter testing by next fall.
Moderna has about $1.3 billion in cash on hand, according to Bancel. But with plans to spend more than $300 million a year investing in its technology, it will need to raise more money eventually. The most logical step would be to go public, and last year Moderna reorganized its business to prepare for an initial public offering.
But at its current valuation, Moderna's IPO would be the biggest in biotech history, leaving some investors scratching their heads as to how the company's vaccine-heavy pipeline could justify such a number. If Moderna chooses to stay private, it's unclear whether it can raise more cash without resorting to a dreaded down round, in which new shares are sold at a price below the last ones.
Until Moderna demonstrates that its technology can safely treat a disease, those questions will be tough to answer.
''My friends ask if they are like Theranos, and I say no; I think it's a real idea,'' one former Moderna collaborator said. ''The question is how well does it work.''
Bancel isn't providing the data that could answer that. But he projects unbounded confidence.
''I'm sure that five years from now we'll look at 2017 as the inflection point that Moderna went for a liftoff,'' he said at Monday's presentation. ''We have a chance to transform medicine, and we won't quit until we are done and we have impacted patients.''
Study finds people want more than watchdogs for journalists
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 18:58
NEW YORK (AP) '-- A study of the public's attitude toward the press reveals that distrust goes deeper than partisanship and down to how journalists define their very mission.
In short: Americans want more than a watchdog.
The study, released Wednesday by the Media Insight Project, a collaboration between the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, suggests ways that news organizations can reach people they may be turning off now.
''In some ways, this study suggests that our job is broader and bigger than we've defined it,'' said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute.
The study defines five core principles or beliefs that drive most journalists: keep watch on public officials and the powerful; amplify voices that often go unheard; society works better with information out in the open; the more facts people have the closer they will get to the truth; and it's necessary to spotlight a community's problems to solve them.
Yet the survey, which asked non-journalists a series of questions designed to measure support for each of those ideas, found unqualified majority support for only one of them. Two-thirds of those surveyed fully supported the fact-finding mission.
Half of the public embraced the principle that it's important for the media to give a voice to the less powerful, according to the survey, and slightly less than half fully supported the roles of oversight and promoting transparency.
Less than a third of the respondents agreed completely with the idea that it's important to aggressively point out problems. Only 11% of the public, most of them liberals, offered full support to all five ideas.
''I do believe they should be a watchdog on the government, but I don't think they should lean either way,'' said Annabell Hawkins, 41, a stay-at-home mother from Lawton, Oklahoma. ''When I grew up watching the news it seemed pretty neutral. You'd get either side. But now it doesn't seem like that.''
Hawkins said she believed the news media spent far too much time criticizing former President Donald Trump and rarely gave him credit for anything good he did while in office.
''I just want the facts about what happened so I can make up my own mind,'' said Patrick Gideons, a 64-year-old former petroleum industry supervisor who lives south of Houston. He lacks faith in the news media because he believes it offers too much opinion.
Gideons, though, said he gets most of his news through social media, which is skilled in directing followers toward beliefs they are comfortable with. He said he knows only one person who subscribes to a newspaper anymore '-- his 91-year-old father.
Polls show how the public's attitude toward the press has soured over the past 50 years and, in this century, how it has become much more partisan. In 2000, a Gallup poll found 53% of Democrats said they trusted the media, compared with 47% of Republicans. In the last full year of the Trump presidency, Gallup found trust went up to 73% among Democrats and plunged to 10% among Republicans.
The survey's findings point to some ways news organizations can combat the negativity.
Half a century ago, when newspapers were flourishing and before the internet and cable television led to an explosion in opinionated news, the public's view of the role of journalists was more compatible to how journalists viewed the job themselves, Rosenstiel said.
''We were the tough guys, we were the cops,'' he said.
The study indicates now that consumers are interested in news that highlights potential solutions to problems and want to hear about things that are working, he said.
''We tend to think that stories that celebrate the good things in society are soft stories, kind of wimpy,'' he said. ''But they may be more important than we think in providing a full and accurate picture of the world.''
People who put greater emphasis on loyalty and authority tend to be more skeptical of the core values that journalists try to uphold, as opposed to those who give greater weight to fairness, the study found. Changes in the way a story is framed can make it more widely appealing to different audiences.
In one example, researchers took a story about a canceled recreation center project in a low-income neighborhood and emphasized the element, less prominent in the original story, that the parks director had diverted funds designated for the project by the city's mayor. The change led to the story being seen as more trusted and appealing by a broader set of the public, especially those who place value in authority.
The nationwide survey was conducted with 2,727 adults in the fall of 2019, with a second set of interviews done last August with 1,155 people who had completed the first survey.
The study found that majorities of Americans believe that the media doesn't care about them and tries to cover up its mistakes. Despite the negativity, Rosenstiel said he believes there's room for both sides to come to a better understanding of each other.
Believe it or not, most journalists are pretty sincere, said Rosenstiel, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek.
''Regular people should note that when journalists say they are just doing their job, they actually mean that,'' he said, ''because they define their job a certain way. They're not lying. They really don't think of themselves as secret agents of the Democratic Party. They have these set of principles that they think they're upholding.''
'No Thanks' to Bill Gates Plan to Block Sun With Chalk Dust, Scandinavia Says ' Children's Health Defense
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 18:58
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The first stratospheric test of geoengineering research technology, funded by Bill Gates, has been suspended under pressure from the indigenous people over whose heads it would take place, the Saami of northern Scandinavia. It may be moved back to the United States.
At the recommendation of the project's Advisory Committee, the scheduled June test has been called off. That became public March 31.
When Bill Gates' $4.5 million investment in geoengineering research came to light in 2010, one of the scientists he put in charge of the project, Ken Caldeira, said the money was not funding any field experiments. But as the project has grown and moved to Harvard, that line was crossed.
The Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment '-- SCoPEx for short '-- intends to release around a kilogram of calcium carbonate, essentially chalk dust, from a propelled balloon-gondola rig 12 miles up. Particles would cover the equivalent of 11 football fields and test the material's potential to block a portion of solar radiation, countering the heat-trapping effects of carbon dioxide. The June test would not have released any particles, only tried out the rig's technologies.
Last December SCoPEx announced it was moving the rig test to Sweden because of the pandemic. It was to have been in Arizona and New Mexico. The new test site was to be Swedish Space Corporation's launch center at Kiruna near the Arctic Circle, the Saami homeland. Trouble was, nobody had talked to the Saami or much anyone else in Sweden.
The Saami Council, which defends the rights of the reindeer-herding people from Norway to Russia, on Feb. 24 sent a letter to the SCoPEx Advisory Committee opposing not only the experiment, but the entire premise of geoengineering research outside an international consensus. It was co-signed by leaders of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, Friends of the Earth Sweden and Greenpeace Sweden. Environmental groups had previously weighed in on their own.
The Saami have reason to be concerned about what's flying over their heads. Winds from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster dumped radiation on their villages and reindeer grazing lands. Thousands of animals had to be slaughtered, and decades later reindeer meat must still be tested for radiation. The Saami have also taken an active stance on climate, persuading Norway's second largest pension fund to divest from fossil fuels. And they showed up at Standing Rock in 2017 to support tribes resisting the oil-carrying Dakota Access Pipeline under the Missouri River.
Hazards moral and otherwise
The letter from the Saami and their allies economically summarizes the fundamental contradiction of the Harvard research and geoengineering experiments in general '-- private governing bodies assuming powers and making decisions of such immense potential impacts that democratic accountability is required.
Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), write the Saami and environmentalists, ''entails risks of catastrophic consequences including '... uncontrolled termination '... '' '-- If it was stopped, the heat-trapping effect of carbon dioxide would kick back in and cause sudden heating, like a junkie having withdrawals from addiction '-- ''and irreversible sociopolitical effects that could compromise the world's necessary efforts to achieve zero-carbon societies.''
In other words, geoengineering would provide an excuse for powerful interests to continue burning the fossil fuels that add to atmospheric CO2. By offering protection from risks it would reduce the incentive to eliminate them. This is known as moral hazard. ''There are therefore no acceptable reasons for allowing the SCoPEx project to be conducted either in Sweden or elsewhere.''
The ways research creates moral hazard is illustrated by Alex Lenferma, a South African climate analyst writing for the Carnegie Council. ''David Keith (a lead in the Harvard project whom Gates tapped to help distribute his 2010 funding) tells us that geoengineering could be very inexpensive. According to him, it would cost just $10 billion (annually), or one ten-thousandth of global GDP, whereas its benefits could be more than 1% of global GDP '-- a return one thousand times greater than its cost. While Keith warns that solar geoengineering does not spare us the need to reduce emissions, other team members do not seem so convinced.
Fellow Harvard teammate Richard Zeckhauser tells us that ''solar geoengineering is the most promising technology we have today.'' It is so promising that Zeckhauser says he would be fine if we redirected some of our efforts from greenhouse gas emission reduction to geoengineering, a statement that borders on encouraging moral hazard '...
Research illustrates the dangers of moving ahead in a Wild West atmosphere of independent initiatives taken outside a global governance structure. Releasing solar shielding particles in the northern hemisphere alone could increase droughts in India and the Sahel of Africa even as it benefits the north. Jacob Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Initiative, told Carbon Brief, ''If one country decided to put its own interests first '-- say the leader of that country thought 'our country needs cooling down, let's do some regional solar geoengineering' '-- that could have potentially catastrophic effects in other parts of the world.''
Keith was the co-author of a 2020 modeling study that downplayed the danger. Previous studies showed solar shielding worsening climate impacts over 9% of the Earth's land area. But if shielding aimed to reduce just half of warming it ''would only exacerbate change over 1.3% of the land area,'' said co-author Peter Irvine. ''Our results suggest that when used at the right dose and alongside reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, stratospheric aerosol geoengineering could be useful for managing the impacts of climate change.''
''There is a real potential, maybe a significant potential, to reduce the risks of climate change this century '-- by a lot,'' Keith said.
Research showing geoengineering could be cheap, reduce climate damage and have minimal impacts in ''the right dose'' has the appearance of making a case for geoengineering. Even though the scientists acknowledge uncertainty, such research at least entertains moral hazard. This is particularly so absent a framework of global governance or democratic accountability.
Subscribe to The Defender - It's Free!The Saami call out Harvard
The Saami and their allies took direct aim at the accountability issue and the Harvard-appointed Advisory Committee. It is worth quoting at length.
There are ''serious problems in terms of governance and decision-making in relation to SCoPEx. We find it remarkable that the project has gone so far as to establish an agreement with SSC (Swedish Space Corporation) on test flying without, as we understand, having applied for any permits or entered into any dialogue with either the Swedish government, its authorities, the Swedish research community, Swedish civil society, or the Saami people, despite the controversial nature of SCoPEx '...
''It is noteworthy that Harvard University considers it reasonable for a committee whose role it is to decide whether this controversial project should go ahead, to not have any representation from the intended host country, Sweden. Instead, the committee is composed of almost exclusively U.S. citizens and/or residents. We note that SCoPEx 'independent' Advisory Committee appears to be extremely homogeneous, is far from representative and appointed through Harvard itself, without any inclusion of affected groups and without directly critical and non-U.S. voices. (Members are listed here.)
''The SCoPEx project's comment on its Advisory Committee's draft 'Engagement Process for SCoPEx' highlights core issues and shows the project's problematic approach to ethics, responsibility and decision making. The SCoPEx project states that no one research project should have to answer questions such as 'Does solar geoengineering research or deployment pose a moral hazard? Is it ethical to deploy solar geoengineering, and who should decide? Can solar geoengineering deployment be governed, and can we trust that governance? Is research a slippery slope to deployment?' The SCoPEx project states that under such requirements research would have to halt, and complains that this has not been the case for other areas of research, and therefore 'should not be the burden for solar geoengineering research.'
''We state that precisely because of the extraordinary and particular risks associated with SAI, this technology and SCoPEx cannot be treated like other research. The type of key issues cited above must be considered first, and in forums that are significantly more representative and inclusive than the SCopEx Advisory Committee. Experimentation and technology development through projects such as SCoPEx must therefore be halted.
''We call on the SCoPEx Advisory Committee as well as SSC to recognise these shortcomings, and to cancel the planned test flight in Kiruna. The SCoPEx plans for Kiruna constitute a real moral hazard '... Stratospheric Aerosol Injection research and technology development have implications for the whole world, and must not be advanced in the absence of full, global consensus on its acceptability.''
Harvard retreats
Indigenous and environmental opposition has backed SSC and Advisory Committee down. On March 31, MIT Technology review reported that the SSC had withdrawn from the project, and the committee in ''an unexpected move'' advised suspending the June test. The group said it has begun a public engagement process to ''help the committee understand Swedish and Indigenous perspectives and make an informed and responsive recommendation about the equipment test flights in Sweden.'' SCoPEx principal investigator Frank Keutsch said flights will be suspended until the committee can make a recommendation ''based on robust public engagement in Sweden that is broadly inclusive of indigenous populations '...''
It is likely tests will not be conducted before 2022 and not in Sweden. With the pandemic abating the tests may return to the U.S.
It took the Saami and environmental allies calling out the Harvard project and the Advisory Committee to begin a consultation process. That it came as an afterthought underscores the basic point. In geoengineering as with so many crucial issues, private institutions and individuals are acting as de facto governments, making decisions potentially affecting billions of people without democratic accountability. Harvard, the premier university in the U.S. and the world, is a preeminent case in point. Resistant to campaigns for fossil fuel divestment, it is researching technologies that could diminish the drive to end fossil fuel burning. A poster for moral hazard. To move toward an atmospheric experiment of highly controversial geoengineering technology in a foreign country without thinking to consult the country's civil society, let alone indigenous people over whose lands you will conduct that experiment, evidences a certain HAA-VUD ''we-know-better-than-you'' arrogance. It is the essence of private government over democratic accountability.
Should scientists lead?
Announcement of the suspension came only days after release of a National Academy of Sciences report calling for a program of geoengineering research.
''This proposal is dangerous,'' wrote Frank Bierrman, Utrecht University professor of global governance and founder of the Earth System Governance Project. ''Solar geoengineering technologies remain speculative and assume a level of understanding of the planetary system that does not exist. Numerous studies have pointed to the risks especially for developing countries and vulnerable populations if anything goes wrong with 'hacking the climate.' Most importantly, the governance challenges of solar geoengineering are unsurmountable in today's global political system.
''The NAS report's vision for global governance is clear: it is the United States that should lead the way, at least for now. Other countries are invited to join, but there is no indication that the NAS authors envision to place geoengineering technology under global control with a binding veto power for those countries in the Global South that are most vulnerable '... Instead, the vision of the NAS report seems to be that scientists should lead, especially U.S. scientists. Based on that, a global network of experts could autonomously govern research. It is widely known, however '-- and acknowledged by the NAS report itself '-- that this global research community is vastly skewed in favour of a few industrialized countries. Research governance by experts is governance by the Global North, with some 'consultation' of others on the side. It is, as I argued earlier, a 'rich man's solution.'''
Penn State Climatologist Michael Mann, a member of the NAS, issued his own concerns.
''A report like this is as much about the policy message it conveys as it is about the scientific assessment, for it will be used immediately by policy advocates. And here I'm honestly troubled at the fodder it provides for mis-framing of the risks '... the report itself, in my view, really puts a thumb on the scales. It falls victim to the moral hazard that I warn about in 'The New Climate War '...'''
Mann quotes from the widely acclaimed new book:
''A fundamental problem with geoengineering is that it presents what is known as a moral hazard, namely, a scenario in which one party (e.g., the fossil fuel industry) promotes actions that are risky for another party (e.g., the rest of us), but seemingly advantageous to itself. Geoengineering provides a potential crutch for beneficiaries of our continued dependence on fossil fuels. Why threaten our economy with draconian regulations on carbon when we have a cheap alternative? The two main problems with that argument are that (1) climate change poses a far greater threat to our economy than decarbonization, and (2) geoengineering is hardly cheap '-- it comes with great potential harm.''
Gates: Engineering over politics
Gates has made several other geoengineering plays. He joined with Microsoft's old chief technology officer, Nathan Myhrvold, and his company, Intellectual Ventures, in which Gates is an investor, on a 2008 geoengineering patent application that envisions using cold sea water to tamp down hurricane intensities. In 2010 he announced an investment in Sea Spray, a company researching a technology that would spray seawater into the atmosphere to seed sunlight-reflecting white clouds.
Gates also funded David Keith to create a company that captures CO2 directly from the atmosphere. Carbon Engineering has built a plant in British Columbia and plans another with partner Occidental Petroleum in the Permian Basin of Texas, one of the fracking centers of the continent. CO2's current market is for enhancing oil recovery by pumping it into wells. Chevron and BHP are other oil company investors in Carbon Engineering, as is Alberta tar sands financier N. Murray Edwards.
Criticism of Gates' investments ranges well beyond geoengineering to the disproportionate influence his foundation exerts in global health and development as well as education policy. The foundation's support for industrialized agriculture models in Africa and the teach-to-test-oriented ''Common Core'' plan for U.S. education have come under scrutiny.
Critical reviews of his new book, ''How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,'' have called out his focus on technology as opposed to political solutions.
Wrote climate activist Bill McKibben in his New York Times review, '''... politics '... is where Gates really wears blinders. 'I think more like an engineer than a political scientist,' he says proudly '-- but that means he can write an entire book about the 'climate disaster' without discussing the role that the fossil fuel industry played, and continues to play, in preventing action '... That's why we've wasted almost three decades of scientific warning. 'I don't have a solution to the politics of climate change,' Gates writes, but in fact he does: He founded, and his foundation is a shareholder in, a company that has donated money to exactly the politicians who are in the pocket of big oil. A Bloomberg analysis last fall found that Microsoft had given only a third of its contributions to 'climate-friendly' politicians.''
Nobody's smart enough on their own
In today's world, money and power are being super-concentrated, aggregating to massive corporations, wealthy individuals such as Gates and influential institutions such as Harvard. There is a tendency, especially among the successful, to believe their success translates into broad insight on how the world should be managed. With their money, resources and prestige, they speak with the loudest voices, often drowning out others.
But no matter how brilliant or even well intentioned we may be, each one of us human beings is limited by our own perspectives. We all have blind spots. We all make mistakes. The greater our reach, the more injurious the potential impact. That is the downfall of the private governance structures becoming ever more powerful in the world. Inclusive frameworks of democratic accountability are required to gain the widest range of knowledge and insights, reflect the broadest interests and avoid pitfalls.
The Saami, speaking with the growing moral authority of the indigenous, along with their environmental allies, have brought a crucial voice to the geoengineering table. That they were not asked their views, but had to raise their voice, says everything about the flawed assumptions of private government. This is true for the range of challenges confronting our world. It is nowhere truer than in a field with such global and potentially catastrophic impacts as geoengineering.
Originally published by The Raven.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Children's Health Defense.
Ukrainian models arrested for posing naked on balcony in Dubai 'are still in detention' | Daily Mail Online
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 16:14
The wealthy American behind the scandalous naked Dubai photoshoot could be jailed for up to 18 months in the UAE.
And the models in the shoot, from Ukraine, are still in detention waiting to be deported, say reports in Kiev.
Vitaliy Grechin, 41, is believed to be in custody despite earlier reports that he had left the United Arab Emirates, according to Segodnya newspaper.
The Kiev-based US passport holder could face one a half years in jail, said the outlet citing its own sources.
Meanwhile his luxury apartment in the Ukrainian capital was searched by law enforcement on suspicion that it was used as a porn studio, reported TSN.
Grechin has been pictured with a string of famous names including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Clooney, Sylvester Stallone, and Viktor Yanukovych junior, late son of the former Ukrainian president.
The Ukrainian reports say 11 models are expected to be deported 'soon' but the exact timing is not known.
If so, this is seen as lenient treatment because under Sharia law they could have been jailed for six months for offending public morality.
The Kiev-based US passport holder could face one a half years in jail, said the outlet citing its own sources
A twelfth model has been diagnosed as suffering from Covid-19 and her departure will be delayed, said Segodnya.
A Russian IT company boss Alexey Kontsov, 33, allegedly involved in the balcony picture, also remains in detention in Dubai.
Grechin has been pictured with a string of famous names including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Clooney, Sylvester Stallone, and Viktor Yanukovych junior, late son of the former Ukrainian president
Another eight Ukrainian women were allowed to fly home but have not spoken about the video and photographs which sparked an international incident.
One said: 'I was told not to show my face for a while, or it will be worse.
'All the girls are in fear now.'
Separately a report said that a number of the group of models in Dubai had refused to undress for the naked shoot.
A picture shows Grechin playing the piano in the Dubai apartment surrounded by 21 naked women in the apartment where the offending pictures and footage were made.
Meanwhile, an associate of Grechin's, French millionaire Stephane Clavel, 44, has denied being present in Dubai for the shoot.
'I know some of the girls, not all who were there, but some of them,' he admitted to TSN.
'We are friends. They were at my birthday party in Dubai.'
His birthday was in January, and he said Grechin had invited him to last week's event - but he did not go.
Pictured: The models standing on a balcony in Dubai for a photoshoot
Pictured: Scantily clad models pose for a photoshoot with Vitaliy Grechin
'I know Grechin, he has a fetish related to photos, he loves to take millions of photos,' he said.
'He probably gave a bit of alcohol to girls, so they were more sexy, they caught the courage, and ended up naked on the balcony, which is prohibited in Dubai.'
TSN reported that Clavel's apartment in Kyiv was also visited by police who broke the doors to conduct a search.
Vitaliy Grechin poses with Barak Obama in 2011
Vitaliy Grechin with George Clooney
Vitaliy Grechin with Sylvester Stallone
A Russian photographer who has worked with Grechin denied he was a 'sex giant'.
Sergey Lenin - who also denied being on the Dubai trip - said Grechin was a 'muddy person - but he is very smart and original.
'His actions do not always lend themselves to logic.'
Sergey Lenin - who also denied being on the Dubai trip - said Grechin was a 'muddy person - but he is very smart and original
He was 'not a sex giant' but was 'a deeply lonely person'.
'I sent him a screenshot of this story with a caption: 'Dude, you're famous now', but I did not get any reply.'
Model Marianna Fedchuk, 21, who returned to Kyiv from Dubai, revealed her friend Olga Tatar, 23, had also been on the trip.
UPS Flight Forward Adds New Aircraft
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 16:02
Beta Technologies' electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft to land on-property at UPS facilities in small and mid-size markets.Enhances UPS network flexibility, benefits healthcare providers and small and medium-sized businesses.Flexible, sustainable solution to reduce air network emissions; recharging station can also be used with electric-powered ground vehicles.Atlanta, GA
UPS, together with its UPS Flight Forward subsidiary, plans to purchase electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft from Beta Technologies (BETA) to augment its air service for select small and mid-size markets. These aircraft will take off and land on-property at UPS facilities in a whisper-quiet fashion, reducing time-in-transit, vehicle emissions, and operating cost.
The BETA aircraft's 1,400-pound cargo capacity is ideally suited to more quickly and sustainably transport time-sensitive deliveries that would otherwise fly on small fixed-wing aircraft. UPS's use of the aircraft will benefit healthcare providers, thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, and other companies in smaller communities. With a 250-mile range and cruising speed of up to 170 miles per hour, UPS will be able to plan a series of short routes, or one long route, on a single charge to meet customers' needs.
''This is all about innovation with a focus on returns for our business, our customers, and the environment,'' said UPS Chief Information and Engineering Officer Juan Perez. ''These new aircraft will create operational efficiencies in our business, open possibilities for new services, and serve as a foundation for future solutions to reduce the emissions profile of our air and ground operation.''
The aviation industry is focusing on small aircraft, which UPS uses to serve many small and medium-sized communities, to develop groundbreaking, sustainable electric-powered aircraft. BETA's aircraft has four fixed vertical lift propellers and one pusher propeller for forward flight. It can charge in an hour or less, and produces zero operational emissions.
''We're combining simple, elegant design and advanced technology to create a reliable aircraft with zero operational emissions that will revolutionize how cargo moves,'' said BETA founder and CEO Kyle Clark. ''By utilizing vertical takeoffs and landings, we can turn relatively small spaces at existing UPS facilities into a micro air feeder network without the noise or operating emissions of traditional aircraft.''
UPS has also reserved BETA's recharging station for a seamless and fully integrated electric aviation system. The BETA charging station helps ensure safe and rapid charging of the aircraft in under one hour, and facilitates a quick turn for the loading and unloading of cargo. The charging station also offers the aircraft's batteries a second life cycle.
After the batteries' first life cycle in the aircraft concludes, they can be fitted to the charging stations to recharge the aircraft's onboard batteries as well as UPS's fleet of electric ground vehicles. UPS currently operates more than 12,000 alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles, and announced a commitment to purchase up to 10,000 Arrival electric vehicles.
BETA's aircraft are designed to someday operate autonomously as technologies and regulations are established. UPS Flight Forward received the first U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Part 135 Standard air carrier certification to operate a drone airline, and is operating daily revenue-generating flights with drones. The FAA certification also enables UPS Flight Forward to fly payloads of up to 7,500 lbs. either with an operator or autonomously.
Last month, BETA advanced to the next phase of flight testing, completing an interstate flight from its Plattsburgh, NY test facility to its Burlington, Vt. headquarters. In accordance with FAA protocols for experimental aircraft to fly beyond its home airport, BETA had to complete rigorous testing to ensure reliable and predictable behavior of the aircraft. In the same week, the company set a new personal-best in range while also reaching 8,000 feet in altitude.
The first ten BETA aircraft are scheduled to begin arriving in 2024, with an option to purchase up to 150 of the aircraft.
Editor's note: Multimedia assets are available on UPS Brand Central.
About UPS
UPS (NYSE: UPS) is one of the world's largest package delivery companies with 2020 revenue of $84.6 billion, and provides a broad range of integrated logistics solutions for customers in more than 220 countries and territories. The company's more than 540,000 employees embrace a strategy that is simply stated and powerfully executed: Customer First. People Led. Innovation Driven. UPS is committed to being a steward of the environment and positively contributing to the communities we serve around the world. UPS also takes a strong and unwavering stance in support of diversity, equity and inclusion. The company can be found on the Internet at www.ups.com, with more information at www.stories.ups.com and www.investors.ups.com.
Lawsuit Exposes COVID Jabs As Unsafe Transhumanist Gene Therapies | Principia Scientific Intl.
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:40
Published on April 9, 2021
Written by medicalveritas.org
Image: Medical Veritas
New discoveries filed in the U.S. District Court of Middle Florida against COVID-19 vaccine makers, advertisers, and distributors by a Harvard-trained public health expert, Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz, reveal an enterprise secreting critical information about the actual activities of Harvard's indicted nano-chemistry professor, Charles Lieber, his connections to the alleged ''plandemic,'' and the ''conspiracy theory'' embraced by a consensus of best-informed most-honorable scientists.
Among this growing consensus is the former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, who affirmed COVID's lab origin on CNN. Redfield joined Nobel Prize virologist Luc Montagnier, who confirmed the same conclusion reached by IBM'S chief genetic analyst, Prashant Pradham et al. Gene sequencing showed the ''novel'' SARS-coronavirus pathogen most-likely emerged from a lab.
But government officials dismissed the 'lab origin theory.' This unreasonable and irresponsible dismissal caused the former Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Senior Ebola Program Manager (and later Head of the Vaccine Development Office for the German Center for Infection Research), Geert Vanden Bossche, to create a firestorm of controversy. He published that the new COVID vaccines were ''likely to become the biggest and most tragic mistake made in the history of public health in general and in the field of vaccination in particular.'' Corroboration came from former Vice President of Pfizer, Michael Yeadon, who predicted women would become sterile from the nano-bioelectrically-active shots.
All of the above were dismissed as ''tin foil hat'' conspiracy theorists by the 'PharmaMedia.'
But vaccine advocates and opponents alike are ''dead wrong,'' argues federal case plaintiff Dr. Horowitz, who is the author of the best-selling, longest-enduring, and most censored book in this field, according to Amazon and Wikepedia.
''The 'natural' outbreak and 'accidental leak' theorists are all dead wrong. They are all afraid to tell the truth. The overwhelming evidence filed for review by Judge John L. Badalamenti, and Magistrate Nicholas P. Mizell in the Florida civil case strongly presumes the Wuhan outbreak was intentional, best explaining why the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA 'genetic therapies' are misprepresented as 'vaccines'; and were never tested for genetic damage or negative side-effects from their nano-bioelectric silver-infused hydrogel delivery system that impacts nerve cells (not exclusively immune cells),'' Horowitz explained. ''This suppression of military-science is recklessly irresponsible, even unconscionable. Genocide and population control exclusively justifies such outrageous negligence.''
According to Dr. Horowitz's 20-page opposition filing in Horowitz v. Pfizer et. al., 21 exhibits evidence the most complete story yet told, but under seal in the FBI's criminal case against Charles Lieber.
Most of this is being censored by the press.
Horowitz's evidence examines the interplay between the Defense Department (especially DARPA) and private companies, Pfizer, and Moderna. The drug industry and U.S. military invested heavily in Lieber's largely secreted neuroscience experiments at Harvard with cohorts at MIT. The ''bioelectronic'' and ''frequency therapeutic'' science features nano-particle silver-impregnated vaccine ''hydrogels.''
These ''game-changing'' patents enable more than the transfer of genetic material from drugs and vaccines to human immune cells. Brain cells are highly susceptible to the wave-frequency manipulations, according to the researchers' published science.
Dual Chinese-American military and commercial interests have worked for a decade to master this generally-secreted science that promises an array of population control patents and products merging brain function with electronics''the main focus of Lieber's expertise and concealed activities in China.
Resulting bioelectric technologies, and opposition to what amounts to a ''globalist plot,'' is fundamental to Dr. Horowitz's lawsuit against Pfizer, Moderna, and his former employer, Henry Schein, Inc. Horowitz charges the federal government and complicit corporations with covertly-operating a global enterprise leveraging bioterrorism, corrupted science, media censorship, and competitor disparagement.
Military Neuroscience and Dr. LieberAll of this is being done to advance the latest U.S./Chinese military-financed neuroscience technology fostering the ''transhumanist'' movement promising optimal control over civilization through cyberspace, solid research evidences.
FBI-indicted chief biochemistry and neuroscience professor Lieber's classified activity with military officials in the U.S. and China reveals this Anglo-Asian complicity as the true source of the COVID-19 pandemic that skeptics claim was a ''plandemic.''
''I know that the Lieber Research Group has received more than $15,000,000 in grant funding from NIH and DoD since 2008,'' wrote FBI Special Agent Robert Plumb for the Justice Department's criminal case against Lieber. This money was paid for a ''component of the United States Department of Health and Human Service''''the ''NIH is a government agency responsible for biomedical and public health research,'' Plumb's charging affidavit explained. ''LIEBER traveled to [Wuhan] in mid-November 2011 ostensibly in order to participate in a Nano-Energy Materials Forum.''
The purpose of Charles Lieber's trip, among other things, was to ''Conduct national important (key) projects, or international cooperation projects that meet China's national strategic development requirements or stand at the forefront of international science and technology research field,'' Plumb revealed.
In other words, Lieber was employed by the Communist Party to secure China's military and national security interests, and undermine U.S. National Security interests on behalf of globalist governors working through public and private financiers. They transferred the most advanced nano-scale bioelectronic methods and materials to China. This, allegedly, advanced the field of vaccinology and genetic 'therapies,' but also brain-to-cloud transhumanism.
But here is what is most telling: FBI affiant Plumb obfuscated Lieber's value to China. Federal prosecutors concealed the certainties regarding Lieber's actual bio-electrical intellectual property and neuro-science transfer activities. Plumb charged Lieber with Chinese espionage activity thusly: ''The stated purpose of the agreement, which had a five-year effective term, was to 'carry out advanced research and development of nanowire-based lithium ion batteries with high performance for electric vehicles.'''
''Electric vehicles?'' OUTRAGEOUS! Beyond reasonable doubt the only ''electric vehicles'' in Lieber's labs were humans, who 'volunteered' to submit to experiments examining, inter alia, ''Precision electronic medicine in the brain.''
''In fact,'' Science Magazine reported, ''one U.S. nanoscientist and former student of Lieber's says: ''I have never seen Charlie working on batteries or nanowire batteries.'' (The scientist asked that their name not be used because of the sensitivity surrounding Lieber's case.)''
Accordingly, the FBI's ''lithium battery'' story is a smelly 'red herring.'
This transparent diversionary obfuscation indicts federal agents and the Department of Justice for complicity in the scheme amounting to 'pan-genocide.' They have advanced a deadly fable concealing irrefutable ties between Harvard's Lieber, MIT's Media Lab, their advancing nano-neuroscience, COVID-19, and the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that apply Lieber's DARPA-financed hydrogel research and developments for ''precision electronic medicine in the brain.''
And they paid to cover up all of the above.
'Globalist capture' of international governments and military operations has apparently tainted the DoD's and DoJ's competence in securing U.S. National Security in favor of globalization and China's predominant role in geopolitics and economics.
The ''Event 201'' 'predictive programming coronavirus preparedness conference, held at Johns Hopkins University six weeks before the Wuhan outbreak, provides more compelling evidence of the institutionalized foul play. Horowitz analyzed the Event 201, including its Chinese commercial representations and concerns. He produced a 52-minute video on the conference. Facts compound compelling evidence of the obvious globalist plot.
The Event 201 coronavirus preparedness conference was co-sponsored by the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Horowitz's court filings recall.
The World Health Organization, the ''WHO,'' is largely financed by the Gates Foundation. This best explains why the WHO whitewashed the entire matter of COVID's lab origin. Classified military neuroscience technologies would be revealed by an honest investigation report.
Gates and the WHO partnered with Google's Alphabet parent, Verily Life Sciences, Galvani Corporation, along with multiple intelligence agencies. They hid the truth about the lab coronavirus weaponization and the availability of alternative therapies that would otherwise block their 'Emergency Use Authorization' by the 'captured FDA' for the Pfizer and Moderna hydrogel-mediated neuro-electric ''vaccines.''
Clearly now, the world scientific consensus has awakened to the fact that COVID-19 didn't emerge from a bat, a pangolin, or even a ''leak'' from the lab in Wuhan by accident. The compelling evidence of the cover-up presumes foul play and the guilt of the agents and agencies complicit. Most certain is the intentional deployment of the virus to achieve geopolitical and economic objectives''such as the ''Final Solution'' espoused by Bill Gates as well as the ''Great Global Reset'' urged by his colleague, World Economic Forum Director Klaus Schwab.
Mass-mediated threats are now equally transparent. The news networks and presses have been abused to advance bio-terror and economic espionage. The clear-and-convincing evidence of biological sabotage involving mass-media hyped vaccines to further globalists' objectives are frighteningly consistent with Chapter 10, verse 19, of the FBI's true and correct copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Sion shown below.
Indeed, the new evidence filed by Dr. Horowitz with the federal court in Florida proves the use of bio-electric nano-silver hydrogel infusions into the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines crucial to the functionality of their ''genetic therapy.'' The silver-impregnated, water and pH driven docking, secures the transmission of the genetic information to human nerve cells, as well as immune cells.
These facts are established by Lieber and his colleagues' published science. Their functionality may be presumed to link human brains to the Cloud. This ''transhumanist'' objective is concealed by Pfizer's parent and partners, GSK, Verily, Google's parent Alphabet, and top globalist intelligence agencies, respectively.
ConclusionSummarily in conclusion, this little-known, government-secreted, military technology is central to Pfizer and Moderna's mRNA delivery systems, and Dr. Lieber's pioneering influence.
Described by Harvard Magazine as ''a much-honored leader in nanoscale science and bio-compatible electronics,'' Lieber's classified activity with his students and military officials in China, favoring his financiers' bio-defense and National Security enterprise, is capriciously ignored by the complicit press and Justice Department.
''There's nobody home in the Justice Department to administer justice to secure our National Security,'' Horowitz laments.
That is why Dr. Horowitz's stands before the federal judges in Horowitz v. Pfizer, et. al., to do whatever he can to cure this pathology.
His legal ''standing'' derives from having been damaged personally for pioneering and marketing a much safer, and arguably much more effective, competing technology called ''OxySilverTM with 528.'' For this, Horowitz was, and continues to be, disparaged and commercially damaged. Like his esteemed colleagues in science and medicine he was smeared as a ''tin foil hat'' ''conspiracy theorist'' and worse by Lieber's backers in government and industry.
That is why Horowitz filed his lawsuit as an internationally known award-winning author of the best-selling longest-enduring text in the field of emerging viruses and communicable diseases. He also produced the ''Best Film-2016'' at the World International Film Festival in London and Geneva, exposing the military secrecy and media malfeasance underlying the globalists' vaccination agenda.
Horowitz's lawsuit, likely to be soon dismissed in favor of the world's wealthiest companies, bravely stands like ''David versus Goliath'' in a destiny upon which civilization's security now rests.
Opposing the potentially disastrous implications to civilization brought by pharmaceutical nano-bioelectronics intertwined with covert lab virus enhancements for allegedly ''disease control,'' that Dr. Horowitz argues is actually ''population control,'' deserves your prayerful support.
CLICK LINK to view Dr. Horowitz's complete filing in Horowitz v. Pfizer et. al., of ''Plaintiff's Opposition to Defendant Schein's Motion to Dismiss 3-29-21
See more here: medicalveritas.org
Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Expose The Lies About COVID19 PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
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Video of UFOs buzzing Navy warship is leaked | Daily Mail Online
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:11
The Pentagon has confirmed that a set of images and videos showing unidentified flying objects buzzing over Navy warships off the coast of California in 2019 'were taken' by branch personnel.
The photos were leaked from a Pentagon investigation of UFOs by the UAP Task Force, which has been gathering evidence for a report for Congress that's due in June, according to Mystery Wire.
The images, which were obtained by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, show unidentified objects flying above four US destroyers, including the USS Kidd Navy destroyer, in 2019.
One of the images appears to be a pyramid-shaped object while others were thought to be drones or balloons; however, the Navy has listed them as unknowns.
In a statement, a Pentagon spokesperson told Mystery Wire: 'I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel. The UAPTF has included these incidents in their ongoing examinations.'
The Pentagon has confirmed that images and videos showing unidentified flying objects buzzing over Navy warships off the coast of California 'were taken' by branch personnel. Critics have said that this image appears to show a balloon but it's classified as unknown
One of the images appears to be a pyramid-shaped object (pictured) hovering over the USS Russell
The confirmation comes a week after Admiral Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations, admitted that he has no idea where the swarm of mysterious Tic Tac-shaped drones that menaced four US destroyers in July 2019 originated.
Gilday led an investigation into the incident in which a group of what some have called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) chased the destroyers for up to 100 nautical miles off the coast of California.
Flight logs revealed as many as six mystery aircraft swarmed the warships close to a sensitive training area at the Channel Islands at speeds of up to 40mph and with a greater maneuverability than US military drones.
When asked directly if the Navy had confirmed the identity of the drones at a media event last Monday, Gilday responded: 'No, we have not.'
Gilday's response appears to rule out the theory that the drones could have come from a secret US military program. That has led to growing speculation that they were either built by a rival military power or 'something else beyond our understanding is going on'.
The Drive revealed last month that US Navy warships stationed off the coast of Los Angeles had encountered swarms of mysterious drones, which pursued them at high speed in low visibility.
The Drive obtained ship logbooks and internal emails from the Navy under the Freedom of Information Act, and eyewitness descriptions from the staff on board to establish the UAVs had a far greater aeronautical capability than any previously known drones.
The sighting has eerie parallels to previous UFO encounters, in particular an infamous 2004 incident when six Super Hornet pilots made visual or instrument contact with a mystery aircraft in November 2004.
Other images show what were thought to be drones; however, the Navy has listed them as unknowns
The photos were leaked from a Pentagon investigation of UFOs by the UAP Task Force, which has been gathering evidence for a comprehensive report for Congress that's due in June. The USS Omaha observed this spherical shape moving towards the surface of the water
In the most recent documented encounter in July 2019, USS destroyers on patrol were suddenly swarmed by flashing, Tic Toc-shaped drones, which were able to travel long distance at high speeds
Scores of similar sightings have been reported dating back to the 1960s, but most of the US military investigations into them remain classified.
Lawmakers have been calling for the Pentagon for years to open up its classified records about the encounters, citing national security concerns.
In January, as part of a COVID-19 relief package, Congress set a deadline of June 1 for US intelligence agencies and the Defense Department to release UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomena.
Speaking to the Defense Writers Group in Washington this week, Gilday, the senior ranking Navy officer, was quizzed about his knowledge of recent UFO encounters.
'I am aware of those sightings, and as it's been reported, there have been other sightings by aviators in the air and by other ships not only of the United States, but other nations '-- and of course other elements within the US joint force,' Gilday said.
'Those findings have been collected and they still are being analyzed,' he said.
A detailed account of the 2019 encounter published by The Drive shows the drama began on the night of July 14 2019.
Deck logs from the USS Kidd show that just before 10pm that night two drones were spotted.
An onboard intelligence crew responsible for documenting and investigating contact with unknown vessels - known as the Ship Nautical Or Otherwise Photographic Interpretation and Exploitation team - or SNOOPIE - was engaged to figure out who, or what, the mystery flying objects were.
A detailed account of the 2019 encounter shows the drama began on the night of July 14 2019. Deck logs from the USS Kidd (file image) show that just before 10pm that night two drones were spotted
Within a few minutes of the sighting, reports show the USS Kidd moved into quiet mode, minimizing communications as it sought to work what the threat level was.
It contacted a nearby warship also on patrol, the USS Rafael Peralta, who also engaged their onboard photo intelligence team, or SNOOPIE.
Several other US Navy destroyers on patrol nearby began noticing strange lights.
The USS John Finn also reported UAV activity, and noticed a 'red flashing light' at 10.03pm, according to its logbook.
Just over an hour later at 11.23pm, the USS Rafael Peralta spotted a white light hovering over the flight deck.
The drone was able to remain hovering above the destroyer's helicopter landing pad while traveling at speeds of 16 knots and in low visibility.
The nearly 90-minute encounter was well beyond the capability of commercially-available drones.
The next night, the drones returned, this time as the warships were patrolling closer to the Californian mainland.
They were first spotted by the USS Rafael Peralta and the ship's SNOOPIE team was engaged at 8.39pm.
At 8.56pm, logs show the USS Kidd had also come into contact with drones.
'The drones seem to have pursued the ships, even as they continued to maneuver throughout the incident,' The Drive reported.
Logbooks onboard the USS Russell show drones were swarming all over it, dipping in elevation from 1,000 to 700 feet and seemingly able to move in any direction.
The USS Russell had separate contact with drones nine occasions in less than an hour.
Then at 9.20pm that night, the USS Kidd noticed 'multiple UAVs' around the ship.
The USS Rafael Peralta was also swarmed by as many as four drones. It was contacted by a passing cruise ship, the Carnival Imagination, to say they too had spotted up to six drones.
The three-hour frenzy of activity continued until close to midnight, with none of the warships able to say with certainty where the drones had come from.
Mastercard launches carbon calculator in its latest attempt to go green - CNN
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:10
New York (CNN Business)Mastercard wants consumers to understand how much their spending habits are contributing to carbon emissions and global warming.
The credit card company created a calculator that measures
consumers' carbon footprints based on what they purchase. The tool, which will be available on Monday, focuses on specific spending categories but doesn't track individual transactions.
The calculator gathers information using a methodology called the Doconomy
land Index, which collects data from Trucost, an ESG analysis company that estimates businesses' hidden costs of using unsustainable natural resources.
That index calculates the impact of transactions by using an average footprint number for specific industries. For the carbon calculator, that information is correlated to Mastercard's merchant category codes like 'food and beverage' or 'apparel.'
The calculator also shares information about the number of trees that are required to absorb the same amount of carbon dioxide that is released from the consumer's purchases in specific categories.
"While it's not perfect, it actually gives a very good indication about what your overall spend is for the month," Jorn Lambert, Mastercard's chief digital officer, told CNN Business. He called the calculator "a middle ground between respecting privacy yet providing information to consumers."
The creation of the carbon calculator is the company's latest attempt at focusing on sustainability. Earlier,
Mastercard
( MA ) started working to reduce first-use plastic in payment card production. In January, Mastercard pledged to reach
net zero emissions by 2050, joining a long list of major companies that have made similar commitments.
Dutch supermarkets run out of cheese after ransomware attack
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 14:41
A ransomware attack against conditioned warehousing and transportation provider Bakker Logistiek has caused a cheese shortage in Dutch supermarkets.
Bakker Logistiek is one of the largest logistics services providers in the Netherlands, offering air-conditioned warehousing and food transportation for Dutch supermarkets.
Last week, Bakker Logistiek suffered a ransomware attack that encrypted devices on their network and disrupted food transportation and fulfillment operations.
"We could no longer receive orders from customers," Bakker director Toon Verhoeven told NOS. "And in our warehouses we no longer knew where products were. These are very large warehouses, you don't just go looking for a pallet. We also couldn't plan our transports anymore. We have hundreds of trucks, which was not done by hand either."
This disruption led to a shortage of certain food products, especially cheese, at the Netherland's largest supermarket chain, Albert Heijn.
Empty food shelves at Albert HeijnSource: NOSThe shortage has led Albert Heijn to post a notice on their website alerting customers of the limited availability of prepackaged cheese.
"Due to a technical malfunction, there is limited availability on the prepackaged cheese. The logistics service provider works hard to solve the problem as quickly as possible and to quickly restore availability. We apologize for the inconvenience," AH posted on their website.
Bakker Logistiek has said that they could restore affected systems from backups and have begun coordinating with customers to begin deliveries again.
It is unknown what ransomware gang targeted Bakker Logistiek, but Verhoeven has told NOS that they speculate that the threat actors gained access to their systems through the recently reported Microsoft Exchange ProxyLogon vulnerabilities.
Bakker Logistiek is not the first conditioned warehouse operator to get hit in a ransomware attack.
In November, global temperature-controlled warehouses operator Americold suffered a ransomware attack that impacted phone systems, email, inventory management, and order fulfillment.
Covid vaccines made by Moderna and Novavax will be added to a 'mix and match' trial | Daily Mail Online
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 14:24
Professor Matthew Snape said alternating jabs could trigger added protection against coronavirus
Coronavirus vaccines made by Moderna and Novavax will be added to a 'mix and match' trial, scientists said today.
Britain's medical regulator currently requires everyone to have two doses of the same jab '-- either AstraZeneca, Pfizer or Moderna.
But Oxford University experts are testing whether alternating second doses could provoke a stronger immune response.
Their trial '-- which could revolutionise Britain's roll-out '-- was already assessing the effects of combining doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
Another 1,000 volunteers will now be recruited to the study to test combinations including vaccines made by Moderna and Novavax.
Experts say mixing jabs is unlikely to pose any safety concerns and predict it could lead to shots being even more effective at preventing an infection with the virus.
In the wake of AstraZeneca's blood clot fears, France approved giving recipients an alternative second dose. Germany made the same move for under-60s.
But until evidence is gathered they can't say for certain whether it works or whether it is safe.
Britain has only recommended under-30s are offered an alternative and that anyone who has already had their first dose should come forward for their second, unless they suffered the extremely rare complication.
Oxford's mix-and-match trial was first launched in February, to investigate whether alternating doses of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines boosted efficacy.
Volunteers need to be 50 or over and to have received one dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine. Some will be offered the Moderna or Novavax jabs as a second dose, but others will still be given the same dose the second time round
The study will be the first to show whether it is possible to mix doses of the Covid vaccine
HOW DO I GET INVOLVED? Oxford scientists are looking to recruit 1,050 Britons for their trial investigating whether doses of the vaccines can be alternated.
Participants will need to be 50 years old and over, and to have only received one dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine.
In the trial they may be offered the Moderna or Novavax vaccines for their second dose.
But some will still receive the same shot as they did the first time to allow scientists to compare whether alternating doses impacted immunity.
Experts said there were unlikely to be any safety concerns over 'mixing' doses.
They added that such a move could actually lead to the jabs sparking stronger immunity against the virus.
Volunteers will be jabbed at centres based across the country including in London, Bristol and the Midlands.
They will begin recruiting on Monday.
You can sign up here: Com-COV trials.
The Com-COV trials, or Comparing Covid Vaccine Schedule Combinations, are the first in the world to look at mixing coronavirus jabs.
It already involves 800 participants, who were alternating between AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines.
But the new trial will recruit another 175 volunteers in each of the six arms, taking the total number of volunteers to almost 2,000.
Participants will be randomly allocated a Moderna or Novavax jab '-- which is set to be rubber-stamped by regulators in the coming weeks '-- as a second dose, eight weeks after being given AstraZeneca or Pfizer's vaccine.
Some participants will receive the same jab as they did the first time round to act as a 'control' for the study, to indicate whether alternating doses did make jabs more potent.
Results will also be compared against the efficacy figures for each jab from large-scale clinical trials.
Experts are set to start recruiting volunteers from Monday, but the final results are not expected until late next month at the earliest, and possibly not until July.
Their findings will be submitted to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which will decide whether to permit alternative doses.
The group of top scientists was also responsible for designing the jabs priority list, and the decision to expand the gap between jabs to 12 weeks to protect as many people as fast as possible.
The study will not include the Johnson and Johnson jab expected to be approved in days because it requires just one dose.
Professor Matthew Snape, who is leading the study, said it could offer ministers an alternative should any jab suffer supply constrains or concerns over blood clots.
'The reason we are doing this study is that we don't know the effect of mixing,' he told a press briefing.
'The risk with mixing is you're going to see suboptimal immune responses, or a response that is not as good as in the original vaccine course.
'I personally would be surprised if that was the case, we just don't know what the outcome will be yet.'
He said mixing jabs could lead to more participants being immune to infections from the virus compared to the current jabs because it may prime the body to attack the whole virus rather than just the spike protein '-- which it uses to invade cells.
Studies have suggested the South African and Brazilian variants can partially evade jab-triggered immunity because they have deformed spikes which antibodies struggle to bind to.
But if the immune system attacked the whole virus these alterations would not help the virus slip in undetected and spark an infection.
Experts believe the current crop of jabs protects against the virus because antibodies are not the only part of the immune system.
AstraZeneca's vaccine was 76 per cent effective at blocking symptomatic Covid infections in clinical trials, compared to 92 per cent for Moderna's and 95 per cent for Pfizer's.
But experts point out these results are 'very good' for any vaccine, adding the World Health Organization only set the bar at 50 per cent and annual flu jabs are often only around 40 per cent effective.
AstraZeneca's and Novavax's vaccine uses a cold-modified virus containing Covid spike proteins to teach the immune system how to fight off the disease.
While Pfizer and Moderna's jab uses mRNA '-- instructions for building proteins '-- to trigger production of the spike particle.
It comes after more than 800 people were enrolled into trials of to find out whether it was possible to 'mix and match' between the AstraZeneca and Pfizer jabs.
All participants are aged over 50, and were given the jabs at eight sites across England including London, Birmingham and Liverpool.
The study will run for 13 months, with patients recruited in February.
Fake Covid-19 Certificates Hit Airlines, Which Now Have to Police Them - WSJ
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 14:13
LONDON'--Airlines are battling a scourge of passengers traveling with falsified Covid-19 health certificates.
The documents are often the Covid-19 test results required by many countries on arrival. The International Air Transport Association industry body says it has tracked fake certificates in multiple countries, from France to Brazil, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Border control authorities and police forces have also reported arrests of people selling documents in the U.K., Spain, Indonesia and Zimbabwe, among others.
The problem is hitting international flights more than domestic ones, which typically don't require certification at the moment. Airlines that are more dependent on cross-border travel, particularly those operating in Europe, are growing increasingly alarmed as they look to the summer, when they still hope demand will start to return.
The proliferation of fake health certificates is exposing a logistical blind spot, as airlines rush to navigate post-pandemic travel standards and retool their systems to ease compliance'--and spur demand. Airlines say their staff aren't equipped to handle and police all the new health certifications needed and worry the problem will be exacerbated when some countries also start to ask for vaccination certificates.
At Brussels Airlines, staff have shared fake certificates that they have come across'--including one from an incident last week'--to stay abreast of the techniques fraudsters are using.
''They take out the names of the passengers and then show how they tried to make it look like the real document and the techniques used,'' a spokeswoman for the airline said.
Airlines are pushing for digital health passes that can store vaccine certificates and the results of Covid-19 and antibody tests. The industry says this will make it easier to track the veracity of documents and avoid the need to physically check them at airports. But even this sort of system ''will not stop people still trying to bring fraudulent certificates,'' said Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of Qatar Airways Ltd.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 120 countries are using testing to control entry. The CDC requires flights landing in the U.S. from overseas to verify passengers' health documents, which must show either a negative test result or evidence of recovery from the virus.
Many governments have shifted the burden of checking certificates to airlines, in much the same way carriers are required to check for proper travel visas before allowing passengers to fly.
Deutsche Lufthansa AG has been fined up to 25,000 euros, or about $29,800, by Germany for allowing passengers with false or incorrect documents to board, according to people familiar with the penalties. In total, Germany registered 3,838 ''unlawful transportations'' between Jan. 24, when it started tracking, and April 8, according to German police.
Lufthansa has compiled a list of testing centers it considers valid in countries where it operates, said J¶rg Waber, a spokesman for the airline. The German interior ministry, which oversees the federal police, said officers were ''aware of the phenomenon of falsified coronavirus test results,'' and were ''taking this into account when verifying documents.''
Meanwhile, Qatar Airways is requiring passengers' certificates to be sent directly from the testing clinic. Any traveler found to be carrying fraudulent documents is blacklisted, Mr. Al Baker, the airline's CEO, said.
Qatar Airways has identified clinics in some countries from which it is willing to accept certification. ''We are mitigating the problem of fraudulent certificates,'' he said. ''But it doesn't mean that we have never carried any fraudulent certificate passengers on the airplane.''
At London Heathrow Airport, the additional checks by border control have led to lines of more than six hours for arriving passengers. That is with just 541,000 passengers passing through the airport in March, down 91.7% from the comparable period in 2019.
Airlines are resisting calls to take on the responsibility of verifying the certificates at check in, or elsewhere in the airport.
''We cannot have either our crews or the people at Heathrow or other airports verifying the authenticity of all these documents,'' Virgin Atlantic Airways Chief Executive Shai Weiss said. ''That will take too much time, and we've seen queues and processing times moving up by two to three times at the airport.''
'--Ruth Bender and Alison Sider contributed to this article.
Write to Benjamin Katz at ben.katz@wsj.com
Statement of FSF board on election of Richard Stallman '-- Free Software Foundation '-- Working together for free software
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 13:26
The voting members of the Free Software Foundation, which include the board ofdirectors, voted to appoint Richard Stallman to a board seat after severalmonths of thorough discussion and thoughtful deliberation.
We decided to bring RMS back because we missed his wisdom. His historical,legal and technical acumen on free software is unrivaled. He has a deepsensitivity to the ways that technologies can contribute to both theenhancement and the diminution of basic human rights. His global network ofconnections is invaluable. He remains the most articulate philosopher and anunquestionably dedicated advocate of freedom in computing.
RMS acknowledges that he has made mistakes. He has sincere regrets,especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted thereputation and mission of FSF. While his personal style remains troubling forsome, a majority of the board feel his behavior has moderated and believe thathis thinking strengthens the work of the FSF in pursuit of its mission.
We take full responsibility for how badly we handled the news of his electionto a board seat. We had planned a flow of information that was not executed ina timely manner or delivered in the proper sequence.
FSF staff should have been informed and consulted first. The announcement byRMS at LibrePlanet was a complete surprise to staff, all those who worked sohard to organize a great event, to LibrePlanet speakers and to the exhibitors.We had hoped for a more inclusive and thoughtful process and we apologize thatthis did not occur.
In his position on the board, RMS has the same responsibilities as othermembers. He is an unpaid volunteer and subject to the organization's policies,including prohibitions against conflicts of interest and sexual harassment andthose outlining whistleblower processes and fiduciary duties. Theresponsibilities of the board are described athttps://www.fsf.org/about/the-role-of-the-fsfs-board-of-directors.
We believe his views will be critical to the FSF as we advance the mission andconfront the challenges that software freedom faces.
In recent weeks, the board has committed to a series of changes related toorganizational governance, including plans to adopt a transparent, formalprocess for identifying appropriate candidates to become new board members,future changes to the organization's bylaws, and the addition of a staffrepresentative to the board of directors.
Selected by FSF's unionized staff, senior systems administrator Ian Kellingwas elected to a newly created staff seat on the board of directors as avoting member on March 28.
The FSF board will continue to pursue additional ideas and actions designed toimprove transparency and accountability.
There is still considerable work to be done. We recognize the need to attract anew generation of activists for software freedom and to grow the movement. Wewill report our discussions and activities to the community as we move forward.
As we work on these issues, let's not forget the purpose of our movement, orthe great work of our staff and all the good people of the free softwarecommunity who are dedicated to users' freedom.
Michael Moore Demands Gretchen Whitmer Close Down All Of Michigan | The Daily Wire
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 13:10
Leftist filmmaker Michael Moore has called upon Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) to close down the state immediately, further endangering the economic lives of her citizens, despite widespread economic damage from the state's earlier round of lockdowns.
Speaking on an emergency episode of his podcast ''Rumble,'' Moore said that the rising number of COVID cases in the state has created a ''tragedy'' that he called upon Whitmer to correct. According to Moore, Whitmer has been crippled by fear from the many violent threats she has received.
''I hate to say this, because I voted for her for governor, but she has been scared by people who seek to do violence to her, who bullied her,'' Moore said. ''The business community '-- the Chamber of Commerce '-- who have insisted that she reopen everything and this has brought a tragedy upon this upon the state, and so I need everybody's help in pressuring '... Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, to close things down.''
Moore insisted that Whitmer should ignore the cries of the business community, recommending that they apply for government help to keep themselves afloat. He also highlighted that Whitmer comes from a business background and is not anti-business.
''Do not listen to the business community. Yes, they are losing money,'' he said. ''There are programs to help them with getting some of this money back, and what they can't get back, there should be other programs that the Biden administration establishes so that these businesses don't go bankrupt.''
URGENT. Michigan is in its own epidemic tonight. The UK variant is everywhere. 40% of new covid cases are young adults between 20-40. My plea tonight: Shut down the state. Send more vaccine. You can help. Listen to my emergency podcast on Apple https://t.co/uFwOFNka9U & Spotify.
'-- Michael Moore (@MMFlint) April 13, 2021
Moore said that Whitmer needs to shut down everything and pushed more fear by stressing that the pandemic could last as many as three or four years.
''Shut down the restaurants, the bars, the businesses,'' Moore said. ''People, stay home, just for a little bit. Stay home from school, just for a little bit. We made a mistake in reopening the state of Michigan too soon. Stop this back and forth.''
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director has also called upon Whitmer to shut down the state of Michigan, a move that Republican lawmakers in the state sharply rebuked.
''It's clear that Michigan is a hot spot for COVID-19. To prevent further spread and save lives, the Biden Administration should adopt a surge strategy and increase vaccine allocation to Michigan instead of advocating for shutting down the economy,'' said Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI). ''Manufacturers, restaurants, and small businesses alike are still trying to recover from the mandated government shutdowns over the past year.''
''Shutting down the economy again is not the answer,'' the congressman added.
Michael Moore has been fear-mongering about the pandemic since the outset. In December of last year, the documentary filmmaker told Trump supporters to wear masks and socially distance, warning that their deaths would kill Republican leadership.
''I have two words for MAGA Nation: Don't Die,'' he said.
''Your love of and loyalty to Trump isn't worth your life,'' he added. ''With 73 million of you refusing to wear a mask and to social distance, there'll be no way to eradicate this disease. And a lot of you are going to die.''
Moore likened the death rate to al-Qaeda killing Americans every 37 seconds.
''Why do you want to infect your spouse, your parents, your children? By now, despite your bluster and anger, I KNOW that YOU know that this pandemic is real,'' he said. ''One person is dying every 37 seconds? What do you think that is? If al-Qaeda started killing one American every 37 seconds, what would you want to do about that? Why are you doing NOTHING to stop this slaughter? What will it take for you and I to join, arm in arm, to kill Covid-19? The death of your mother? Your son? Where's the exact line where you'll say enough is enough?''
The Daily Wire is one of America's fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.
Biden Proposes In-Person Summit With Putin, Warns Of Ukraine Escalation In Phone Call | ZeroHedge
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 13:07
In a huge development at a moment of soaring tensions on multiple US-Russia fronts and points of contention - most especially the Ukraine crisis and the SolarWinds hack - President Biden in a Tuesday phone call with Vladimir Putin (the second Putin call of his presidency) has proposed that the two soon meet in person for a summit.
A White House Press statement indicated Biden's proposed bilateral summit, which would be the first such of his presidency, should take place "in a third country in the coming months." Per the readout, the meeting would cover "the full range of issues facing the United States and Russia."
The statement further indicated Biden "made clear that the United States will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to Russia's actions, such as cyber intrusions and election interference," which a US intelligence review last week pointed the finger at the Kremlin for being behind.
Anadolu/Getty ImagesBiden is still said to be mulling further US 'retaliatory action' - likely in the form of sanctions - for the cyber-intrusion and alleged election meddling.
On Ukraine, which has been the focus of international headlines for much of the past week amid a troop build-up by both sides, Biden "emphasized the United States' unwavering commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the White House said.
"The President voiced our concerns over the sudden Russian military build-up in occupied Crimea and on Ukraine's borders, and called on Russia to de-escalate tensions," the readout stated further.
But despite Biden's urging Putin for 'de-escalation' - it appears a pair of American warships are still en route to the Black Sea in waters near Ukraine, which prompted an earlier warning by the Kremlin for US vessels to steer away from coming near Crimea "for their own good". Biden has been adamant that Crimea still belongs to Ukraine.
President Biden spoke today with President Putin, making clear the United States' resolve to defend our national interests and expressing our support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
'-- The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 13, 2021The Kremlin days ago warned that it's Kiev's own actions and initial troop build-up in and near Donbass that is risking "broader war" in the region. Days ago Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, "The trend in the behavior of the Ukrainian side creates the risk of a resumption of full-scale military action."
Further on Tuesday the Kremlin alleged a major new NATO build-up of troops in the Black Sea and Baltic regions, saying NATO is set to "concentrate 40,000 troops and 15,000 items of armament and military hardware near Russian borders, basically in the Black Sea and Baltic regions," according to fresh statements from Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Though Putin's precise words have not been revealed in the call with Biden, we can imagine to Russian president pushed back by complaining of Ukraine's increasingly vocal bid to join NATO and invite more Western troops into the country, a strict Russian 'red line'.
When could Germany's nationwide 'emergency brake' Covid measures come into effect?
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 12:42
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Denmark Permanently Bans AstraZeneca Jab Over Blood Clots As EU Tops 100M Vaccinations
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 12:36
As the US's decision to discontinue the Johnson & Johnson vaccine provokes a new scrutiny for all vaccines based on adenovirus-vector platform, Denmark, one of the most critical countries in Europe when it comes to vaccine safety, has just declared that it will permanently ban AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine following a safety review.
The decision to ban the jab was taken after it was reportedly linked to several serious reactions involving blood clots and bleeding in patients with low blood platelet counts, according to Berlingske.
The vaccine was originally put on hold on March 11 when a 60-year-old Danish woman died shortly after receiving the vaccine. She died with a very unique disease picture, where she was both affected by internal bleeding, a very low platelet count and blood clots. Roughly three dozen similar cases have been reported across the EU.
Cerebral blood clots were characterized as a very rare side effect, the result of random immune system reactions to the adenovirus jabs - or at least that's what a team of doctors suggested yesterday.
Both the WHO and the EMA have repeatedly maintained that the benefits of using the corona pandemic vaccine outweigh the risks, though the EMA has acknowledged that there's a possibility of a connection between the vaccines and the rare reactions, which have now been documented in patients who received the AstraZeneca jab, and the J&J jab.
Yesterday, Dr. Peter Marks said US regulators were looking more closely at the adenovirus platform, which was used by AstraZeneca, J&J and Russia's "Sputnik V" jab.
Denmark and Norway had maintained the pause to examine the vaccine further. But now the authorities in Denmark have decided that there's enough evidence to permanently suspend the vaccine in their country.
The decision will have a significant impact on the timeline of Denmark's vaccine rollout, with officials estimating on Wednesday that it could take an extra three months to the vaccinate the entire population.
Meanwhile, in the EU, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proclaimed that the Continent has reached 100M vaccinations, a milestone made possible by a recent acceleration in the pace of the Continent's rollout.
Today we have reached 100 million vaccinations in the EU. A milestone we can be proud of!We are also accelerating the delivery of vaccines.
We spare no effort to ensure that Europeans can be vaccinated as fast as possible. #StrongerTogether
https://t.co/eK09vYhcnG
'-- Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) April 14, 2021
Matt Gaetz: Women detail drug use, sex and payments after late-night parties with Gaetz and others - CNNPolitics
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 12:35
Orlando, FL (CNN)The first thing some of the women were asked to do when they got to the house parties in the gated community in suburban Orlando was to put away their cellphones, according to two women in attendance who spoke to CNN in recent days. The men inside, a who's who of local Republican officials that often included Rep. Matt Gaetz, did not want the night's activities documented.
The partygoers, at times dressed in formal wear from a political event they'd just left, mingled and shared drugs like cocaine and ecstasy. Some had sex.
Gaetz, the brash Republican, liked to discuss politics, said one of the women. He behaved like a "frat type of party boy," she said, sometimes taking pills she believed were recreational drugs.
Details of the parties, which have not been previously reported, were described to CNN by two women who attended several of them over the past few years. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
The behavior of Gaetz and the other high-powered men at the events, and a pattern of digital payments that followed, will likely be items of interest to the Justice Department as
part of its probe of Gaetz that includes allegations of sex trafficking and prostitution.
Federal
investigators are examining whether Gaetz engaged in a relationship with a woman that began when she was 17, according to people familiar with the investigation. The investigators have also pursued allegations from witnesses and other evidence that Gaetz may have used cash and drugs in his dealings with the young women.
After some parties, money would change hands. According to receipts reviewed by CNN, Gaetz and his associate Joel Greenberg, a former county tax commissioner indicted last year on multiple federal charges, used digital payment applications to send hundreds of dollars to at least one woman who attended the parties.
The receipts viewed by CNN record payments that took place between 2018 and 2019 and include at least one that indicated in a label that it was to compensate for travel.
One of the women said she received money from Greenberg after some of the parties. She said that some of the payments were for providing sex but would not say who she slept with. She did say she never received money directly from Gaetz.
Some of the parties were more low-key affairs, the other woman said. Some took place in hotel suites at the end of alcohol-filled political functions.
"No one ever wants to stop partying, stop drinking, once you've had a few glasses of champagne in you," she said.
A spokesman for Gaetz did not respond directly to CNN's request for comment but challenged the use of anonymous sources.
According to people familiar with the investigation, authorities have spoken with some of the women involved with the congressman and his close friend, Greenberg, the former tax commissioner in Seminole County, Florida, who is currently facing 33 federal charges, including sex trafficking of a minor.
One of the women who spoke to CNN said she did so in part because the picture of Gaetz as potentially connected to sex trafficking that has emerged in recent days does not align with what she saw. Both women said that they never saw anyone at the parties who appeared to be underage. Neither has spoken with federal investigators, they said.
Gaetz has denied ever paying for sex and over the past two weeks has sought to frame the allegations against him as the result of political bias in the justice system and the media.
He has also accused investigators of twisting his generosity towards women into something criminal.
"Providing for flights and hotel rooms for people that you're dating who are of legal age is not a crime," Gaetz said in an interview with Fox News late last month.
The New York Times first reported that Gaetz made digital payments to women, and last Thursday, The Daily Beast also reported on Venmo transactions between Gaetz and Greenberg, and Greenberg and young women.
Last week, Greenberg's attorney and a federal prosecutor told a judge that Greenberg would likely enter into a plea agreement in the coming weeks, possibly giving the Justice Department access to a witness with intimate knowledge of any potential wrongdoing by Gaetz.
Speaking to reporters after the Thursday hearing last week, Fritz Scheller, Greenberg's attorney, declined to say if his client would be willing to cooperate as part of the potential plea deal and would not divulge if Greenberg had already met with prosecutors to describe what he knows about Gaetz.
He added, however, that his client is "uniquely situated."
"I'm sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today," Scheller said
Scheller declined to comment to CNN for this story.
The investigation of Gaetz began in the closing months of the Trump-era Justice Department under then-Attorney General William Barr and was initially part of a broader probe into trafficking allegations against Greenberg.
As part of the ongoing probe, investigators are scrutinizing Gaetz's connections to several associates in Florida who may have benefited politically in return for providing the congressman favors including escorts, travel, and campaign donations, according to the sources familiar with the investigation.
One event in focus is a trip that Gaetz took to the Bahamas with friends and young women, CNN has reported. Investigators are seeking to determine whether Gaetz was provided travel and women in exchange for political favors as part of their broader probe, the sources said.
A former member of the Florida House of Representatives and the son of a powerful figure in Republican state politics, Gaetz
cultivated a tight-knit circle of politically-connected friends who stayed in his orbit after he went to Washington in 2017.
In recent days, a number of those allies have been drawn into the scandal. Chris Dorworth, a former state legislator who Gaetz has described as a friend and "legislative mentor," stepped down from his post at a high-powered lobbying firm on Friday, one day after The New York Times reported that he had spoken with Gaetz about running a third-party candidate in a local election -- in potential violation of campaign finance laws.
"The current political environment is nasty, and I told Brian I don't think it's fair for the recent media storm to take away from their missions," Dorworth wrote on Twitter, referencing Brian Ballard, the founder of the Florida-based lobbying group with close ties to the administration of former president Donald Trump.
Dorworth told the Times that he did not recall talking with Gaetz about running a third candidate. He did not respond to CNN's request for comment on his resignation.
So far, Greenberg appears to be the only person in Gaetz' orbit who is currently facing charges related to the scandal. First indicted in 2020 over the alleged stalking of a political rival, Greenberg has since been accused by federal prosecutors of unlawfully accessing a motor vehicle database to obtain and use the personal information of people including some who he "was engaged in 'sugar daddy' relationships" with.
According to a person close to Greenberg, the former tax commissioner regularly sent identically worded messages to multiple women inviting them to parties through so-called sugar daddy dating websites, where men connect with women that they usually compensate with money or gifts.
Few details about the sex trafficking of a minor charge levied at Greenberg last year have been revealed to the public, but in an August indictment, prosecutors said the minor was between the ages of 14 and 17 years old and accused Greenberg of unlawfully obtaining a photograph and driver identification number for the person.
People close to both Greenberg and Gaetz have described them as good friends whose connection was as much about Republican Party politics in Florida as after-hours socializing.
Greenberg, a newcomer to elected office when he won the county seat in 2016, enjoyed the political status he gained from friendships with Gaetz and other lawmakers, the people close to the men said.
Out of the public eye, Greenberg would boast to friends that he was partying with Gaetz and women, according to the person close to Greenberg.
For his part, Gaetz appeared to have found an ally in Greenberg, donating $1,000 to one of his campaigns, and promoting him for higher office in an interview.
"If Joel were to run from Seminole Co, I think he'd become the next congressman from the 7th district," Gaetz told a Florida radio station in 2017.
That relationship is now being tested. Gaetz, in turn, has boosted his defense team, late last week hiring two New York lawyers, including Marc Mukasey, a former federal prosecutor who has also represented the Trump Organization.
'Lights Out': Austin businesses to turn off lights overnight to save migrating birds | kvue.com
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 12:21
Residents and businesses are asked to turn off non-essential lights from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. as part of the statewide initiative.
AUSTIN, Texas '-- On Tuesday, the Travis County Commissioners Court voted to approve an effort to get Travis County residents and businesses to turn off some of their lights to help save birds' lives.
The statewide initiative asks residents and businesses to turn off non-essential lights from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. during the peak bird migration period, Monday, April 19, 2021 through Friday, May 7, 2021.
This decision is in conjunction with the nationwide initiative called Lights Out, which works to protect billions of birds as they migrate across the U.S. Many of these migration patterns occur at night.
Light from buildings, especially in urban areas, attracts and disorients these migrating birds, which confuses and exhausts them. It also makes them vulnerable to collisions with buildings. According to Lights Out Texas, birds use the moon, stars and sun to navigate.
Texas is globally important for birds, according to research done by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology and Lights Out Texas. About one in every three birds migrating through the U.S. fly through Texas.
Reducing light pollution at night for a few hours, where possible, can still support this effort. Turning off lights dramatically reduces hazards and disorientation by light, allowing birds to safely proceed with their migratory journeys.
Travis County said the effort has the added benefit of helping the community conserve electricity as Earth Day approaches. It said lowering energy consumption aligns with the county's Climate Action Plan and Resolution on Net Zero Carbon Emissions.
For more information, visit https://travisaudubon.org/lights-out-texas.
Timnit Gebru's actual paper may explain why Google ejected her - The Verge
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 12:10
A paper co-authored by former Google AI ethicist Timnit Gebru raised some potentially thorny questions for Google about whether AI language models may be too big, and whether tech companies are doing enough to reduce potential risks, according to MIT Technology Review. The paper also questioned the environmental costs and inherent biases in large language models.
Google's AI team created such a language model'-- BERT'-- in 2018, and it was so successful that the company incorporated BERT into its search engine. Search is a highly lucrative segment of Google's business; in the third quarter of this year alone, it brought in revenue of $26.3 billion. ''This year, including this quarter, showed how valuable Google's founding product '-- search '-- has been to people,'' CEO Sundar Pichai said on a call with investors in October.
Gebru and her team submitted their paper, titled ''On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?'' for a research conference. She said in a series of tweets on Wednesday that following an internal review, she was asked to retract the paper or remove Google employees' names from it. She says she asked Google for conditions for taking her name off the paper, and if they couldn't meet the conditions they could ''work on a last date.'' Gebru says she then received an email from Google informing her they were ''accepting her resignation effective immediately.''
The head of Google AI, Jeff Dean, wrote in an email to employees that the paper ''didn't meet our bar for publication.'' He wrote that one of Gebru's conditions for continuing to work at Google was for the company to tell her who had reviewed the paper and their specific feedback, which it declined to do. ''Timnit wrote that if we didn't meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. We accept and respect her decision to resign from Google,'' Dean wrote.
Gebru is known for her work on algorithmic bias, especially in facial recognition technology
In his letter, Dean wrote that the paper ''ignored too much relevant research,'' a claim that the paper's co-author Emily M. Bender, a professor of computational linguistics at the University of Washington, disputed. Bender told MIT Technology Review that the paper, which had six collaborators, was ''the sort of work that no individual or even pair of authors can pull off,'' noting it had a citation list of 128 references.
Gebru is known for her work on algorithmic bias, especially in facial recognition technology. In 2018, she co-authored a paper with Joy Buolamwini that showed error rates for identifying darker-skinned people were much higher than error rates for identifying lighter-skinned people, since the datasets used to train algorithms were overwhelmingly white.
Gebru told Wired in an interview published Thursday that she felt she was being censored. ''You're not going to have papers that make the company happy all the time and don't point out problems,'' she said. ''That's antithetical to what it means to be that kind of researcher.''
Since news of her termination became public, thousands of supporters, including more than 1,500 Google employees have signed a letter of protest. ''We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with Dr. Timnit Gebru, who was terminated from her position as Staff Research Scientist and Co-Lead of Ethical Artificial Intelligence (AI) team at Google, following unprecedented research censorship,'' reads the petition, titled Standing with Dr. Timnit Gebru.
''We call on Google Research to strengthen its commitment to research integrity and to unequivocally commit to supporting research that honors the commitments made in Google's AI Principles.''
The petitioners are demanding that Dean and others ''who were involved with the decision to censor Dr. Gebru's paper meet with the Ethical AI team to explain the process by which the paper was unilaterally rejected by leadership.''
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
Bitcoin Is a 'Boon for Surveillance', Says Former CIA Director - Decrypt
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 11:56
The technology behind Bitcoin is a ''boon for surveillance'' and shouldn't be shunned by governments but embraced, according to an ex-CIA boss.
Michael Morell, who was previously the CIA's acting director, said in 'An Analysis of Bitcoin's Use in Illicit Finance' that ''blockchain technology is a powerful but underutilized forensic tool for governments to identify illicit activity and bring criminals to justice.''
The report, co-authored by Josh Kirshner and Thomas Schoenberger, was ostensibly written as a defense of Bitcoin '--a response to growing ''concerns about the illicit finance implications of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.''
Published by the recently formed Crypto Council for Innovation, led by Coinbase and Square, among others, the report concluded that criminal use of Bitcoin is ''significantly overstated'''--rather than being the currency of choice for criminals, it can be used to catch them.
''Put simply, blockchain analysis is a highly effective crime fighting and intelligence gathering tool,'' the report read.
The reason? The technology Bitcoin runs on'--blockchain'--means all transactions are logged on a public, decentralized, immutable ledger.
Tracking illicit Bitcoin transactions is therefore easier than tracing illegal funds moved across borders using ''traditional banking transactions'' and ''far easier'' than trying to follow cash, according to the report.
One source in the report was quoted saying that ''if all criminals used blockchain, we could wipe out illicit financial activity.'' And this goes against the narrative that authorities in the United States and Europe right now, as well as recent reports from crypto tracing firms such as Chainalysis. In December 2020, Chainalysis (which works closely with law enforcement throughout the world) said darknet markets had raked in more than ever in crypto.
Most recently, in February, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed worry that Bitcoin was used ''often for illicit finance.'' And The European Central Bank's president, Christine Lagarde, in January said that Bitcoin was used for ''funny business'' and money laundering.
But the former CIA director's investigation found Bitcoin being used primarily for illicit finance was ''uninformed and not based on data.''
Privacy coins like Monero , on the other hand, are favored by criminals'--and ''illicit activity as a percent of total transaction volume is 'far larger' than it is for Bitcoin'' with such digital assets, the findings showed.
The report also noted that former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, Daniel Glaser, this year said that the regulation of crypto in the ''appropriate way'' was needed for ''law enforcement agencies to be able to trace transactions.''
Though it did mention the difficulties posed with decentralized exchanges. ''Although DEXs are responsible for only a small portion of overall cryptocurrency transaction volume, their decentralized, mostly open-source nature adds an additional layer of anonymity and thus offers increased opportunities for moving illicit funds,'' the report said.
Morell's report concluded that Bitcoin is singled out because ''people are typically fearful of what they do not understand.''
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Biden Wants World Leaders to Make Climate Change Commitments - The New York Times
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 11:41
The administration is closing in on deals with some close allies, but agreements with powers like China, Brazil and India are proving difficult.
John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, will visit China in preparation for the President Biden's climate summit on Earth Day, April 22. Credit... Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times April 13, 2021
WASHINGTON '-- The Biden administration is nearing agreements with Japan, Korea and Canada to bolster carbon emission reduction targets in all four countries ahead of a closely watched summit of global leaders on Earth Day, April 22.
But in the latest sign of how difficult it will be for President Biden to make climate change a core part of his foreign policy, similar deals with China, India and Brazil, economic powerhouses that together produce more than a third of global emissions, remain elusive.
John Kerry, Mr. Biden's global climate envoy, is preparing to make a last-minute trip to China and South Korea ahead of the summit, which Mr. Biden will be hosting. Mr. Kerry arrives on Wednesday, with multiple high-level meetings in Shanghai expected on Thursday. The cooperation of the world's largest emitter of climate-changing pollution is vital to slowing down global warming, but Beijing is also Washington's biggest rival on the world stage.
With Brazil, the Biden administration's efforts to negotiate an Amazon rainforest protection plan with Brazil's conservative president, Jair Bolsonaro, have bitterly divided environmental advocates, given the Bolsonaro administration's dismal environmental record.
And in India, where Mr. Kerry recently wrapped up three days of negotiations that did not yield any specific promise to strengthen New Delhi's climate ambition, the administration must weigh its need for cooperation with its concerns over human rights. Indian leaders, meantime, have been unsettled by pressure to deliver an announcement in time for Mr. Biden's summit next week after spending the past four years working with a U.S. administration that abandoned the rest of the world's efforts to tackle global warming.
''Maybe there's a little bit of time lag that will go into building that trust and relationship back,'' said Aarti Khosla, director of Climate Trends, a climate change nonprofit based in New Delhi.
The focal point of the Leaders' Summit on Climate will be the Biden administration's plan to cut American emissions by 2030, and how it can overcome fierce Republican opposition. The ambitions and practicality of that target could determine the Biden administration's success in convincing other nations to do more than they have already pledged.
''Summitry is theater, and it can be extremely impactful if there is a big centerpiece,'' said Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a climate adviser for the United Nations Secretary General. ''That centerpiece is the U.S. plan.''
The end goal is a productive United Nations meeting in November in Glasgow, where the nearly 200 nations who have joined the Paris Agreement on climate change are expected to legally enshrine their tougher targets, which are aimed at keeping the worst consequences of climate change at bay.
Image A demonstration against climate change inaction in Glasgow last year. The will host United Nations climate talks in November. Credit... Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images Publicly, the Biden administration has tried to dampen expectations that other countries will make major announcements at the U.S. event. Behind the scenes, though, State Department diplomats have been hustling to prod allies into doing just that.
Mr. Kerry, in a statement, declined to specifically address the likelihood of other countries joining the United States in big announcements, saying the summit ''will be a chance for major economies and other countries to work together at the highest possible levels to address the climate crisis.''
U.S. progress toward new agreements with some industrialized countries in less than three months is a testament to the climate diplomacy that Mr. Kerry has conducted. He has traveled to six countries and held what aides described as dozens of video conferences and calls each week since January.
Yoshihide Suga, the prime minister of Japan, is expected to announce a new emissions target in the range of 50 percent below 2013 levels by 2030, ahead of a meeting with Mr. Biden in Washington on Friday, according to one U.S. official familiar with the discussions. The United States and Japan also have been discussing new restrictions on coal financing, though an announcement on that remains unclear.
A major South Korean news outlet, the Maeil Business Newspaper, reported this week that South Korean leaders were poised to announce an overseas coal financing moratorium. And Canada, which already has signed a strong bilateral agreement with the United States on climate change, has said it will announce stronger targets at the summit.
But landing an agreement with China has proved challenging. At a recent meeting in Anchorage, American and Chinese officials sparred over trade, human rights and Beijing's increasingly aggressive moves toward Taiwan.
Tensions ran so high that U.S. officials denied an early report that the countries had agreed to form a climate change working group, despite other differences.
''There is a concern in Washington among people who work on China that the climate actors would like to see a U.S.-China deal at the expense of compromising a broader set of strategic issues,'' said Joanna Lewis, director of Georgetown University's Science, Technology and International Affairs Program and an expert on Chinese energy policy.
''I think they were sensitive to that, and I think Kerry is sensitive to that,'' Ms. Lewis said.
Mr. Kerry in public statements has tried to disentangle the administration's desire to cooperate with China on climate change from other issues in the relationship.
''President Biden has made it clear and I've made it clear: none of the other issues we have with China, and there are issues, is held hostage to or is engaged in a trade for what we need to do on climate,'' he said recently.
Image A mall in Beijing displayed news of President Biden's first day on the job, during which he recommitted the U.S. in the Paris climate agreement, in January. Credit... Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press Some China analysts are optimistic. David Sandalow, a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations now at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, said China could both burnish its climate credentials and diminish tensions with Washington by making a new announcement.
And, others noted, it is unlikely that Mr. Kerry would make such a high-profile trip to China if he thought he would return home empty-handed.
''If China does absolutely nothing around this summit, it's going to be a direct slap in the face to Biden,'' said Paul Bledsoe, strategic adviser for the Progressive Policy Institute, a Democratic research organization.
China has already announced it would release no net emissions of carbon by 2060. Several analysts said the Chinese government felt little need to set another new target, particularly on Mr. Biden's timeline, and was cautious of being seen as caving to U.S. pressure.
Equally significant, Beijing leaders remain worried that the Biden administration's assurances that the United States is truly prepared to curb its own emissions are as shaky as the ones former President Barack Obama made shortly before his successor gutted virtually all of his policies.
''It's just hard to truly trust the U.S. administration,'' said Taiya Smith, a senior research fellow at the Climate Leadership Council, a conservative group that promotes a carbon tax.
''Before countries can truly have confidence in the U.S., there's going to have to be a lot to be shown for it,'' Ms. Smith said. ''We have to be able to demonstrate this is not just another passing fad of American politics.''
Li Shuo, senior climate policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia, said he thought if talks with Mr. Kerry went well this week, China may make an announcement of new targets at the Boao Forum for Asia, an annual conference that will be held in Boao, China, starting on Monday. That, he said, would allow China to make an announcement on its home turf to avoid the appearance of being pressured by the United States. But any new targets would give China something to deliver at Mr. Biden's summit.
''A lot depends on what happens in the next three days or so,'' Mr. Shuo said.
Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from New York.
ECHR: Conflicts of Interest Between Judges and NGOs
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 11:16
When we looked more closely at the background of the judges of the European Court of Human Rights, we never imagined the troubling discoveries we would make.
After a 6 month investigation, we are releasing an important REPORT (appendices available here) outlining the extent of the relationship between NGOs and ECHR judges, and the resulting problems and conflicts of interest.We have identified seven NGOs that are both active at the Court, and have judges among their former staff. At least 22 of the 100 judges who have served since 2009 are former staff or leaders of these seven NGOs.
Among these, the Open Society Network stands out for the number of judges linked to it (12) and for the fact that it actually funds the other six organisations identified in this report.The powerful presence of the Open Society and its affiliates is problematic in many ways. But even more serious is the fact that 18 of the 22 judges were found to have served on cases initiated or supported by the organization with which they were previously associated.
We have identified 88 problematic cases over the last 10 years. In only 12 cases have judges abstained from sitting because of their connection with an NGO involved.And this is a low assessment that does not even take into account the close financial links between NGOs. For example, we did not identify all cases involving other NGOs funded by the Open Society Foundation, nor did we identify all cases in which a judge from an NGO funded by OSF ruled in cases in which that foundation acted.This situation is serious, and calls into question the independence of the Court and the impartiality of the judges. These conflicts must be remedied immediately.
Our report makes proposals to that end. In particular, greater attention should be paid to the choice of candidates for the post of judge by avoiding the appointment of activists and campaigners. The report also makes proposals to ensure transparency of interests and links between applicants, judges and NGOs, and to formalise the procedures for deportation and disqualification.Read the full REPORT: "NGOs and Judges of the ECHR 2009 - 2019". The appendices are available here.
Conscious of the value of the human rights protection system in Europe, the ECLJ hopes that this report will be received as a positive contribution to the better functioning of the Court.
As a follow-up to this report, the ECLJ has decided to formally refer the matter to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in accordance with Rule 67 of its Rules of Procedure, which provides for an effective petitions procedure. We invite you to join our petition.
This Assembly is in charge of the election of judges, has a power of investigation and can make recommendations to the representatives of the 47 States Parties to the European Convention on Human Rights, to whom we have also addressed this report.
We need your support to protect the independence of the European Court and the impartiality of its judges.
Covid-19: Protesters clash with Italian police over business closures - The Local
Wed, 14 Apr 2021 04:43
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VP Harris' response to migrant crisis is absurd: Devine
Tue, 13 Apr 2021 16:14
Opinion
By Miranda Devine
April 11, 2021 | 10:29pm
It's humiliating for the president that almost three weeks since he appointed Kamala Harris as his border point woman, she still hasn't visited the disaster zone, come up with a plan or held a press conference on the migrant crisis.
Instead, she's visited a water treatment plant in California and a bakery in Chicago, where the press pool reported on her sweet tooth last week.
''Her favorite is German chocolate, and [she] gets that for her birthday each year, and her staff had pre-ordered a slice for her. The bakery's specialty is caramel cake, and she said she was looking forward to that too.''
Riveting stuff.
Meantime, the self-inflicted humanitarian tragedy at the southern border has spiraled out of control, opinion polls are heading south, the Biden appointee in charge has abruptly resigned, El Salvador's president has refused to meet the visiting US envoy, and the VP is defying her boss and staying far away from the stinking mess to protect her reputation.
But while the pair play ''pass the parcel,'' the vacuum of leadership is only fueling a humanitarian catastrophe.
President Biden knew when he appointed Harris to manage the crisis on March 24 that it was a poison chalice, which gives you a hint of the growing wariness in a relationship where the VP is referred to by insiders as ''The Heiress'' and Biden is regarded as incapable of serving a full term.
The White House announced at the time that Harris would ''lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle '... in stemming the migration to our southern border.''
But, when asked when she planned to go to the border, Harris responded with hysterical laughter. ''Not today,'' she chortled.
''The vice president is not doing the border,'' her spokeswoman Symone Sanders told reporters two days later.
Instead, Harris would be addressing the ''root causes'' of the surge in migration. To that end, she's made two phone calls to regional leaders.
But the only root cause that matters is to restore Trump-era border protection measures that Biden unwound by executive decree: Restore the ''Remain in Mexico'' policy for asylum seekers, restart deportation of criminal aliens, finish the border wall and stop making children bait for cartels.
Biden has tried to claim the border surge is just a seasonal uptick, but numbers are soaring exponentially. Last month alone, 19,000 children were recorded crossing the border, double the previous month. The government reportedly anticipates more than 35,000 migrant children will need to be cared for by June.
APBiden has put the sugar on the table for people smugglers and children are suffering.
Video footage online shows buses at a detention center in Texas in which every adult on board is accompanied by one small child. Biden's policy of accepting unaccompanied minors has made children the tickets for entry to America, but how do we know if these kids are even related to the adults holding their hands? No one is doing DNA tests.
Another video shows a sobbing 10-year-old Nicaraguan child walking alone on a road in Texas before telling a border agent he is afraid ''they'' might ''rob or kidnap me or something.''
During a press conference last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made stunning allegations of child sexual abuse at a migrant facility in San Antonio that holds more than 1,300 migrant children.
He told Fox News on Thursday that allegations of child sexual assault had been lodged with two state agencies in Texas: ''[It] was a very specific description about ways in which children were being sexually assaulted, where it was happening, who was doing it and the horrific things that were being done which I cannot tell you on TV '... The Biden administration knows about this '... and yet still nothing is happening.''
Nothing except cynical distraction, denial and deflection.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed his complaints as ''ridiculous '... The fact is we're on a good path at the border under the leadership of President Biden '... It's about restructuring '... because we were in a very bad situation under the Trump administration.''
This is Biden's Operation Warp Speed: How to ruin a country in 100 days.
So desperate is the administration that government employees quietly are being offered four months' paid leave from their jobs to help care for migrant children in shelters at the border, reports the New York Times.
But the White House won't even acknowledge there is a problem.
On Friday, press secretary Jen Psaki spent more than double the time talking about the Ukrainian border than America's southern border: 262 words versus 94.
''The reason for accepting these children is that we feel it is not the humane step to send these kids back on their treacherous journey,'' she said, as if the atrocities being committed in our name are compassionate.
Later that afternoon, the White House issued a statement that Roberta Jacobsen, the White House coordinator for the southern border, had resigned.
She must be the only person in the administration with a conscience.
The Biden family biz? NepotismAs Hunter Biden has his reputation laundered by a fawning media, his abandoned laptop reveals the extent of entitlement and privilege long enjoyed by President Biden's family and vigorously exploited by his crack-loving son.
In a 2015 email exchange, Hunter's cousin Missy Owens asks him to procure a government appointment for her mother, Valerie Owens, the sister of then-VP Joe Biden: ''I really want to get on something, but '... mom needs it more than I do right now.'' Hunter replies that he will ''go through the list with Steve [Ricchetti, then Joe's chief of staff, now White House counselor] and see what makes sense. I don't know how much 2016 [the election] and nepotism plays into it.''
Lo and behold, the following year, President Barack Obama appoints Aunt Val to a ceremonial role at the United Nations, a four-month stint that pays $26,000.
In addition, a memo to Hunter from his business partner Eric Schwerin in 2016 sets up two $12,500-per-month ''consulting'' contracts for Aunt Val when the UN gig runs out.
The Biden Foundation is to provide a ''Consulting Contract with Valerie Owens or her LLC for $12,500 a month for one year.''
Hunter Biden with his father, President Biden, and aunt Valerie Biden Owens on August 17, 2016. AP Photo/Visar KryeziuThe other consultancy is with the University of Delaware, to coincide with the announcement of its Biden Center with Joe as ''founding chair.''
Missy herself, along with sister Casey, landed a federal job during the Obama administration, before moving to a lucrative ''government relations'' job with Coca-Cola. See how it works?
The rules never apply to the Bidens. Jobs, Ivy League berths, internships, judge clerkships, all are there for the taking. When family members have a run-in with the law, they are treated with kid gloves, whether it's DWI, credit card fraud, shoplifting, assaulting police, or lying on a background check form about your drug use when buying a gun, as Hunter did in 2016.
Black people have served serious time for far less. Rapper Kodak Black, for instance, was sentenced to 46 months in prison on federal weapons charges in 2019 after lying on the form to buy firearms.
It's a sick irony that, while Joe Biden wages war on white privilege, his 51-year-old son is the living embodiment of the worst of it.
Fauci fatigue sets in as top doc sows doubt in vaccine effectiveness | TheHill
Tue, 13 Apr 2021 15:14
Years from now when we look back at the coronavirus pandemic, one of the first people we'll think of is Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. And why not? It was one year ago when an argument could be made that the two most trusted public figures on COVID-19 were Fauci and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).
We all know about the spectacular fall of the latter from 70-something percent approval ratings, thanks to a COVID-19-related nursing home scandal, allegations of sexual harassment and prioritizing COVID-19 tests for family members.
In April 2020, Fauci enjoyed headlines like these:
"Anthony Fauci - the Most Trusted Man in America" - The New Yorker
"Study: Americans trust Fauci more than Trump or their own governors" - USA Today
"Dr. Anthony Fauci and Andrew Cuomo remain the most trusted leaders on coronavirus, while Donald Trump and Jared Kushner are the least trusted" - Business Insider
But things seem to have turned in recent weeks as the ubiquitous Fauci continues to hold interview after interview with the same message about the way Americans should conduct themselves after being vaccinated. Last weekend, for example, MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan asked Fauci the following question: "What is the message to vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans as to what they should and should not be doing right now? For example, eating and drinking indoors in restaurants and bars ... is that OK now?"
"No, it's still not OK," Fauci replied, citing new cases still above 50,000 per day before adding: "If you are vaccinated, please remember that you still have to be careful and not get involved in crowded situations, particularly indoors where people are not wearing masks."
So, what does that tell us? If you're vaccinated, you still can't meet other vaccinated friends for dinner? Or was Fauci only referring to vaccinated people meeting up with unvaccinated people?
If it's the former, Fauci would be contradicting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose official recommendation on what vaccinated people can and cannot do says this: "Fully vaccinated people can visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing."
Of course, it would be nice if someone, anyone, would bring up the CDC guidance when interviewing the good doctor about going out for a meal sometime. But challenging Fauci is considered a big no-no by most of the media, whose job is supposed to be to hold the powerful accountable without fear and favor.
And then there's the situation in Texas and Mississippi, two states whose Republican governors dropped mask mandates on March 2. Fauci called the decision "really quite risky" while adding that it is "a dangerous sign because when that has happened in the past, when you pull back on measures of public health, invariably you've seen a surge back up."
So, how's that surge coming 40 days later? On March 2, the seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths in Texas was 232. On April 11, there were 24 deaths in the state, with the seven-day rolling average falling to 73 and trending downward, representing a 69 percent drop. Cases also have dropped from above 7,000 in early March to fewer than 4,000 now, according to the CDC.
When asked about that drop by MSNBC's Willie Geist, Fauci couldn't explain it.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who was once a practicing physician, is also one of the few people who has challenged Fauci, including on Monday with this tweet: "Fauci continues to ignore 100 years of vaccine science. His only real theme is 'do what I say' even when it makes no sense."
Americans who have recovered from or been vaccinated against the coronavirus should "go about your life," Paul said. "Eat, drink, work, open the schools. Enough with the petty tyrants!"
Paul also challenged Fauci in a heated exchange during a Senate hearing last month after Fauci attended the hearing - which consisted of vaccinated senators and, therefore, was within the CDC guideline of not needing a mask - while wearing not one but two masks.
"What studies do you have that people that have had the vaccine or have had the infection or the vaccine are spreading the infection? If we're not spreading the infection, isn't that just theater? You've had the vaccine and you're wearing two masks, isn't that theater?" Paul asked.
And speaking of theater, here's a tweet from President Biden that includes his administration being socially distanced and fully masked. All of the people in the photo had been vaccinated, so why the masks? Why the social distancing? Why the virtue signaling? Again, what public message does this send about the effectiveness of the vaccine?
And then there's the media, which continue to mostly push doom-and-gloom in an effort to horrify readers and viewers. Take NBC's "Meet the Press" booking again this past Sunday of Michael Osterholm, who serves as the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. On Feb. 13, here's what Osterholm had to say about how the horizon looked as it pertained to COVID-19 and reopening schools fully in-person: "I think this discussion's going to be all for naught soon. When B.1.1.7 [a COVID-19 variant first reported in the United Kingdom] takes over in six weeks or so, I think our whole country is going to be approaching its darkest days with this virus."
We're now at eight weeks since that prediction.
On Feb. 13, the seven-day rolling average of COVID-19-related deaths in the U.S. was 2,866, according to Worldmeters. On April 12, the daily death toll dropped to 635. For those keeping score at home, that's a 78 percent decrease during what was supposed to be our "darkest days" of the pandemic.
No matter. The moderator of NBC's program, Chuck Todd, couldn't bother to do what the late Tim Russert surely would have done in this situation - play Osterholm's Feb. 13 comments back to him.
Instead, the doctor said this about traveling after being vaccinated. And it's terrifying: "Let me just give an example on the airplane flight. When you get vaccinated, it's like buying a fireproof suit that works 90 to 95 percent of the time. But it doesn't work all the time. So why want to walk into a big fire if you don't have to? So what they are basically saying is, 'Yes, if you are vaccinated you can start opening up a lot of things in your life that you couldn't do before.' But now, if you know you're going to be walking into a fire, why do it?"
In other words, getting the vaccine means not going out with your friends to a restaurant, according to Fauci. Or taking a much-deserved vacation, according to Osterholm. Because that's like walking into a big fire, right?
Living in fear for the foreseeable future seems to be the overall message that many Americans are hearing from more than a few doctors who really need to get their media-exposure diets under control.
Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist for The Hill.
And now it's implantable
Tue, 13 Apr 2021 03:25
There will almost certainly be a push to combine the "vaccine passport" abomination with this implantable chip that supposedly "detects Covid":
Pentagon scientists working inside a secretive unit set up at the height of the Cold War have created a microchip to be inserted under the skin, which will detect COVID-19 infection, and a revolutionary filter that can remove the virus from the blood when attached to a dialysis machine.
The team at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have been working for years on preventing and ending pandemics.
They assess the issues and come up with ingenious solutions, which at times appear more from a science fiction novel than a working laboratory.
One of their recent inventions, they told 60 Minutes on Sunday night, was a microchip which detects COVID infection in an individual before it can become an outbreak.
The microchip is sure to spark worries among some about a government agency implanting a microchip in a citizen.
Officials who spoke to the 60 Minutes team said the Pentagon isn't looking to track your every move.
Of course they're not looking to track your every move. They already do that. What they're looking to do here is to deny your access to the Beast's global financial system.
UPDATE: a prediction from SG.
Ben Shapiro will make the conservative case for the Mark of the Beast. It’s the culmination of his life’s work
Labels: Christianity, technology
Vox Popoli: Mailvox: why you can't buy houses
Tue, 13 Apr 2021 03:20
Apparently the banks are buying them all with Federal money:
Around 6 months ago someone on 4chan who claimed to be working in some sort of finical institution was claiming that banks or hedge funds were using the insane of amount of money that the fed gov was granting to them to buy single family homes.
While reading the comments on unz today, I came across this. Comment number 41 on "Coordination and Decomposition" by Gregory Hood.
I wrote a few months ago about the bizarre disappearance of affordable, middle class homes in white rural neighborhoods.
A house would appear on the MLS, and within 8 hours…it was Under Contract.
This was happening in West Virginia- a stalwart of white values and no BLM criminality would be tolerated. I wrote that something was afoot and it was frightening.
It is Black Rock.
Black Rock is buying up homes by the thousands. The average earner cannot compete as they are paying cash, and 20% over the asking price.
This is a HUGE story, with catastrophic consequences, aside from making home ownership completely unattainable for most white working class.
What is Black Rock going to do with these homes?
Complete the destruction of the white middle class, apparently, and turn everyone into renters.
Lady Bird Lake trail becomes ground zero for Austin homeless debate
Mon, 12 Apr 2021 23:55
Among the locations hit hardest by Austin's homelessness crisis is the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail '-- the popular 10-mile loop along Lady Bird Lake that was supposed to be protected against the city's explosion of tent encampments.
When the Austin City Council approved a controversial measure in June 2019 canceling an ordinance that had made it a criminal offense to camp in public, it came with the explicit understanding that city-owned trails and parkland would remain off-limits.
But it hasn't worked out that way.
Since early 2020, dozens of tents have popped up along or near the trail in violation of the camping ban.
But rather than issue citations or direct tent occupants to move, the city during the COVID-19 pandemic has opted to follow guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that urge letting people who are living in encampments stay where they are to minimize spread of the disease.
Their presence inflamed an already sizzling political divide in the city by tarnishing a trail that has long symbolized the city's bustling outdoors scene the same way Sixth Street has symbolized the city's nightlife. The trail attracts 4.4 million visits a year.
The influx of homeless campers has also happened around the same time the city reduced the amount of time spent cleaning Lady Bird Lake by 75% '-- a reduction that, combined with the increase in campers, led to trash piling up in the water and along shorelines.
In a 12-month period ending in March, Austin's 311 nonemergency service line received 463 service requests with complaints related to transients on city-owned trails. The requests '-- which included all trails, not just the one along Lady Bird Lake '-- involved camping, as well as other potentially unlawful actions, such as trespassing after hours.
'A symptom of the problem': How homeless camps are impacting Austin's hike-and-bike trail
Austin has seen more homelessness encampments on the hike and bike trail since 2019. Some trail and city residents blame one entity for the situation.
Ana Ramirez, Austin American-Statesman
''This COVID-19 public health crisis has hit the homeless community particularly hard," city spokesman Andy Tate said in a written statement. "While the city has made significant strides over the past year in identifying services, shelter, and long-term housing opportunities for those in need, we must continue working together to help our most vulnerable community members. That includes largely following CDC guidance to allow people who are living unsheltered to remain where they are to minimize community spread of the disease and maximize access to services."
The rise in trail camping coincided with a reduction in capacity at homeless shelters, which faced their own social distancing considerations amid the pandemic and had to turn away people looking for a place to stay.
On May 1, Austin will hold an election headlined by Proposition B '-- a proposition that, if successful, would drastically alter the state of homelessness in Austin by again making it a criminal offense to camp in public. If approved, camping would be prohibited everywhere '-- not just on parkland and other areas currently designated off-limits.
The election comes nearly two years after the City Council voted to strike down the 23-year-old ordinance that made such camping unlawful '-- an extraordinary decision framed by Mayor Steve Adler recently as becoming the largest political issue in Austin in the past 50 years.
Homeless Austin residents camping near the popular Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail have become a high-profile symbol of the city's debate over how to handle homelessness. Jay Janner / American-Statesman
Sanford Howard, who says he became homeless when his wife left him 16 years ago, said he understands the frustration over transients living on the trail. He said he recently began staying in an encampment above the trail near East Caesar Chavez after getting kicked out of a boarding house.
"But where else are we going to go?" he said.
In a recent count of tents on or adjacent to the trail, about a dozen were grouped together near the Shoal Creek entrance point. A handful more were scattered at the opposite end of the trail east of Interstate 35. Near Rainey Street, a man without a tent slept on the ground in a sleeping bag.
Sanford Howard sits outside his tent at a homeless camp on West Cesar Chavez Street near Austin's Lady Bird Lake in March. Jay Janner / American-Statesman
The largest encampment, with about two dozen tents, was below Caesar Chavez Street near Congress Avenue. On a weekday afternoon in early March, a woman who gave her name only as Jessica was talking with the American-Statesman about the events in her life that led her to become homeless when she was interrupted.
Passing by the encampment, a woman riding a bicycle looked up at a group of transient people Jessica was with.
"Go get a job!" the cyclist yelled, looking back as she peddled along the trail. To ensure her remark registered, she repeated it, "Go get a job!"
"F--- off, lady!" Jessica fired back.
About a month later, on April 1, a fire at the encampment spread to and damaged the historic Buford Fire Tower. Police arrested 58-year-old David Rosenblum on charges of first-degree arson.
Council Member Kathie Tovo '-- whose district is home to much of the trail '-- said her office hears often from residents and business owners objecting to camping along the trail.
She said many of those complaining are unaware the city is allowing it during the pandemic.
"We're definitely hearing a lot of feedback," Tovo said.
Not just tents, but trash
The arrival of the tents coincided with the city rolling back taxpayer-funded services aimed at keeping the trail clean and safe, exacerbating tensions.
In another controversial political decision, the City Council last summer approved a budget that cut 150 vacant officer positions from the Austin Police Department and put a pause on adding new officers by temporarily closing the police cadet training academy.
Police Chief Brian Manley responded by eliminating many specialty units '-- including the 31-person parks unit '-- and moving those officers to street patrol. That left the trail absent of officers who in the past cruised the path on bicycles on mornings before sunrise.
With 4.4 million visits per year, the trail symbolizes Austin's bustling outdoors scene the same way Sixth Street symbolizes the city's nightlife. In the past year during the COVID-19 pandemic, dozens of tents popped up along or near the trail, in violation of the city camping law. With 4.4 million visits per year, the trail symbolizes Austin's bustling outdoors scene the same way Sixth Street symbolizes the city's nightlife. In the past year during the COVID-19 pandemic, dozens of tents popped up along or near the trail, in violation of the city camping law. With 4.4 million visits per year, the trail symbolizes Austin's bustling outdoors scene the same way Sixth Street symbolizes the city's nightlife. In the past year during the COVID-19 pandemic, dozens of tents popped up along or near the trail, in violation of the city camping law. Jay Janner / American-StatesmanIt's hard to say if crime has increased since the arrival of the encampments, because the Police Department says it does not have the ability to isolate trail-related calls. Street patrol officers now handle calls for activity on the trail.
Mike Pearce, who owns a boat cruise business on Lady Bird Lake, said the tents and trash have made his job more difficult.
"We're trying to do narration and promote our city, and there are all these tents setting up," said Pearce, who has owned Lone Star Riverboat Cruises for 34 years.
Months before Manley eliminated the police parks unit, the city scaled back trash pick-up services both on the trail and in the lake.
On a recent afternoon, the lake east of Interstate 35 was littered with drink containers, fast food packaging and a golf bag.
Philae Amenti The trash is disturbing. It's understandable with the amount of people displaced here, the amount of people with mental illness. I don't know what the solution is. Quote icon
In other areas laid a vacuum cleaner, a computer desk chair and a chair inscribed with the name Isabella. In some spots, trash interfered with birds and turtles searching for a shaded resting place.
According to Tate, the city spokesman, the parks department picks up trash along the trail only once a day because of limited staffing levels. He said some employees assigned to collect trash have missed work because they or a family member was exposed to COVID-19. Due to the infrequent care and the large number of visitors, trash regularly overflows from receptacles and onto the trail during busy weekends.
On a recent day, Philae Amenti, a longtime Austin area resident and trail user, stared disapprovingly at a T-shirt left at a vacated campsite underneath the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge.
"The trash is disturbing," she said. "It's understandable with the amount of people displaced here, the amount of people with mental illness. I don't know what the solution is."
A bird walks among the litter in Lady Bird Lake (left). Volunteer Daniel Dochen picks up litter from the shore of Lady Bird Lake next to the Butler Hike & Bike Trail on Saturday March 27, 2021 (right). A bird walks among the litter in Lady Bird Lake (left). Volunteer Daniel Dochen picks up litter from the shore of Lady Bird Lake next to the Butler Hike & Bike Trail on Saturday March 27, 2021 (right). A bird walks among the litter in Lady Bird Lake (left). Volunteer Daniel Dochen picks up litter from the shore of Lady Bird Lake next to the Butler Hike & Bike Trail on Saturday March 27, 2021 (right). Jay Janner / American-StatesmanTwo women from San Diego walking on the path said they were surprised by the amount of trash in the water. So did a man from Portland.
Prior to the pandemic, the city's Watershed Protection Department cleaned the lake with a five-person crew, four days a week for 10 hours a day. Those shifts have been cut back to two or three a month, Tate said, though a phased return to normal operations is scheduled to be completed by the summer.
Beyond the aesthetics, Tate said the city is concerned about an increase in tiny pieces of plastic in the lake.
A local nonprofit that the Watershed Protection Department partners with to clean the lake '-- Keep Austin Beautiful '-- paused cleanups during the pandemic.
Heidi Anderson, who heads the Trail Foundation, a nonprofit that raises $3 million to $4 million a year for projects on the hike-and-bike trail, said paid members often complain about the condition of the trail. One of them, she said, is a six-figure donor who told her he no longer will contribute financially to the foundation due to the trail's declining condition. She declined to give the donor's name.
"Honestly, I feel a little dejected," Anderson said. "There's not a great solution, and I think, unfortunately, until the city resolves the homelessness issue, our parks are going to continue to experience this issue."
Anderson added that members of her staff have twice been attacked by someone living on the trail.
How bad is Austin's homelessness problem?
Chris Edson, an unemployed construction laborer, began camping along the hike-and-bike trail late in 2020 after losing his job and his apartment.
Isolated near the Longhorn Dam in a tent he bought at a sporting goods store for $180, Edson's setup includes a grill for cooking, a cooler to chill his Natural Light beer and a mattress. When he wants to bathe, he grabs a scrubbing brush and jumps into the lake.
His campsite is virtually spotless.
"Keep the freaking area clean," Edson said. "If people did that, there would not be such an uproar."
To that end, the city launched a program in 2019 aimed at preventing litter by placing trash bags and disposal kiosks near known encampments. After an expansion in 2020, the Violet Bag program now serves about 20 locations.
In additional, the city has a cleaning service '-- halted temporarily by the pandemic '-- that provides in-person assistance for cleaning encampments by removing items that are either trash or not permitted for safety reasons.
Chris Edson, 51, who is experiencing homelessness, boils lake water next to his own small campsite on the shore of Lady Bird Lake. Jay Janner / American-Statesman
Edson, 51, said he has no interest in leaving the trail to join a large encampment where he said residents might be mentally unstable or on drugs. He echoed concerns expressed by other trail residents about living along busy streets or in medians where vehicles passing by might lose control and mow down a row of tents.
Comparing those encampments with his own, Edson asked: "What's the worse eyesore?"
Determining the scale of Austin's homelessness problem is challenging because the annual study that addresses it is outdated.
The last time the city conducted a point-in-time study of the homeless population through the nonprofit ECHO '-- Ending Community Homelessness Coalition '-- was in January 2020. This year's event was canceled due to the pandemic, and ECHO, which plans to use alternative methods to estimate the homeless count, has not released updated information.
As of July, the city had 1,837 total units of housing to accommodate the homeless population '-- 6,858 fewer than ECHO recommended. Although the city acquired hundreds more units since then, housing advocates say the homeless population has likely grown, as well, due to financial setbacks instigated by the pandemic.
The 2020 point-in-time study counted 2,506 people experiencing homelessness. Of those, 1,574 were unsheltered, living in tents, cars, or outside.
Dwight Price, 51, said he has been homeless in Austin since 2015 when he arrived from Houston and ran into issues attempting to enroll at St. Edward's University. After living for a while at a vacant library downtown, he moved to a spot near tech company Oracle's campus on the southeastern section of the trail last summer. He said the new spot gives him "more freedom of movement."
He rode out multiple days of subfreezing temperatures in February, holding up OK at a time when other unsheltered Austinites lost feet due to amputations from frostbite.
Dwight Price I don't see why anyone should suffer because of homelessness, but I do understand this is a park. Everyone has access to it. If this is an eyesore spot, then hell yeah I want it right here. Maybe the city will bring help here first. Quote icon
"I don't see why anyone should suffer because of homelessness, but I do understand this is a park," Price said. "Everyone has access to it."
He said he's rarely bothered by trail users and that, in fact, a woman who was on her way to Goodwill stopped by and gave him a tent she had planned to donate to the store.
"If this is an eyesore spot, then, hell yeah, I want it right here," he said. "Maybe the city will bring help here first."
Plan to help Austin homeless community begins in late May
Beginning in late May, the city plans to help unsheltered individuals, like Price, through a plan approved by the City Council to connect individuals living outdoors in four controversial areas '-- including on the hike-and-bike trail '-- with shelter.
The initiative is called the Housing-Focused Homeless Encampment Assistance Link, or HEAL for short. On Tuesday, the city revealed that it had identified a site for a 50-bed shelter in a central location officials refused to disclose. The Statesman has requested that information through an open records request.
After moving people to housing or shelter, the four areas where they came from would be off-limits to camping. The ban would be enforced without using citations.
Funding additional projects should not be a problem. Austin expects to receive $195.8 million from President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan, and Adler is trying to generate support on the City Council to spend a significant portion of it on homelessness services. Adler is encouraging Travis County officials, who get to decide how to spend $247 million in federal stimulus money, to also contribute.
The stimulus funds are in addition to the $60.9 million in taxpayer money Austin allocated for homelessness services this year.
Meanwhile, the May 1 election looms.
Beginning in late May, Austin plans to help homeless people through a plan approved by the City Council to connect individuals living outdoors in four areas '-- including along the hike-and-bike trail '-- with shelter. Jay Janner / American-Statesman
Proposition B: What would it do?
If approved by voters, Proposition B would create a criminal offense and a penalty not only for camping in public but for sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk or sleeping outdoors in and near downtown and in the area around the University of Texas campus. It also would make it unlawful to solicit money or other things of value at specific hours and locations, and it would ban all aggressive solicitation in public areas.
Early voting is from April 19 to April 27.
Those who oppose the proposal say reinstating criminal penalties will make things worse for the homeless population by saddling them with citations they cannot afford to pay and raises constitutional concerns, making the city susceptible to legal challenges.
Nine of the 11 council members say they will vote against reinstating the camping ban and one other '-- Alison Alter '-- said she hasn't decided.
As of March 22, the political action committee supporting the ban, Save Austin Now, raised $437,000. Their counterparts, Homes Not Handcuffs, raised $23,000.
If passed, unsheltered people who cannot find housing or shelter will be left with few options: Disappear into wooded areas on the edges of town, leave Austin altogether, or remain where they are and face criminal consequences.
"Put yourselves in our shoes," said Kelly, a trail resident who moved from Dallas last summer.
Pearce, the boat cruise owner, said the relaxed camping rules have led to some areas of downtown resembling a third world country.
"Not that I'm not sympathetic to the needs of the homeless," Pearce said, "but allowing them to camp anywhere they want is not really fair to everyone else in the community that pays taxes and has the right to use the jogging trail and parks without being harassed."
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Sign up Published12:36 pm UTC Apr. 12, 2021 Updated12:36 pm UTC Apr. 12, 2021
The Cicero Institute
Mon, 12 Apr 2021 00:01
In the ten years after 2007, Texas made strides in reducing homelessness. The total homeless population plummeted from 40,000 to just under 24,000 persons, a 40% drop. Yet after 2017, Texas homelessness started to rise again, especially ''unsheltered'' homelessness, or those living on the streets. The unsheltered population has increased from 7,000 to 10,500 people in the past three years.¹ Some cities like Austin saw almost a 50% increase in their unsheltered homeless population in 2019 alone. Austin now has almost half of its homeless population outside of shelters '' the highest rate in the state.² The recent coronavirus pandemic will only exacerbate these trends and the problems that emerge from them.
Despite Texas's strong economy, there are several reasons for this statewide reversal on homelessness in the several years approaching the pandemic. First, housing prices in some Texas metro areas, especially Austin, have increased rapidly. Austin rent prices have increased by 50% since the end of the last recession in 2010, which has driven many marginal renters into the streets." A report from the White House Council of Economic Advisors has shown that a doubling in rents can almost double the homeless population, and it seems that this effect is at work.'´
More generally, cities like Austin have also ended bans on camping or lying in the streets, and in the process have both attracted more homeless individuals and lost a tool to help encourage homeless people into needed treatment. These cities have understandable concerns that removing people from the streets would be uncompassionate. But leaving homeless people on the streets and in crowded encampments is bad both for the homeless and for the cities in which they live. Cities can prevent street-camping and provide superior alternative treatment and shelter options at a reasonable cost, and many cities have done so.
We offer four viable reforms to help solve Texas's unsheltered homeless problem. The first reform is to redirect Texas's homelessness grants into providing cheap available shelter and pay-for-performance services. The second is to redirect Texas's public safety grants into the creation of Homeless Outreach Teams in those cities and to support best-in-practice specialty courts for those with drug addictions and mental health issues. The third is to reform the state's Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) and inpatient admittance criteria for individuals undergoing a mental health crisis. The fourth is to use state power to clean up encampments on state land and provide superior shelter alternatives.
This paper demonstrates a few reforms that the state of Texas and its cities can do to reduce open camping and street homelessness. While these reforms are simple, they can provide better and more efficient services for the state's homeless residents and improve quality of life in surrounding communities.
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THE PROBLEM OF ENCAMPMENTSUntil about 20 years ago, there were few homeless encampments in America and few cities allowed camping on their streets.'µ Recently, many cities began to worry that removing such camps would be cruel and instead have allowed them to expand. In reality, these encampments are dangerous and destructive for the homeless. The more compassionate route is pushing residents into safer and sheltered situations.
The biggest problem with these encampments is that they are bad for the health of those living in them. The Arizona Center for Problem-Oriented Policing simply notes that ''homeless encampments can be dangerous to health.'' Garbage in these camps attracts rats; food cannot be stored nor dishes washed, leading to more food-borne disease; toilets are often not available so waste is scattered about living areas; diseases spread easily in close and unsupervised quarters; unprotected cooking and heating fires can get out of control; and so forth. One Boston camp tested positive for coronavirus at rates 25 times the level of the rest of the city. Due largely to its unsheltered homeless population, San Francisco now has over 28,000 reports of human feces on the streets per year.'¶
Violence in these camps can also be endemic. One small Florida homeless encampment had 3 homicides in 10 months. One California encampment had 5 shooting deaths in one month. Although general statistics on the health of unsheltered and camping homeless is hard to come by, in Los Angeles, which has some of the largest open camps in the developed world, 3 homeless people die in street encampments every day, or 1,000 a year, a rate of death higher than those of combat soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.'·
Nearby neighborhoods also suffer from homeless encampments. Human waste and garbage can pollute watersheds and occasionally be carried onto other property. Studies have shown that areas next to homeless encampments have higher levels of petty and serious crime, especially theft, armed robbery, rape, and aggravated assault.'¸ The encampments also frighten nearby homeowners, drive away businesses, and prevent the use of public space and public parks.
Despite claims that insufficient shelter is the reason for these encampments, most studies show that many of the chronically homeless on the streets or in encampments do not want to go into existing shelter programs. Surveys of those in encampments find that many, from 25% to 41%, say that they would not go into shelters if the camp were closed. Larger numbers say that if forced to leave, they would just move to another camp or city.'¹ In practice, when options are provided, even larger proportions refuse to accept them. Burien, Washington, a majority minority city near Seattle, recently had around 100 homeless people on the streets and in encampments. After they instituted a camping ban, and gave ample warning and options for treatment, all except 6 left the city rather than accept shelter and services, and there was only one arrest when clearing the public space.¹'° Similarly, in the recent legal case of Martin v. City of Boise, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals mandated that Boise, Idaho and other cities could not remove homeless people from public spaces without ''sufficient'' shelter, but the court ignored the fact that despite hundreds of homeless people on Boise's streets, there had never been a night in which the city's three main shelters had been full.¹¹
The reality is that existing encampments are dangerous, but city and state governments refuse to close them because they fear that the current alternatives are insufficient. But cities do have the ability to end these encampments while providing better alternatives that actually help the homeless get back on their feet.
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THE TYPES OF SHELTER THE HOMELESS NEEDThere are several ways to help those in homeless camps return to better environments. They are described below in order of ascending cost and the amount of structured services required.
For many, homelessness is less the result of the absence of a home than the absence of a friend and family network. That is why most cities, even very progressive coastal cities, run ''family reunification'' programs that offer to connect homeless people to their often distant families again, and pay for transportation. Although derided as mere ''greyhound therapy'' by some, there are few things more helpful than returning a person to the support structure that knows them best. As an option and not a mandate, it is appropriate and helpful.¹²
Another simple solution is to open ''safe parking'' spaces for those who still own a car but don't have a residence. These homeless individuals are the most likely to be able to get back on their feet and return to work. These spaces can be set up with minimal cost on public lots with some basic utility attachments and bathrooms. The City of San Diego provided safe parking lots at the cost of $165,000 a year each, and each of these lots hosted about 350 homeless individuals over the course of the year, for an annual cost of about $500 per person.¹" Additionally, temporary assistance to landlords to accept the temporarily homeless, or ''rapid rehousing,'' is a solution that sometimes prevents a further spiral into despair, especially when combined with services.¹'´
Another solution for those caught in encampments, but who still value some of their freedom, is ''structured camping facilities,'' or encampments that are overseen by the government. These facilities allow the homeless to bring their property and tents inside, but are accompanied by police patrols and cleaning. The main complaints of the homeless about these camps are usually their distance from services, food, and public transportation. There are ways to ensure these amenities in the camps at minimal expense. For instance, the government may open ''day resource centers'' where the homeless can stay during the daytime and be provided with basic social services that are more often located downtown, often in the midst of busy commercial districts.¹'µ
At a slightly more structured level, Oakland has created ''community cabins'' (more colloquially known as ''tuff sheds'') that cost $30,000 to build and $18,000 a year to maintain with services. Other places in lower-cost states have built shelters for as little as $10,000 a unit.¹'¶ By contrast, Austin spends $28,000 a year per homeless individual for its direct homeless and shelter services, without taking into account other expenditures such as hospitalization and jail time.¹'·
Finally, for those homeless individuals who have been on the streets for at least a year, known as the ''chronically homeless,'' and who show little indication that they can return to support on their own, the state can assist in the creation of competitively-provided Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) or supportive service contracts. Today, most PSH contracts with states and cities just reward providers for keeping open beds or warehousing residents. Even the few PSH Pay-for-Performance programs in existence mainly try to reward providers for keeping the homeless inside the housing program, as opposed to improving the homeless's overall well-being. Instead, cities could provide PSH and service contracts that actually try to help the homeless improve their lives.¹'¸
All of these types of shelter and services have benefits for different groups. But one problem in providing such homeless services is that neighbors can be opposed to them. There are many reasons, from crime to property values, to be legitimately worried about nearby homeless services and shelters. The solution is to enforce even higher levels of public safety and cleaning around them than were enforced before. Mayor Kevin Faulconer of San Diego made a promise that any homeless shelter would be accompanied by a public assurance that the area around it would be both safer and cleaner than it was before the site came, and since then his city council has voted to expand the services programs to more areas, with minimal neighborhood opposition.¹'¹
As this section has made clear, there are a myriad of different shelter arrangements for the homeless, all of which are superior to current encampments and can provide for different homeless populations at reasonable costs. There is no reason for mayors or local officials to claim that they have to allow current encampments to continue in lieu of better alternatives.
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REFORMING MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENTSimply getting the unsheltered homeless into safe environments is important, but for many it is not enough. Nationally, 28% of the homeless report having a severe mental illness. Local numbers are hard to come by, but in large cities such as Dallas, that number can go up to 43%.²'° Although homelessness surveys don't provide specific mental health statistics for the chronically homeless and unsheltered populations, it is doubtless that the vast majority of the homeless with mental illnesses are among these groups. Unfortunately, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill and continuing, usually overstated, concerns about civil liberties has created a reluctance to push them into treatment, leading to tens of thousands of unsupervised mentally ill homeless on our streets. Yet the mentally ill need public compassion and attention more than anyone.
Right now, for the severely mentally ill who need inpatient treatment in Texas, one problem is that the state has two standards for those who can potentially be ordered for treatment: there is one for emergency evaluation and one for actual admittance. This can lead to the inappropriate scenario where someone is evaluated to be a danger to himself or others in first evaluation, but does not meet the separate criteria for actual admission.²¹ Texas law also only allows a maximum of 48 hours of inpatient treatment, which is too short to stabilize most patients. Finally, the language on inpatient commitment is ambiguous and vague. Besides other criteria, an individual can only be committed if they present ''a danger to self or others,'' but the law does not clarify that the danger can involve inability to take care of oneself, allowing long-term deterioration and self-destruction without any intervention.
There are other problems with what is known as ''Assisted Outpatient Treatment'' (AOT) for those severely mentally ill whose condition is not severe enough to warrant inpatient treatment. For one, Texas does not have a ''psychiatric deterioration standard,'' which means courts cannot examine the likelihood that the individual will continue to mentally deteriorate without assistance as a reason for admitting someone to treatment. It also allows an initial order of assisted outpatient treatment for only 90 days, which is often not enough to stabilize a mentally ill individual, especially when they remain on the streets.²²
A few basic reforms to mandated mental health treatment, which would clarify the standards of admittance and extend times for supervision, when combined with reforms to the mental health and drug treatment courts described below, would help a significant portion of the unsheltered homeless population.
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WHAT THE STATE CAN DOFirst, the state should do all it can to end encampments and move people to safer environments. The state can and should ensure clean-ups of encampments on state land, including land under or around state highways, and provide alternatives.²" Governor Greg Abbot recently cleared some of the state Transportation Department land and opened nearby structured camping facilities. The state can and should expand these to provide alternatives to any camps on state public land.²'´
The state also can use its fiscal clout to encourage cities to do better. Texas provides about $5 million a year in Emergency Solution Grants (ESG) as part of a federal program to ''Continuums of Care'' (CoCs) that run local homeless services. These grants focus on immediate shelter for those in dire need. The state also offers, on its own, Healthy Community Collaboratives grants ($25 million), Reducing Youth Homelessness grants ($1.5 million) and Ending Homelessness grants ($150,000) to CoCs for a range of short-term homeless services.²'µ The state should allocate these grants only to those CoCs and cities that show consistent declines in unsheltered homelessness. If a city or CoC region shows any significant increase in unsheltered homeless, it should lose its grants. The grant allocations should also be redirected to focus on only three possible programs, structured camping facilities, open parking spaces, and community cabins, provided at costs below $15,000 per unit, as the most efficient shelter services. The state should also mandate that all CoCs create ''By Name Lists'' so that they know everyone who comes into the shelter system and can track them over time.²'¶
The state also offers Homeless Housing and Service Program (HHSP) grants out of its own funds, also at about $5 million a year, which focus on more long-term homeless services.²'· As with the short-term grants, HHSP grants should be allocated only to cities that show consistent declines in unsheltered homelessness, and funding should be cut off if cities fail to meet these goals. More importantly, every dollar of these grants should go to Pay-For-Performance housing and service contractors, rather than unconditioned PSH contracts.
The Pay-For-Performance Model should be based on three key metrics. Service providers should receive about $20,000 a year from the funds that the city currently spends directly on shelter services. The providers should support their homeless clients in any way they see fit to improve the three key metrics, the number of days unhoused; the number of days incarcerated; and the number of days hospitalized. The state should provide performance contracts to nonprofits who promise to reduce these three metrics relative to baselines established by surveying the rest of the homeless population, with $10 for reduction in days unhoused, $100 for reductions in days incarcerated, and $1,000 for reductions in days hospitalized. If we set the expected baseline of homeless costs around the US Department of Housing and Urban Development level, of about $35,000 of hospitalization costs and $10,000 of incarceration and crime costs a year, the state, local governments, and nonprofits could save thousands of dollars a year due to even slight improvements in outcomes for the homeless.²'¸
The state also offers public safety grants to cities, and there are two ways that these can be repurposed to focus on the needs of the homeless population. First, the state can ensure that grants to cities with above-average unsheltered homeless populations go to Homeless Outreach Teams (HOTs), which are trained to deal with homeless individuals and get them into treatment.²'¹ Houston created a HOT in 2011, and it is now composed of nine police officers and four case managers that have helped Houston to reduce its homelessness by half since its creation. Its success should be replicated across the state. The State Criminal Justice Planning Fund ($25 million a year), and grants passed down through the federal Justice Assistance Grant Program (about $13 million a year), can be repurposed to focus on the needs of homeless offenders and victims by redirecting 25% of those grants into HOTs for any city with above-average street homelessness. These HOTs will be required as a condition of the grant to get the homeless into shelter conditions and treatments."'°
The state can also ensure that its community courts grant dollars are focused on mental health and drug treatment courts, which have shown success in pushing individuals into treatment. Right now, many of the state's community or specialty courts are reluctant to push individuals into treatment, but the state's ''Drug Courts'' and ''Specialty Courts'' grants ($2 million a year) can be conditioned on moving a larger proportion of all drug and mental health cases through the system (as opposed to the normal jail system) and processing cases faster."¹ Any city that reduced the proportion of all arrests in the system going to specialty courts for two years in row would lose their specialty court funding, as would any city that did not process the majority of drug and mental health court cases in 45 days (otherwise the referrals from the specialty courts would take place long after the possibility of helping the individual in a crisis had passed)."²
The state can also reform its inpatient and AOT mental health treatment laws to ensure that those with severe mental illnesses get immediate treatment and can be stabilized. Inpatient treatment should be at least three days and outpatient treatment should be supervised for at least six months. At the same time, the state should clarify that ''psychological deterioration'' is a justifiable reason for the state to intervene before someone's mental illness causes long-term consequences, and the state should include inability to take care of oneself as part of an evaluation of self-harm. At every step in this process, courts can and will supervise the treatment both to ensure that the individual improves, and also that their basic civil liberties are respected. The individuals will still have the ability to appeal any treatment programs to the regular courts."" As part of the AOT program, the state, like 16other states, can ask for federal waivers that apply Medicaid funding to case management for homeless individuals."'´ All of these changes will help ensure that mentally ill individuals receive the treatment they need.
Finally, the state can shame cities into doing better. By ending camps on state land and creating viable alternatives that are safer, more affordable, and better for the homeless than large encampments, the state can help end cities' quiet acquiescence in this tragedy.
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CONCLUSIONIn the early 2000s, Los Angeles's Skid Row was an international scandal of misery and decay. In 2006, LAPD Commissioner William Bratton began a program called ''Safer City," which cleaned up homeless camps in Skid Row and pushed people into shelter and treatment. It reduced homelessness and crime on Skid Row by half. When this program was reversed years later, all of the old problems returned, and the number of deaths on Skid Row doubled."'µ
Similarly, in Austin, after the city ended its anti-camping ordinance, unsheltered homeless went up by 50% in a year, while the number of people in shelters dropped by 20%. Violent and property crime among the homeless themselves increased by over 15% as people returned to dangerous streets."'¶ Despite any claims of compassion, continuing to allow ubiquitous street camping does not help the homeless.
The state of Texas can help end the dangerous encampments in its cities and help the homeless rebuild their lives. We know how to achieve this goal and we should help communities, including the homeless in those communities, by reducing street homelessness.
[1] "Texas," National Alliance to End Homelessness, https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-report/texas/ "Texas Homelessness Statistics," United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/tx/
[2] Mark D. Wilson, "Austin sees 11% increase in homeless count, 45% increase in unsheltered population," Statesmen, May19, 2020, https://www.statesman.com/news/20200519/austin-sees-11-increase-in-homeless-count-45-increase-in-unsheltered-population#:~:text=The%20latest%20tally%20of%20homeless,1%2C500%20people%20who%20were%20unsheltered.&text=In%20total%2C%20volunteers%20counted%202%2C506%20people%20experiencing%20homelessness.https://www.texastribune.org/2019/12/09/how-many-people-are-homeless-texas-least-25000/
[3] "Rent trend data in Austin, Texas," Rent Jungle, October 2020, https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-austin-rent-trends/RRental trends famously vary depending on the statistical source, but more easily measured Housing prices have increased even faster than rents, almost doubling in the ten years to 2020. "Austin Home Values," Zillow, https://www.zillow.com/austin-tx/home-values/. Most Texas cities are famously open to newbuilding, which keeps rental and housing prices down, but Austin has some notable restrictions on building causing increased housing costs. Megan Elizabeth Shannon, "Quantifying the Impacts of Regulatory Delay on Housing Affordability and Quality in Austin, Texas," The University of Texas at Austin, May 2015, http://soa.utexas.edu/sites/default/disk/SHANNON-MASTERSREPORT-2015.pdf
[4] Council of Economic Advisors, The State of Homelessness in America, September 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/The-State-of-Homelessness-in-America.pdf
[5] Rebecca Cohen, Will Yetvin, Jill Khadduri,"Understanding Encampments of People Experiencing Homelessness and Community Responses: Emerging Evidence as of Late 2018," Abt Associates, January 7, 2019, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/Understanding-Encampments.pdf Julie Hunter, Paul Linden-Retek, Sirine Shebaya, Samuel Halpert, "Welcome Home The Rise of Tent Cities in the United States," National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, March 2014, https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/WelcomeHome_TentCities_final_report.pdfngeles- In previous generations, so-called ''hobo jungles'' often arose near railroad tracks, but they were usually miles outside of nearby towns. Kenneth Kusmer, Down and Out, On the Road (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003),135.
[6] For waste, Ben Gilbert, "People are pooping more than ever on the streets of San Francisco," Business Insider, April19, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-human-poop-problem-2019-4#:~:text=Between%202011%20and%202018%2C%20San,increased%20to%20more%20than%2028%2C000.And Bostoon Taylor Romine, "'We need to fix it quickly.' Asymptomatic coronavirus cases at Boston homeless shelter raise red flag," CNN, April17, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/us/boston-homeless-coronavirus-outbreak/index.html
[7] For violence Walter Pacheco, "Homeless camp is site of 3rd killing," Orlando Sentinel, August 23, 2007, https://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-db-homicide-stephenking-story.htmlSam Levin, "More than 1,000 homeless people died in Los Angeles countylast year," The Guardian, October 30, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/30/homeless-deaths-los-angeles-county
[8] Sharon Chamard, "Homeless Encampments," ASU Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, January 2010, https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/homeless-encampments-0
[9] Sharon Chamard, "Homeless Encampments," ASU Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, January 2010, https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/homeless-encampments-page-3
[10] Christopher F. Rufo, "Enforcement Works," City Journal, August 23, 2019, https://www.city-journal.org/reducing-street-homelessness-burien-washington
[11] Theodore H. Frank, "City of Boise v. Robert Martin et. al" September 25, 2019, https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/eide-amicus-Boise-09252019.pdf
[12] Family Reunification Program," Downtown San Diego, https://downtownsandiego.org/family-reunification-program/
[13] Lisa Halverstadt, "The Spike in City Spending on Homelessness Aid Is Clear, but the Results Are Murkier," Voice of San Diego, January 9, 2019, https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/government/the-spike-in-city-spending-on-homelessness-aid-is-clear-but-the-results-are-murkier/Amanda Shotsky, "Mayor Faulconer to expand Safe Parking Program for homeless in San Diego," CBS8, April 16, 2019, https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/politics/mayor-faulconer-to-expand-safe-parking-program-for-homeless-in-san-diego/509-e9df27a4-59e4-49d4-9f22-30de445f37ed
[14] "Performance Benchmarks and Program Standards," National Alliance to End Homelessness, March 2016, https://endhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Performance-Benchmarks-and-Program-Standards.pdf Although rapid rehousing without service or caser management seems to have little positive effect, adding these requirements to private housing vouchers that are cheaper than Section 8housing vouchers shows promise. Kevin C. Corinth, "What should we do about homeless families? Comments on the Family Options Study," AEI, August 2015, https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/What-should-we-do-about-homeless-families.pdf
[15] Theodore H. Frank, "City of Boise v. Robert Martin et. al" September 25, 2019, https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/eide-amicus-Boise-09252019.pdf
[16] "Oakland Unveils Newest Rapid-Rehousing Facility and City Council Passes $8.6 Million Emergency Funds for Homeless Services," City of Oakland, October 31, 2018, https://www.oaklandca.gov/news/2018/oakland-unveils-newest-rapid-rehousing-facility-and-city-council-passes-8-6-million-emergency-funds-for-homeless-services.
"Oakland's 'Tuff Sheds' Not Tough Enough In Battle Against Homelessness," KPIX CBS SF Bay Area, September 24, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szEZfKJ2pSY
Erika Lundahl, "Tiny Houses for the Homeless: An Affordable Solution Catches On," Charter for Compassion, https://charterforcompassion.org/problem-solving/tiny-houses-for-the-homeless-an-affordable-solution-catches-on
[17] Echo Austin & Politifact. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/oct/17/greg-abbott/how-much-does-city-austin-spend-homeless-person/As Politifact notes, some of this spending is spent on people who are no longer homeless, but at the same time, much spending outside of the homeless budget also goes to homeless individuals, so if anything the total is an underestimate.
[18] J.B. Wogan, "Can Homelessness Programs Make Money -- and Should They?," Governing, June 2018, https://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-money-for-homeless.html
[19] CBS News 8 Team, "Mayor announces three tent shelters around San Diego for homeless," CBS8, September 13, 2017, https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/mayor-announces-three-tent-shelters-around-san-diego-for-homeless/509-cdc0d945-5900-46ea-940a-4be5454d1b8a; Kevin Faulconer, "How San Diego Cleaned Up Its Act'--And Got Real On Homelessness," Hoover Institution, October 30, 2019, https://www.hoover.org/research/how-san-diego-cleaned-its-act-and-got-real-homelessnessAt the same time he ensured that people could not camp without consequence on city streets, Cody Dulaney, "San Diego police issue twice as many illegal lodging tickets to homeless during pandemic," inewsource, May 25, 2020, https://inewsource.org/2020/05/25/san-diego-police-ticket-homeless-pandemic/. Austin has made a similar pledge, of sorts. After it ended its laws against camping last year, it made an exception for the area around the main homelessness service center, the ARCH, to ensure that it didn't attract excessive community attention.
[20] Sara Durr, "Mayors Examine Issues of Homelessness and Hunger in America," The United States Conference of Mayors, December 8, 2016, https://www.usmayors.org/2016/12/08/mayors-examine-issues-of-homelessness-and-hunger-in-america/ https://www.ourcalling.org/mental-healthcare-crisis-dallas/#:~:text=The%20homeless%20community%20of%20Dallas,homeless%20are%20severely%20mentally%20ill.
[21] Adult Protective Services Handbook, Texas, https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/handbooks/aps/files/APS_pg_4800.asp
[22] Lisa Dailey et.al, "Grading the States: An Analysis of Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment Laws," Treatment Advocacy Center, https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/storage/documents/grading-the-states.pdf
[23] Texas Transportation Code §472.012; In Austin, the state TxDOT began cleaning up encampments after bridge inspectors had trouble accessing overpasses, but the city had technically agreed to take over the duty in 1986. Christopher Neely, "Clearing of homeless camps under state highway overpasses will continue despite Austin's loosened public camping laws," Community Impact Newspaper, July 11, 2019, https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/city-county/2019/07/11/clearing-of-homeless-camps-under-state-highway-overpasses-will-continue-despite-austins-loosened-public-camping-laws/.If an encampment outside of state land becomes a public health risk due to an outbreak of disease, the governor can potentially order a quarantine and clear the site, but this should only be used in true emergency situations. Texas Health and Safety Code§§81.084: Application of Control Measures to Property
[24] Ashley Killough, Ed Lavandera and Joel Delarosa, "Texas governor orders cleanups of Austin homeless encampments after the city relaxed its laws," CNN, November 5, 2019,https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/05/politics/austin-homelessness/index.html
[25] Home and Homelessness Programs, Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, https://www.tdhca.state.tx.us/home-division/ "Housing and Urban Development," Code of Federal Regulations, April 1, 2017, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2018-title24-vol3/xml/CFR-2018-title24-vol3-part576.xml#seqnum576.409HUD still has to approve each state and local government's ''consolidated plan. ''The overall allocation to states, cities, and other entities is the same as for the CDBG program, for some reason, but the state's portion still has significant discretionary capability, and almost no restrictions in the state code about how to allocate these funds: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.2306.htm
[26] This surprisingly simple and obvious reform is very recent and is still not required by many cities. Jake Maguire, "The By-Name List Revolution,'' Community Solutions, April 6, 2018, https://community.solutions/the-by-name-list-revolution/
[27] "State & City Funded Rental Housing Programs," National Low Income Housing Coalition, May 4, 2016, https://reports.nlihc.org/rental-programs/catalog/homeless-housing-and-services-programThe legislative direction for this is fairly open and most reforms can be done by administrative code: Legislation: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.2306.htmAdministrative Code: https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac$ext.ViewTAC?tac_view=5&ti=10&pt=1&ch=7&sch=D&rl=Y
"H.B. No. 1 General Appropriations Act Eighty-Sixth Legislature,'' /https://www.lbb.state.tx.us/Documents/Appropriations_Bills/86/Conference_Bills/86R_HB1-F.pdf The current requirements for Supportive Housing Services funded by the state mental health services demand that they use a ''Housing First'' Model. This requirement should be removed for a focus on shelter and performance-based services. https://www.tdhca.state.tx.us/tich/doc s/2018-AnnualReport.pdf
[28] The budgetary implications for this would be unclear if it was an addition to current HHSP funds, since most of the $10,000 criminal justice savings are not on budget, and around $15,000 of the state hospitalization expenses are Medicaid, of which are 60% paid for by the federal government, but since the funds for this will come entirely out of existing HHPD, it will at worst be revenue neutral.
[29] Almost all of the costs are hospital related. In New York, hospitalization costs are $35,000 a year for the chronically homeless, and prison and jail costs are only about $1,000 a year. If we estimate the social cost of crime as a multiple of this, considering that some crimes are not detected and the costs of crime are also borne by the public, we can estimate $10,000 a year in criminal costs. Costs. "Supportive Housing is Cost Effective," National Alliance to End Homelessness, January 2007, http://cceh.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/supportive_housing_brief.pdf HUD sets expected cots per hospitalization event and jail time, and these can be used to compute the total. Brooke Spellman et.al, "Coast Associated With First-Time Homelessness for Families and Individuals," HUD, March 2010, https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/costs_homeless.pdf
[30] "Homeless Outreach Team (HOT)," Houston Police Department, https://www.houstoncit.org/hot/"Grants over $25,000 Administered by the Office of the Governor," The State of Texas Governor, 2013, https://gov.texas.gov/organization/financial-services/grants"H.B. No. 1 General Appropriations Act Eighty-Sixth Legislature,'' https://www.lbb.state.tx.us/Documents/Appropri ations_Bills/86/Conference_Bills/86R_HB1-F.pdfhttps://external.ojp.usdoj.gov/selector/awardDetail?awardNumber=2018-DJ-BX-0485&fiscalYear=2018&applicationNumber=2018-H3317-TX-DJ&programOffice=BJA&po=BJA"Funding Announcement: Specialty Courts Program, FY2021," Office of the Governor, Public Safety Office, https://www.county.org/TAC/media/TACMedia/Legislative/Grant-Opportunities/SF-Spec_Courts_Announce-com_PY21.pdf
[31] For instance, the Travis County Adult Drug Diversion Court has continuously reduced those referred to the court, even while requesting increased funding from the state specialty court grants. Editorial Board, "Transparency, accountability needed at Travis County Drug Court," Statesman, September 25,2018, https://www.statesman.com/news/20160904/transparency-accountability-needed-at-travis-county-drug-court
[32] See current demands in Title 2, Subtitle K, Specialty Courts section: t-code/title-2/subtitle-k/
[33] Treatment Advocacy Center, https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/texas
[34] "From the Field: Wisconsin Biennial Budget Includes Rare Increase for Homeless Services," National Low Income Housing Coalition, Sep 25, 201, https://nlihc.org/resource/field-wisconsin-biennial-budget-includes-rare-increase-homeless-services
[35] Sam Levin, "More than 1,000 homeless people died in Los Angeles county last year," The Guardian, October 30,2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/30/homeless-deaths-los-angeles-county)
[36] Mark D. Wilson, "Austin sees 11% increase in homeless count, 45% increase in unsheltered population," Statesmen, May19, 2020, https://www.statesman.com/news/20200519/austin-sees-11-increase-in-homeless-count-45-increase-in-unsheltered-population#:~:text=The%20latest%20tally%20of%20homeless,population%20took%20place%20on%20Jan.
Pelosi, Sanders move goalposts on massive infrastructure bill, claim it's about 'human infrastructure' - TheBlaze
Sun, 11 Apr 2021 23:38
Top Democrats are already moving the legislative goalposts as President Joe Biden pushes his second multi-trillion dollar spending package.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who controls the Senate Budget Committee, are defending Biden's push for a massive infrastructure bill '-- which critics say has very little to do with American infrastructure '-- by citing the need to address "human infrastructure."
What is the background?Despite boasting a price tag of $2.25 trillion, Biden's plan spends relatively few tax dollars on American highways, bridges, and other traditional infrastructural systems.
Instead, the plan advances countless progressive policy initiatives, and is being described as, basically, the Green New Deal.
As TheBlaze reported:
According to a chart obtained by the Washington Post, which details the proposal's spending breakdown, the administration plans to spend only $115 billion '-- roughly one-twentieth of the total '-- on highways, bridges, and roads, while spending $174 billion on electric vehicles, $213 billion on affordable and sustainable housing, $137 billion on public schools and community colleges, and $180 billion on climate-based research and development.Other large expenditures include $111 billion for clean drinking water, $100 billion for high-speed broadband, and $100 billion for workforce development.
What did Pelosi say?Speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," Pelosi said the infrastructure bill will not be trimmed down despite criticisms because infrastructure is more than highways and bridges.
"Infrastructure is about education, about getting children healthily in school with separation, sanitation, ventilation. It's about investments in housing as well," Pelosi said. "Overwhelmingly, this bill is about infrastructure in the traditional sense of the word."
"We also think that infrastructure'-- there's a need for workforce development in order to have the workforce fully participate in how we go forward and childcare so that women can be involved in that as well," she added. "So it's physical infrastructure. It's also human infrastructure that is involved."
Pelosi says "the door is open" for bipartisan cooperation on infrastructure www.youtube.com
What did Sanders say?Speaking on MSNBC Saturday, Sanders invoked a similar line of defense by attempting to broaden the definition of what exactly "infrastructure" means.
"[W]e've got to take a broad look at what infrastructure means, human infrastructure for ordinary people," Sanders said.
"Human infrastructure means housing. You've got a half a million people in this country who are homeless. You've got 19 million households who are spending 50% of their limited incomes on housing. We need to build housing," Sanders continued. "And by the way, when you deal with housing, you create jobs."
"When I talk about infrastructure, it means if a worker, a mom and dad are going to work, they have the right to know that their kids are in decent childcare. That's infrastructure," Sanders said. "Infrastructure is having the best-educated workforce in the world. That means all of our kids should have the ability to get a higher education, not leave school deeply in debt."
"[Infrastructure] means that we need a healthy society. Our life expectancy is 40th in the world because we are the only major country not to guarantee health care to all people," Sanders added. "And so, I think as a nation we've got to take a very broad look at what we mean by infrastructure, it's physical infrastructure, obviously, bricks and mortar. It is human infrastructure."
How an online 'Lego' gamer infiltrated the White House press corps - POLITICO
Sun, 11 Apr 2021 22:32
Montagu started two real-life Twitter handles, which are followed by some top White House officials and journalists. Montagu has filed Freedom of Information Act requests and obtained Psaki's personal financial disclosure form, along with the disclosure of at least one other official, the president's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.
In communications with confidants, Montagu has posed as a member of White House Correspondents Association, claiming to be a reporter for The Daily Mail, the British tabloid known for its gossipy coverage of celebrities and political figures. Montagu also communicates regularly with top White House reporters and has had several exchanges with White House officials.
But Montagu never joined WHCA and The Daily Mail. There is no Kacey Montagu, except as a digital impersonation of a White House correspondent.
''I love journalism, and I think the Press Corps is doing a pretty bad job at the moment, so I decided I would ensure some transparency and ask some questions me and some friends wanted the answer to,'' Montagu said, when reached by email and asked why they were posing as a White House reporter.
Motivation aside, Montagu's activity is a remarkable illustration of how the online landscape, along with the age of pandemic-related virtual work, has opened up avenues for the mischievous-minded to infiltrate the top echelons of power. What's perhaps more remarkable is that he or she did it all without raising a solitary eyebrow '... until Thursday.
***
Exactly who the real Kacey Montagu is remains entirely unclear. And he or she refused to reveal much personal information.
In conversations with U.S. officials and nonprofit journalism and government-tracking outfits, Montagu said they were an 18-year-old law student from the United Kingdom who was born in the U.S. before moving across the pond with their family at age six. In another conversation, reviewed by POLITICO, Montagu said they were studying political science. He or she said they are not motivated by politics, but were socially liberal and conservative on economic issues.
Acquaintances online suspect much of the biographical information to be untrue. They believe Montagu's White House moonlighting began as something to boast about in the online global gaming platform called ROBLOX, where users jokingly call themselves ''Legos.'' Within that platform is a role-playing group called nUSA, where people from across the world engage in a mock U.S. government exercise. At one point, Montagu had adopted the role of Secretary of State but resigned from that job after '-- as they recalled '-- ''the [nUSA] President went to war with some U.K. and I thought it was a pretty bad idea!''
There is a level of sophistication to how Montagu operates. The email address associated with the Twitter accounts he or she set up appears to have been used only for establishing those feeds, an associated website, and to contact reporters and the White House. Other than that, there are no digital breadcrumbs.
A Twitter account by the name Kacey 'Lego' Montagu has been engaging with a few individuals who have noticed Montagu's involvement in White House press operations. But there is no identifiable information one can discern from it either. The background image is of the late Prince Philip and the avatar used is of Trisha Paytas, a YouTube star.
Montagu's play-acting as a White House reporter goes back at least to December, when he or she set up @WHschedule on Twitter. They repeatedly referenced the ''schedule'' account in emails as a primary duty. In March, they began sending tweets from @WHpoolreport. The accounts are rudimentary repostings of two sources of information reporters regularly consume: the president, first lady, vice president, and second gentleman's daily schedules and the so-called pool reports, which are real time dispatches from a small group of journalists tasked with following around those principals during the course of the day and reporting back to the rest of the press corps on their movements and utterances.
''I created them as some fun but also to ensure that people know what is going on '-- they should be able to know what POTUS and V.P. is doing and I think the account following shows people are interested in that,'' Montagu told POLITICO.
The accounts got attention from insiders, who quickly came to rely on their speed and efficiency. @WHSchedule had a following of more than 1,300, including several White House correspondents (some working at POLITICO). The new @WHPoolReport account amassed more than 600 in a few weeks' time, including some who work in the administration like Michael LaRosa, press secretary for Jill Biden and Symone Sanders, a senior advisor and chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris.
As the accounts gained traction, Montagu tried his or her hand at proactive White House reporting. Montagu inquired with the WHCA about becoming a pool reporter themself and pressed the Biden administration on applying for a day pass to have a ''colleague'' cover the White House in person. Montagu said that they never formally requested a pass, though the idea ''would have been cool.''
Montagu has emailed questions to press aides for President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. They have taken to emailing new White House press aides with congratulatory notes after they landed positions, or remarking on how cool their roles must be.
A person who goes by the name ''pres. arnie vinick,'' formerly the president of the nUSA group of which Montagu was a part, sent POLITICO a screenshot from a Covid-19 response Zoom briefing held by the White House with ''Kacey Montagu'''s virtual hand raised to ask a question. Vinick said the shot was sent to him by Montagu, and Montagu confirmed that they have covered Covid-19 press briefings, but were not called on to ask a question.
''Whether that is fake or not I don't know, but I really wasn't surprised she fooled these people,'' said ''vinick.'' ''She's been bragging about it for awhile.''
Another longtime member of the community in touch with Montagu said they suspected that they created the account ''just for the memes'' and never assumed things would progress this far. The member said they decided to speak out, in part, to help expose how stunningly easy it is for someone with no apparent media credentials or journalism experience to burrow into the loftiest ranks of the industry and government.
''She knew one way or another she was gonna get caught; I don't think she predicted a Politico article being written on her,'' the person, who goes by ''zarta,'' said in an online message. They expressed confidence that, ''if this ha[d] went on, she very well could've obtained her own day pass and been able to travel to [D.C.] and into the White House.''
In other screengrabs, shared by the nUSA community, Montagu claims they duped WHCA by posing as a real reporter and at one point said they were on their way to being verified by Twitter.
***
The bulk of Montagu's efforts have focused on trying to solicit answers from Psaki during the briefing. Montagu sends regular emails to journalists serving on a given day as the White House pool reporter with questions they wanted posed in the briefing room. In one, obtained and verified by POLITICO, Montagu said that they could not be present ''due to social distancing regulations,'' before asking that a question be asked on their behalf.
''Recently the White House has had read outs of calls and has the name of the people saying 'Senior Administration official' so why isn't the White House releasing the names of people in the calls, making these comments so that they can be held accountable to the American people?''
The signature on the email was ''WH Correspondent'' with the outlet listed as WHN.
The reporter for that day declined to ask Montagu's question, as did several others who received emails from the account, including at least two staffers at POLITICO. But Montagu, whose email signatures at other points called them a ''political correspondent'' at the fake acronym WHSG, was successful in planting questions with reporters at The Plain Dealer and CQ Roll Call, among others, asking about everything from Covid-19 travel bans, to coming ambassadorships, to Biden's reaction to Microsoft being hacked.
POLITICO verified the questions through screenshots of the emails and conversations with journalists, press outfits, online associates of Montagu and administration officials.
The White House declined to comment.
In some cases, Montagu followed up with polite emails to the reporters thanking them for asking Psaki questions on their behalf. In at least one instance, a White House official was connected with Montagu to circle back with more information when they had it. That kind of swift attention would not be paid to someone outside the media trying to get information from the White House.
It also would have been exceedingly unlikely to happen in the pre-Covid days where all 49 briefing room seats were occupied rather than the 14 that are filled now so reporters can be socially distant in the small room. During the pandemic, it's become the norm for the pool reporter to ask a question or two for a press corps colleague as a courtesy.
Some White House reporters approached by Montagu via email said the inquiries typically came after they'd sent their first pool report that day. That report likely tipped off Montagu as to who would be in the briefing room. Some of the reporters on pool duty said they did some quick due diligence before deciding on whether to ask the proposed question and came across a since deactivated LinkedIn profile for Montagu that lists the job as ''Chief Political Correspondent" at WHS and a location of Washington, D.C. The profile picture associated with the account was U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson eating an ice cream cone.
On Thursday, Chris Johnson, of Washington Blade, was the pool reporter and when his turn to ask Psaki a question came, he posed one on behalf of an absent colleague. Like the others, it turned out to be Montagu '-- a fact exposed after Mediaite began inquiring into the origins of the query, which was about Biden's relationship with former President Barack Obama and whether the White House would bring back presidential portrait unveiling.
Soon, other dominos were falling. A Google-hosted profile page for Montagu's was taken down. Monagu's old Linkedin profile disappeared, too.
The ex-Pfizer scientist who became an anti-vax hero.
Sun, 11 Apr 2021 21:43
Late last year, a semi-retired British scientist co-authored a petition to Europe's medicines regulator. The petitioners made a bold demand: Halt COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials.
Even bolder was their argument for doing so: They speculated, without providing evidence, that the vaccines could cause infertility in women.
The document appeared on a German website on Dec.1. Scientists denounced the theory. Regulators weren't swayed, either: Weeks later, the European Medicines Agency approved the European Union's first COVID-19 shot, co-developed by Pfizer Inc. But damage was already done.
Social media quickly spread exaggerated claims that COVID-19 jabs cause female infertility. Within weeks, doctors and nurses in Britain began reporting that concerned women were asking them whether it was true, according to the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists. In January, a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a non-profit organization, found that 13% of unvaccinated people in the United States had heard that ''COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to cause infertility.''
What gave the debunked claim credibility was that one of the petition's co-authors, Michael Yeadon, wasn't just any scientist. The 60-year-old is a former vice president of Pfizer, where he spent 16 years as an allergy and respiratory researcher. He later co-founded a biotech firm that the Swiss drugmaker Novartis purchased for at least $325 million.
''These claims are false, dangerous and deeply irresponsible.''
In recent months, Yeadon (pronounced Yee-don) has emerged as an unlikely hero of the so-called anti-vaxxers, whose adherents question the safety of many vaccines, including for the coronavirus. The anti-vaxxer movement has amplified Yeadon's skeptical views about COVID-19 vaccines and tests, government-mandated lockdowns and the arc of the pandemic. Yeadon has said he personally doesn't oppose the use of all vaccines. But many health experts and government officials worry that opinions like his fuel vaccine hesitancy '' a reluctance or refusal to be vaccinated '' that could prolong the pandemic. COVID-19 has already killed more than 2.6 million people worldwide.
''These claims are false, dangerous and deeply irresponsible,'' said a spokesman for Britain's Department of Health & Social Care, when asked about Yeadon's views. ''COVID-19 vaccines are the best way to protect people from coronavirus and will save thousands of lives.''
Recent reports of blood clots and abnormal bleeding in a small number of recipients of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine have cast doubt on that shot's safety, leading several European countries to suspend its use. The developments are likely to fuel vaccine hesitancy further, although there is no evidence of a causative link between the AstraZeneca product and the affected patients' conditions.
Yeadon didn't respond to requests for comment for this article. In reporting this story, Reuters reviewed thousands of his tweets over the past two years, along with other writings and statements. It also interviewed five people who know him, including four of his former colleagues at Pfizer.
A Pfizer spokesman declined to comment on Yeadon and his stint with the company, beyond emphasizing that there is no evidence that its vaccine, which it developed with its German partner BioNTech, causes infertility in women.
References to Yeadon's petition appear on the website of a group founded by influential vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scion of the American political dynasty, who recently was banned on Instagram because of his COVID-19 vaccine posts. Syndicated writer and vaccine skeptic Michelle Malkin reported Yeadon's concern about fertility in a column last month under the headline, ''Pregnant Women: Beware of COVID Shots.'' And a blog with an alarmist headline '' ''Head of Pfizer Research: Covid vaccine is female sterilization'' '' was shared thousands of times on Facebook.
The visage and views of Yeadon, widely identified as an ''Ex-VP of Pfizer,'' can be seen on social media in languages including German, Portuguese, Danish and Czech. A Facebook post carries a video from November in which Yeadon claimed that the pandemic ''fundamentally'... is over.'' The post has been viewed more than a million times.
In October, Yeadon wrote a column for the United Kingdom's Daily Mail newspaper that also appeared on MailOnline, one of the world's most-visited news websites. It declared that deaths caused by COVID-19, which then totaled about 45,000 in Britain, will soon ''fizzle out'' and Britons ''should immediately be allowed to resume normal life.'' Since then, the disease has killed about another 80,000 people in the UK.
Yeadon isn't the only respected scientist to have challenged the scientific consensus on COVID-19 and expressed controversial views.
Michael Levitt, a winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, told the Stanford Daily last summer that he expected the pandemic would end in the United States in 2020 and kill no more than 175,000 Americans '' a third of the current total '' and ''when we come to look back, we're going to say that wasn't such a terrible disease.'' And Luc Montagnier, another Nobel Prize winner, said last year that he believed the coronavirus was created in a Chinese lab. Many experts doubt that, but so far there is no way to prove or disprove it.
Levitt told Reuters that his projections about the pandemic in the United States were wrong, but he still believes COVID-19 eventually won't be seen as ''a terrible disease'' and that lockdowns ''caused a great deal of collateral damage and may not have been needed.'' Montagnier didn't respond to a request for comment.
What gives Yeadon particular credibility is the fact that he worked at Pfizer, says Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an organization that combats online misinformation. ''Yeadon's background gives his dangerous and harmful messages false credibility.''
In a debate last fall in Britain's House of Commons about the government's response to the pandemic, parliamentarian Richard Drax called Yeadon an ''eminent'' scientist, and cited his view ''that the virus is both manageable and nearing its end.'' Drax didn't respond to a request for comment.
More recently, David Kurten, a member of the London Assembly '' an elected body '' tweeted there is a ''real danger'' that COVID-19 vaccines could leave women infertile. ''The 'cure' must not be worse than the 'disease','' Kurten wrote. He, too, didn't respond to a request for comment.
Why Yeadon transformed from mainstream scientist to COVID-19 vaccine skeptic remains a mystery. Thousands of his tweets stretching back to the start of the pandemic document a dramatic shift in his views '' early on, he supported a vaccine strategy. But they offer few clues to explain his radical turnabout.
Some former colleagues at Pfizer say they no longer recognize the Mike Yeadon they once knew. They described him as a knowledgeable and intelligent man who always insisted on seeing evidence and generally avoided publicity.
One of those ex-colleagues is Sterghios A. Moschos, who holds degrees in molecular biology and pharmaceutics. In December, Yeadon posted on Twitter a spoof sign that said, ''DITCH THE MASK.'' Moschos tweeted back: ''Mike what hell ?! Are you out to actively kill people? You do realize that if you are wrong, your suggestions will result in deaths ??''
''It'll all fade away''
Yeadon joined Twitter in October 2018 and soon became a prolific user of the platform. The thousands of his tweets reviewed by Reuters were provided by archive.org, which stores web pages, and FollowersAnalysis, a social media analytics company.
When the coronavirus pandemic reached the UK in March 2020, Yeadon initially expressed support for developing a vaccine. He tweeted: ''Covid 19 is not going away. Until we have a vaccine or herd immunity'' '' natural resistance resulting from prior exposure to the virus '' ''all that can be done is to slow its spread.'' A week later he tweeted: ''A vaccine might be along towards the end of 2021, if we're really lucky.''
When a fellow Twitter user said vaccines ''harm many, many people,'' Yeadon replied: ''Ok, please refuse it, but do not impede its flow to neutrals or those keen to get it, thanks.''
After Mathai Mammen, the global head of research & development for Janssen, the pharmaceutical division of Johnson & Johnson, posted on LinkedIn last summer that his company had started clinical trials of a vaccine, Yeadon responded: ''Lovely to see this milestone, Mathai!'' Mammen didn't respond to a request for comment.
But as early as April, Yeadon had begun voicing unorthodox views.
While Britain was still in its first lockdown last spring, he declared: ''there is nothing especially virulent or frightening about covid 19 '... it'll all fade away '... Just a common & garden virus, to which the world overreacted.'' And he predicted in a subsequent tweet that it was ''unlikely'' the death toll in the UK would reach 40,000.
By September 2020, Yeadon's statements were attracting attention beyond Twitter. At the time, a movement had emerged in Britain against lockdowns and other restrictions meant to curb the disease. He co-authored a lengthy article on a website called Lockdown Sceptics. It declared that the ''pandemic as an event in the UK is essentially complete.'' And, ''There is no biological principle that leads us to expect a second wave.'' Britain soon entered a much more deadly second wave.
On Oct. 16, he wrote another lengthy article for the same website: ''There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. I've never heard such nonsense talked about vaccines. You do not vaccinate people who aren't at risk from a disease.''
In November, Yeadon appeared in a 32-minute video for the anti-lockdown group, Unlocked, sitting in a shed with a motorbike behind him. A shorter version appeared on Facebook titled, ''The pandemic is over.''
Yeadon called for an end to mass testing and claimed that 30% of the population was already immune to COVID-19 even before the pandemic started. By the time of the recording, he said, there was little scope for the virus to spread further in the UK because most people had already been infected or were immune.
Those views ran counter to the findings of the World Health Organization. In December '' nine months after declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic '' the agency said testing suggested that less than 10% of the world's population had shown evidence of infection.
Yeadon's petition to the European Medicines Agency to halt vaccine trials followed on Dec. 1. The agency didn't respond to requests for comment for this article.
''This does not sound like the guy I knew 20 years ago.''
It's impossible to measure the impact of Yeadon's claim that COVID-19 vaccines could cause female infertility. Anecdotally, though, many women have bought into it.
Bonnie Jacobson, a waitress in Brooklyn, New York, can't recall where she first heard about the fertility issue. But she told Reuters that it has made her hesitant to take a vaccine, as she'd like to have children ''sooner than later.''
''That's my main concern,'' she said. ''Let more research come out.'' After recently declining to get vaccinated, she said, the tavern where she worked fired her. Jacobson's employer didn't respond to a request for comment.
A good scientist
According to Yeadon's LinkedIn profile, he joined Pfizer in 1995; the company had a large operation then in Sandwich in southern England. He rose to become a vice president and head of allergy and respiratory research.
Many former colleagues say they are baffled by his transformation.
Mark Treherne, chairman of Talisman Therapeutics in Cambridge, England, said he overlapped with Yeadon at Pfizer for about two years and sometimes had coffee with him. ''He always seemed knowledgeable, intelligible, a good scientist. We were both trained as pharmacologists '... so we had something in common.''
''I obviously disagree with Mike and his recent views,'' he said. Treherne's company is researching brain inflammation, which he said could be triggered by coronaviruses. ''This does not sound like the guy I knew 20 years ago.''
Moschos, the ex-colleague who took issue with one of Yeadon's tweets, said he considered him a mentor when they worked together at the drugmaker from 2008 to 2011. More recently, Moschos has been researching whether it's possible to test for COVID-19 with breath samples. He said Yeadon's views are ''a huge disappointment.'' He recounted hearing Yeadon in a radio interview last year.
''There was a tone in his voice that was nothing like I ever remembered of Mike,'' Moschos said. ''It was very angry, very bitter.''
John LaMattina, a former president of Pfizer Global Research and Development, also knew Yeadon. ''His group was very successful and discovered a number of compounds that entered early clinical development,'' LaMattina told Reuters in an email. He said Yeadon and his team were let go by Pfizer, however, when the company made the strategic decision to exit the therapeutic area they were researching.
LaMattina said he had lost touch with Yeadon in recent years. Shown links to Yeadon's video declaring the pandemic over and a copy of his petition to halt COVID-19 clinical trials, LaMattina replied: ''This is all news to me and a bit of a shock. This seems out of character for the person I knew.''
''Chutzpah''
After losing his job at Pfizer in 2011, Yeadon set up a biotech company called Ziarco with three Pfizer colleagues. They wanted to continue researching promising therapies that targeted allergies and inflammatory diseases, ideas Pfizer had been developing but were at risk of being abandoned. Yeadon served as Ziarco's chief executive.
''I simply showed chutzpah and asked the senior-most people up the research line'' at Pfizer to support the venture, Yeadon later recalled in an interview with Forbes. ''And they said, 'OK, assuming you raise private capital.'''
In 2012, Ziarco announced it had initially secured funding from several investors, including Pfizer's venture capital arm. Other investors later joined, including an Amgen Inc corporate venture capital fund. Amgen didn't respond to a request for comment.
''The intensity of effort took me away almost completely from my family and other interests for almost five years and you get only one life,'' Yeadon told Forbes.
On Twitter, Yeadon said he is married and has two adult daughters, and described a tough childhood '' he said his mother committed suicide when he was 18 months old and his father, a doctor, abandoned him when he was 16. He said he was saved by a local social worker and adopted by a Jewish family whose ''open handed love turned my life around.''
While at Ziarco, Yeadon also worked as a consultant for several years at two Boston-area biotech companies, Apellis Pharmaceuticals and Pulmatrix Inc. Both firms said he no longer advises them. A spokeswoman for Apellis said, ''His views do not reflect those of Apellis.'' She didn't elaborate.
The hard work at Ziarco paid off. In January 2017, Novartis acquired the company for an upfront payment of $325 million, with the promise of $95 million more if certain milestones were met, according to Novartis' 2017 annual report. Novartis was betting on the promise of a Ziarco drug, known as ZPL389, that had the potential to be a ''first-in-class oral treatment for moderate-to-severe eczema,'' a common and sometimes debilitating rash.
Reuters wasn't able to determine how much money Yeadon made from Novartis' purchase of Ziarco. But in January 2020 he tweeted: ''Oddly enough, I made millions from founding & growing a biotech company, creating many highly paid jobs, using my PhD & persuasion around the world.''
Last July, Novartis disclosed it had discontinued the ZPL389 clinical development program and had taken a $485 million write down. A Novartis spokesman said the company decided to terminate the program after disappointing efficacy data in an early-stage clinical trial.
''I'll soon be gone''
Earlier this year, a group of Yeadon's former Pfizer colleagues expressed their concern in a private letter, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters.
''We have become acutely aware of your views on COVID-19 over the last few months '... the single mindedness, lack of scientific rigour and one sided interpretation of often poor quality data is far removed from the Mike Yeadon we so respected and enjoyed working with.''
Noting his ''vast following on social media'' and that his claim about infertility ''has spread globally,'' the group wrote, ''We are very worried that you are putting people's health at risk.''
Reuters couldn't determine whether Yeadon received the letter.
On Feb. 3, Yeadon's Twitter account had a message for his 91,000 followers: ''A tweet recently appeared under my ID, which was horribly offensive. As a result my account was locked. I of course deleted it. I want you to know of course that I didn't write it.'' A Twitter spokesman declined to comment.
Yeadon didn't make clear what tweet he was referring to. But shortly after, several Twitter users and a blog called Zelo Street posted screenshots of numerous offensive anti-Muslim tweets from Yeadon's account from about a year ago. Many were captured at the time by archive.org.
The next day, on Feb. 4, Yeadon cryptically mentioned in a tweet, ''I'll soon be gone.''
Two days later, he was off Twitter. His followers were greeted with this message: ''This account doesn't exist.'' His LinkedIn profile also soon changed, now stating that he is ''Fully retired.''
Clare Craig, a British pathologist, compared Yeadon's treatment on Twitter '' where some users derided his views as nonsense and dangerous '' to medieval societies burning heretics at the stake.
''There is no other way to see it than the burning of the witches,'' said Craig, who has criticized lockdowns and COVID-19 tests. ''Science is always a series of questions and the testing of those questions and when we are not allowed to ask those questions, then science is lost.''
She said she spoke to Yeadon after he closed his Twitter account. ''He will have a think about how he will contribute in the future,'' she said.
A Skeptic's Story
By Steve Stecklow and Andrew MacAskill
Photo editing: Simon Newman
Art direction: Troy Dunkley
Edited by Janet McBride
Inside the Fight for the Future of The Wall Street Journal - The New York Times
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 15:24
The Wall Street Journal is a rarity in 21st-century media: a newspaper that makes money. A lot of money. But at a time when the U.S. population is growing more racially diverse, older white men still make up the largest chunk of its readership, with retirees a close second.
''The No. 1 reason we lose subscribers is they die,'' goes a joke shared by some Journal editors.
Now a special innovation team and a group of nearly 300 newsroom employees are pushing for drastic changes at the paper, which has been part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire since 2007. They say The Journal, often Mr. Murdoch's first read of the day, must move away from subjects of interest to established business leaders and widen its scope if it wants to succeed in the years to come. The Journal of the future, they say, must pay more attention to social media trends and cover racial disparities in health care, for example, as aggressively as it pursues corporate mergers.
That argument has yet to convince executives in the top ranks of the company.
The Journal got digital publishing right before anyone else. It was one of the few news organizations to charge readers for online access starting in 1996, during the days of dial-up internet. At the time, most other publications, including The New York Times, bought into the mantra that ''information wants to be free'' and ended up paying dearly for what turned out to be a misguided business strategy.
As thousands of papers across the country folded, The Journal, with its nearly 1,300-person news staff, made money, thanks to its prescient digital strategy. While that inoculated The Journal against the ravages wrought by an array of unlikely newcomers, from Craigslist to Facebook, it also kept the paper from innovating further.
The editor leading the news organization as it figures out how to attract new readers without alienating loyal subscribers is Matt Murray, 54, who got the top job in 2018. He has worked at The Journal for two decades, and his promotion was welcomed by many in the newsroom. Soon after, he assembled a strategy team focused on bringing in new digital subscribers. To oversee the group, Mr. Murray hired Louise Story, a journalist whose career included a decade at The New York Times.
She was given a sweeping mandate, marking her as a potential future leader of the paper. She commands a staff of 150 as chief news strategist and chief product and technology officer. Her team helped compile a significant audit of the newsroom's practices in an effort to boost subscribers and now plays a key role in the newsroom as audience experts, advising other editors on internet-search tactics (getting noticed by Google) and social media to help increase readership.
As the team was completing a report on its findings last summer, Mr. Murray found himself staring down a newsroom revolt. Soon after the killing of George Floyd, staff members created a private Slack channel called ''Newsroomies,'' where they discussed how The Journal, in their view, was behind on major stories of the day, including the social justice movement growing in the aftermath of Mr. Floyd's death. Participants also complained that The Journal's digital presence was not robust enough, and that its conservative opinion department had published essays that did not meet standards applied to the reporting staff. The tensions and challenges are similar to what leaders of other news organizations, including The Times, have heard from their staffs.
In July, Mr. Murray received a draft from Ms. Story's team, a 209-page blueprint on how The Journal should remake itself called The Content Review. It noted that ''in the past five years, we have had six quarters where we lost more subscribers than we gained,'' and said addressing its slow-growing audience called for significant changes in everything from the paper's social media strategy to the subjects it deemed newsworthy.
The report argued that the paper should attract new readers '-- specifically, women, people of color and younger professionals '-- by focusing more on topics such as climate change and income inequality. Among its suggestions: ''We also strongly recommend putting muscle behind efforts to feature more women and people of color in all of our stories.''
The Content Review has not been formally shared with the newsroom and its recommendations have not been put into effect, but it is influencing how people work: An impasse over the report has led to a divided newsroom, according to interviews with 25 current and former staff members. The company, they say, has avoided making the proposed changes because a brewing power struggle between Mr. Murray and the new publisher, Almar Latour, has contributed to a stalemate that threatens the future of The Journal.
Mr. Murray and Mr. Latour, 50, represent two extremes of the model Murdoch employee. Mr. Murray is the tactful editor; Mr. Latour is the brash entrepreneur. The two rose within the organization at roughly the same time. When the moment came to replace Gerry Baker as the top editor in 2018, both were seen as contenders.
The two men have never gotten along, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Or as an executive who knows both well put it, ''They hate each other.'' The digital strategy report has only heightened the strain in their relationship '-- and, with it, the direction of the crown jewel in the Murdoch news empire.
Their longstanding professional rivalry comes down to both personality and approach. Mr. Murray is more deliberative, while Mr. Latour is quick to act. But the core of their friction is still a mystery, according to people familiar with them.
Dow Jones, in a statement, disputed that characterization, saying there was no friction between the editor and publisher. It also cited ''record profits and record subscriptions,'' which it attributed to ''the wisdom of its current strategy.'' Both Mr. Murray and Mr. Latour declined to be interviewed for this article.
About a month after the report was submitted, Ms. Story's strategy team was concerned that its work might never see the light of day, three people with knowledge of the matter said, and a draft was leaked to one of The Journal's own media reporters, Jeffrey Trachtenberg. He filed a detailed article on it late last summer.
But the first glimpse that outside readers, and most of the staff, got of the document wasn't in The Journal. In October, a pared-down version of The Content Review was leaked to BuzzFeed News, which included a link to the document as a sideways scan. (Staffers, eager to read the report, had to turn their heads 90 degrees.)
The leak angered Mr. Murray, people with knowledge of the matter said. But he offered an olive branch at the same time. ''I'm very proud of the work being done by the strategy team across the newsroom,'' he said, according to a recording of a meeting obtained by The Times. He added that the report's recommendations '-- ''some of which I disagree with'' '-- required debate.
If subsequent debate has led to revisions or an updated strategy, the staff hasn't been told. The Journal's own story by Mr. Trachtenberg on The Content Review still has not run.
'A broad cultural fear of change' Image News Corp recorded a $1.1 billion loss last year. Credit... Sasha Maslov for The New York Times The Journal isn't the only media organization whose leaders have been challenged by its employees. Editors at The Times, The Los Angeles Times and Cond(C) Nast have faced tough questions from staffers on how they have handled race coverage or issues of bias or problematic editorials.
What's unusual about the recent events at The Journal is the public nature of the grievances. The Times, by contrast, is known for how its internal spats become public. At The Journal, workplace gripes tend to stay within the family. Mostly. (None of the people interviewed for this article work at The Times, which has recruited a sizable number of Journal employees.)
The Content Review didn't pull any punches. ''We have a broad cultural fear of change and we overweight the possibility of alienating some readers, compared to our opportunity cost of not changing and growing,'' it read.
Change in any news organization is hard. When Mr. Murdoch bought the paper in 2007, the newsroom was on tenterhooks, worried he would destroy its culture. That didn't happen. Instead, he expanded its coverage to compete more directly with The Times. But over time, the paper has retrenched. Now it's more of a chimera; part punchy Murdoch, part old-school Journal.
News Corp, the parent company of Dow Jones, the publisher of The Journal, has put pressure on the paper to double the number of subscribers. But to meet that goal, it must ''reach a sustained 100 million monthly unique visitors'' by June 2024, according to the report, noting that its site has never attracted more than 50 million readers in a given month.
Dow Jones disputed that figure, saying that the site averaged about 55 million, with a peak of 79 million last March. (The Journal temporarily gave readers free access to its coverage of the coronavirus pandemic when it hit the United States more than a year ago.)
Earnings filings show The Journal had 2.46 million digital-only subscribers at the end of 2020, including 106,000 who came aboard in the year's final quarter.
Early last year, as Ms. Story's team was months away from making its recommendations, Mr. Murray was sanguine that its eventual report would be well received by Will Lewis, who was then the Dow Jones chief executive and The Journal's publisher, according to several people who worked in the newsroom. But last spring Mr. Lewis suddenly stepped down. He was replaced in both jobs by Mr. Latour, who had won praise within the company for his digital know-how as the publisher of Dow Jones's Barron's Group.
Mr. Murray was not happy to learn of Mr. Latour's appointment, according to five people with knowledge of the matter. That's when his attitude toward the strategy team's efforts changed, the people said.
They added that Mr. Murray was concerned that the group's report, coupled with the staff unrest, would be taken as an indictment of his leadership, and that Mr. Latour might use its findings against him. The document called out Mr. Murray in one instance in which it observed that the traffic goals have ''not been articulated well enough in the newsroom,'' and added, ''Unless Matt is abandoning that goal, it needs to be announced and explained robustly.''
Dow Jones disputed that characterization of Mr. Murray's concern and said that he and Mr. Latour had gotten along and discussed the team's work.
Mr. Latour had his own idea of how to goose The Journal's readership, one built on more common traffic tactics that he had employed at the sister titles Barron's and MarketWatch. A few people on the business side and some top editors who had seen the analysis by Ms. Story's team dismissed it as a ''woke'' strategy, given its emphasis on appealing to underrepresented readers, the people said.
In a statement, Ms. Story said she was proud of her team's work and their collaborative efforts across the newsroom, which ''has led to great results.''
Leadership tensions stymie progress Image Rupert Murdoch in 2019. Credit... Mary Altaffer/Associated Press News Corp looks like most aging media businesses: It's shrinking. It recorded a $1.1 billion loss last year, and news revenues, with the exception of Dow Jones, continue to fall. Dow Jones operates The Journal and several other titles such as Barron's and MarketWatch, but not News Corp's Australian and British newspapers, which haven't performed as well. (The company also owns a real estate listings business, TV stations in Australia and the book publisher HarperCollins.) News Corp recently hired the consulting firm Deloitte to work on a project to consolidate its many divisions, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter. That would mean cost cuts and could lead to the loss of a significant number of jobs, the people said.
The Journal's ambitious subscriber target is very much part of News Corp's mission to stem the bleeding and find new areas of growth. But its editor and publisher, opposite in many ways, appear to have arrived at nearly opposite conclusions about the best way forward.
Mr. Latour, who grew up in the small village of Welten, the Netherlands, was known to have clocked more Page 1 stories than almost anyone else at the paper when he covered the European telecommunications industry. A graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, he started his journalism career as an intern at The Washington Times, and exhibited the kind of scrappy drive prized by Mr. Murdoch.
Mr. Murray, who grew up in Bethesda, Md., is laid-back, amiable and sometimes awkward, colleagues said. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Northwestern, is fascinated by the entertainment industry and is a Talking Heads fan.
Their strained relationship has gotten in the way of progress, people familiar with the matter say. In a mid-November meeting, people saw that firsthand when a disagreement flared up between Mr. Murray and Mr. Latour and one of his lieutenants, Dan Shar, two people with knowledge of the meeting said.
Mr. Shar described his strategy for increasing the number of monthly readers, a plan that differed significantly from the one laid out by Ms. Story's team. At one point, the two people said, an exasperated Mr. Murray interjected: ''But I'm the editor.'' Mr. Shar laughed. Mr. Latour kept a straight face.
A spokesman for Dow Jones said in a statement that meeting participants did not recall that exchange.
The third character in the ongoing Journal drama is Ms. Story. She has tried to carefully nudge both Mr. Latour and Mr. Murray toward her vision, people around her say.
In her decade at The Times, Ms. Story covered the 2008 financial meltdown and was part of the 12-person group behind the Innovation Report, a 2014 manifesto that laid out the strategy that has helped The Times to thrive and the principal reason Mr. Murray hired her to run The Journal's audit.
Ms. Story has recently been in discussions about an editor in chief role at both Reuters and The Washington Post, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Ms. Story declined to comment.
What is The Wall Street Journal?
Image A copy of The Wall Street Journal on a newsstand in New York. Credit... Sasha Maslov for The New York Times One of the key issues outlined in The Content Review was the need to retain younger readers. For years, The Journal attracted college students by offering them a reduced price; but once those offers expired, they quit the publication at a higher rate '-- over 70 percent '-- than any other group, the report said.
To help solve that issue, Ms. Story's team launched Noted, a monthly digital magazine designed to appeal to readers under 35.
Noted was also partly the brainchild of Grace Murdoch, one of Rupert Murdoch's daughters, who had interned with Ms. Story's team in summer 2019 while in high school, according to two people familiar with the matter.
''We need to move beyond perceptions and embrace actual data about younger audiences, and that is what WSJ Noted will be providing,'' the report read. This included ''tailoring content'' for younger readers; last year, a staff of 10 reporters, editors and designers were hired to start working on features about inequality in education, student debt and related topics.
The project ran into trouble once Mr. Murray saw the copy, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. He line-edited stories himself, rare for a top Journal editor. An article about a college campus movement to abolish sororities and fraternities in an effort to combat racism and homophobia was spiked, according to the people. Mr. Murray objected to terms such as ''trans-phobia,'' which was not in the paper's style guide, referring to them as ''jargon-y woke-isms,'' they said. Dow Jones said that Mr. Murray and Ms. Story decided not to publish that article because other outlets had covered the topic.
Noted switched gears. Based partly on a suggestion from Mr. Latour, it focused entirely on practical pieces, such as ''how to update your r(C)sum(C)'' or ''how to approach a job interview.'' Two Noted editors left in the last week of March, and now there are only four people on its staff.
One goal put forth by The Content Review seemed more attainable to many inside the paper than conjuring millions of new subscribers overnight: a greater effort to appeal to readers of color. In a meeting between the strategy team and high-level editors, Ms. Story spoke about trying to track the racial diversity of people quoted in Journal coverage. Most of those gathered for the discussion were white.
Everyone at the meeting said they agreed that The Journal should include more diverse voices. But how? Should they survey subjects about their background? A senior editor expressed concern about such a tack, according to two people who were briefed on the event, saying he was worried the paper might be sued if it came out that its reporters were passing over white people to quote Black people. (The company disputes the characterization of the meeting.)
Such comments illustrate how difficult it will be rewiring the staff to more modern methods of news gathering.
In a Feb. 22 memo to the staff, Mr. Murray endorsed including a wider variety of people in The Journal's coverage, pledging to ''properly capture the diversity of our society and speak to as wide an audience as possible.''
Mr. Latour has also been talking about the need for change. In a series of companywide meetings that started last summer, he emphasized the importance of The Journal's digital transformation, but repeated a phrase that many took to mean he wanted a continued focus on business leaders and Wall Street elites. ''We need to be digging into the brand,'' he said, according to several staff members.
Mr. Latour never asked for a copy of The Content Review, according to two people familiar with the matter. It's still unclear if he's read it.
If he has, he would know that one key message contradicts the very approach he's favoring: ''We can't think we've got a comfy base of digital subscribers who will be satisfied if we just keep doing what we're doing.''
Could Yang Really Be New York's Next Mayor?
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 15:17
Andrew Yang rolled up for opening day at Yankee Stadium on April 1 with the crackling force field of celebrity surrounding him. A bank of photographers and videographers walked backward before him. A small entourage of aides trailed behind. Fans, lined up for New York's first professional baseball game with live spectators since Covid shut down the city, called out, ''There's the next mayor of New York!'' and ''Good luck!'' People milled around to have their photos taken with him. Yang bumped elbows and gave high fives; it was the most casual human contact I'd seen in a year.
When I asked Yang supporters why they want him to be mayor, I heard, over and over, variations on the words ''change'' and ''energy.'' ''He's young, he's energetic, he's a new face,'' said Laivi Freundlich, a businessman and synagogue cantor from Brooklyn. ''I'm tired of the old guard.'' Some associated Yang, in an undefined way, with technological dynamism. ''It's a feeling,'' said Thomas Dixon, a 61-year-old from the Bronx, about how Yang would ''bring about necessary changes. Because like the country, New York City needs to move into the 21st century.''
With about 10 weeks until New York's mayoral primaries, both public and private polling show Yang ahead in a crowded field, though up to half of voters remain undecided. In a survey released by Fontas Advisors and Core Decision Analytics in March, Yang was the top choice of 16 percent of respondents, followed by 10 percent for Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. (Everyone else was in the single digits.) The Yang campaign's private polling shows him with 25 percent of the vote and Adams with 15 percent.
The essence of Yang's campaign is this: He wants to make New York fun again. He has a hip-hop theme track by MC Jin and a platform plank calling for to-go cocktails '-- a pandemic accommodation for struggling bars and restaurants '-- to become a regular fixture of city life. He's constantly out and about, cheerleading each facet of New York's post-Covid rebirth. He was there the first day movie theaters reopened, taking his wife, Evelyn, to see Eddie Huang's coming-of-age basketball drama, ''Boogie.'' But for a kidney stone that landed him in the hospital, he and Evelyn would have gone to an off-Broadway concert on April 2, the day indoor shows restarted.
The day after that hospitalization, Yang was doing the finger-snapping dance from ''West Side Story'' down Brooklyn's Vanderbilt Avenue. Several blocks were closed to traffic to make room for open-air bars and cafes, another pandemic-era policy that Yang wants to make permanent. The gentrified brunch crowd responded to the candidate much like the baseball fans at Yankee Stadium: People shouted, ''There's Andrew Yang!'' and ''Yang Gang!'' and posed for grinning photos.
His campaign will soon unveil a new slogan, ''Hope Is on the Way.'' It is planning a series of events to make up for milestones people lost during Covid, like a prom for high school graduates and maybe even a group wedding at city hall, where Andrew and Evelyn got married, for those who had to postpone their nuptials.
On Thursday, I had an al fresco dinner with Andrew and Evelyn Yang at a Mediterranean restaurant near their Hell's Kitchen apartment. He argued that there's a serious purpose behind his campaign's celebratory vibe. ''We need to get tourists back, we need to get commuters back, we need to get the jobs back online in order for the economy to come back,'' he said, adding, ''I just want New York City to work again. And in order for New York City to work, people need to feel safe having fun.''
On one level, the idea of Yang as the mayor of New York City '-- surely one of the most complicated administrative jobs in the country '-- seems absurd. He has no government experience and has been so detached from city politics that he never before voted in a New York mayoral election. Before he ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, he founded a midsize nonprofit, Venture for America, that set out to create 100,000 jobs. Vox reported that as of 2019, it had created fewer than 4,000. Nothing in his background indicates a special aptitude for running a gargantuan urban bureaucracy at a moment of harrowing crisis.
Yet in a traumatized city, people are responding to his ebullience. Yang, said Chris Coffey, his campaign's co-manager, is ''giving people hope after a year of death and sadness and Zooms and unhappiness.'' You don't have to agree with Yang's politics to see how powerful this is.
About those politics: They're pretty conservative, at least by the standard of a New York Democratic primary. Yang is pro-charter schools and has criticized the 190,000-member United Federation of Teachers for the slow pace of school reopenings. He's slammed Mayor Bill de Blasio for not instituting a hiring freeze and is hesitant to raise taxes on the rich. Yang wants to offer tax breaks to companies that bring their employees back to the office, which those who like the flexibility of remote work might resent.
A number of his plans depend on corporate partnerships. ''There's a lot of potential and pent-up energy among companies and leaders in New York who want a mayor they can work with, who want a mayor who's not going to beat up businesses big and small because they're businesses,'' he told me.
It's hard to tell whether Yang is leading because of his pro-business centrism, or in spite of it. Many backers I spoke to view him as progressive, particularly those who associate him with the call for a universal basic income, which animated his presidential campaign. Some supporters don't think of him in ideological terms at all. Others expressed not so much a desire for a right turn in citywide politics as doubt that the left has all the answers.
''I think he's progressive, but I also think he's kind of pragmatic, so I think that's probably what draws me to him,'' said Maya Deshmukh, a dentist who's also an actress and a comedian, after she posed for a photo with Yang outside an upscale Vanderbilt Avenue ice cream shop. ''He's Asian-American; I'm Indian, so I like someone who's going to be in our corner.''
I asked Deshmukh what she wanted from post-pandemic New York, and she said she wanted it to be more small-business-friendly, and safer. ''Manhattan, there is some level of unsafeness that I feel, and I hope that that can change in a way that's not going to continue to put Black and brown people in jail.''
Some left-wing Asian activists hate Yang's plan to combat a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes by increasing funding for the New York Police Department's Asian Hate Crime Task Force, but there's no sign that most ordinary Asian-Americans voters do. His campaign's polling shows him winning 49 percent of the Asian vote, with the other candidates in the single digits.
It's not just Asian-American voters who seem excited about the idea of an Asian-American mayor. Cynthia Cotto, a 58-year-old Black woman who works at Catholic Charities, told me she decided to back Yang after video emerged in late March of an Asian man being beaten unconscious on a subway. Supporting Yang ''says that we've got faith'' that not everyone is racist, she said. ''That's why I want him to win.'' But that wasn't the only reason. ''He needs a chance,'' she said. ''He's young. We need young blood.''
Yang makes a point of ignoring progressive social media, where he's frequently derided as either a neoliberal menace or a clueless tourist. ''One of the big numbers that informs me is that approximately 11 percent of New York City Democratic voters get their news from Twitter,'' he said, referring to a figure from his campaign's internal polling. ''If you pay attention to social media you're going to get a particular look at New Yorkers that is going to be representative of frankly a relatively small percentage of New York voters.''
Still, other candidates hope that once they're able to contrast Yang's positions and experience to their own, his support will erode. ''What we're seeing is more about what names are recognizable, but the vast majority of folks are still saying, 'I'm trying to make up my mind, I'm trying to get on top of this,''' said the mayoral candidate Maya Wiley, a former counsel to de Blasio. ''What folks are looking for is not someone who shoots from the hip, but someone who actually has deep plans and policies.''
Wiley's spokeswoman, Julia Savel, has been harsher. ''Our city deserves a serious leader, not a mini-Trump who thinks our city is a fun plaything in between podcasts,'' she said recently.
There's much that's unfair about the Trump analogy '-- Yang is no buffoonish demagogue '-- but there are also real parallels. He's a charismatic novice with good branding dominating in a fragmented field of experienced political figures. Yang throws out screwball ideas '-- like putting a casino on park-filled Governors Island, which would be illegal '-- to see what sticks. He makes gaffes, but they haven't dragged him down. He has a self-perpetuating way of sucking up all the media oxygen: to write about the Yang phenomenon, as I am here, is to contribute to it.
Those opposed to Yang are waiting for something or someone to stop him, though it's not clear who or what that will be. The political consultant Jerry Skurnik said of Yang's lead, ''It's lasted longer than I thought it would, so it might be real.''
The operative word is might. It's still very early in the race. Ten weeks before the 2013 mayoral primary, it looked like the top candidates were Anthony Weiner and Christine Quinn, then the City Council speaker. This year will be New York City's first time using ranked choice voting in such a primary, and no one knows quite what that's going to mean. It could help Yang because he's so well known, leading supporters of other candidates to pick him as their second or third choice. Or it could hurt him by consolidating the votes of constituencies Yang has alienated.
John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is skeptical that the Yang boom will last. His ''gut feeling,'' he said, is that the energy around Yang is mostly based on the press appreciating ''how he's interacting with people when they see him, and not much beyond that.'' Mollenkopf argues that mayoral primaries are hard to poll, since only a fraction of Democrats '-- around 20 percent in 2013 '-- vote in them.
And he believes that celebrity and excitement don't win Democratic primary elections in New York City. What does? ''Having an organic relationship to the constituencies that follow city politics and depend on city politics,'' he said, particularly ''the various unions that represent people who are directly or indirectly dependent on government money, contracts, support for nonprofit organizations and so on.''
In Mollenkopf's analysis, the city's politics, unlike the country's, are still mediated by a thick web of institutional relationships. Yang agrees that this has been true in the past. He just thinks that this time will be different.
''The more the electorate expands, the better it is for someone like me,'' he said. ''And I think the electorate will expand this time. And this is knowing full well that just about any time a candidate makes the case that the electorate will expand and that's how they're going to win, they lose.'' He's convinced that ''there are a lot of folks who have not been plugged into New York City politics who are actually going to vote this time.''
Not long after Yang said this, a young man walking by the restaurant did a double take, eyes widening. He pointed at Yang: ''I am so excited for you to be the mayor, man!''
Luke Hawkins, a 36-year-old actor and dancer, described discovering Yang on the Joe Rogan podcast. ''I wish he were the president,'' he said. ''I can't stand pandering politicians. Just the fact that there's no BS, he's just completely genuine.'' Hawkins said he leans left but doesn't like what he calls the ''woke stuff'' and viewed Yang as a ''problem-solver.''
So, I asked, would he definitely vote in the primary? ''I frickin' hate politics,'' he said. ''But I will vote for him.'' Then he asked, ''When is the primary?'' It's June 22. The future of New York City may hinge on how many voters like him remember.
The post Wait, Could Andrew Yang Really Be New York's Next Mayor? appeared first on New York Times.
Why I Won't Review or Write for Elsevier and Other Commercial Scientific Journals - The Wire Science
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 15:14
A few weeks ago, a message pinged into my inbox asking if I would peer-review a manuscript submitted to a reputed scientific journal published by Elsevier. I was tempted. The topic of the manuscript was related to my own research on what happens to wild plants and animals when previously forested landscapes are transformed into large plantations of a single crop species. A quick look at the journal website showed that the journal published quality research and a bunch of academic grandees sat on the editorial board. Their request to me indicated a recognition of my expertise in the field. By accepting to review the paper, I could learn something new, share my expertise and comments with the authors and editors, and add a notch on my academic belt, so to speak.
And yet, I refused.
Scientists track their credentials and calibre by how many papers they manage to publish in such peer-reviewed journals and how often they are called upon to review manuscripts for them. In brief, here's the good, the bad, the ugly of it. The good: the process of independent and anonymous peer review serves as a crucial quality-check and enables authors to hone and rectify their work before it is published. The bad: peer review can be a flaming hoop you are forced to jump through, more difficult if you are not a native English speaker, if you are from a less-privileged background, if you are from a relatively unknown institution in the Third World. The ugly: the process can degenerate into a situation where jealous peers and conniving editors disparage your work and obstruct publication, or simply display how racist, sexist and patronising they can be from their positions of power or anonymity. If I did the review, I would not be paid for it'--that's how scientific peer review works'--but I could include the journal in a section in my CV listing all the national and international scientific journals that I had reviewed for. I could even register on a commercial website where academics track and showcase their journal peer review and editorial contributions. Still, it was not my skepticism over the peer review process, nor my lack of interest in counting review-coup that brought me to refuse.
Instead, here's what I wrote to the Editor-in-Chief, copied to all members of the editorial board:
Dear Dr _____ and other members of the _____ editorial board,
Greetings for 2021 from India! I trust the year has begun well and you will all have a productive, healthy, and peaceful year ahead. I recently received an invitation'... to review a paper for [_____ journal]'... I am writing to you to explain why I am declining to review (or submit for consideration) any paper to [_____ journal]. At the outset, I would like to state that I have great respect for the work that the journal publishes and for all of you on the Editorial Board. My decision is based on the fact that the journal is published by Elsevier.
You are doubtless aware of the concerns already raised by many in the academic community and the media on the business of scientific publishing, particularly the role of companies like Elsevier, Wiley, and Springer Nature. You may recall that many editors have resigned en masse from these journals as well in the past to protest against their practices.
Recently, Elsevier along with others (including Wiley) filed a lawsuit in an Indian court against Sci-Hub and Libgen. Leading Indian scientists and researchers (and a group of over 2000 signatories) have protested this highlighting how Sci-Hub has greatly enabled access to scientific research in India and other countries. Sci-hub struck at the heart of the oligopoly of purely commercial publishers, which includes Elsevier and Wiley, who run scientific publishing like a fiefdom, charging exorbitant subscriptions or publishing fees, making exponential profits, and treating the intellectual output of scientists and institutions as if it was all their personal property. This is the case although the research published in these journals is funded by public agencies or other funders, and the papers are written, reviewed, and edited by scientists who seek no compensation for their intellectual inputs and time. With exorbitant subscriptions, steep open access publication fees or paywalls for each article, companies such as Elsevier, Wiley, and Springer Nature are profiteering from an enterprise that generates knowledge which really belongs to all and which should be truly open and free for anyone in the world to access. To me, this is also a form of predatory publishing: unbridled corporate predation on captive academic prey.
To the argument that shunning such journals will compromise science, I can only point out to many journals of repute published by scientific societies and academies worldwide (such as the Indian Academy of Sciences) that make all their published papers free (diamond/platinum open access) and are able to run their journals with modest subscriptions and advertisements. There have also been initiatives like Amelica and Coalition-S. The alternatives are there for us to adopt as scientists and scholars if we wish.
I realise that, for early-career scientists, publishing in some of these journals is still important because of the undue importance still given to them by academic institutions in their scientific recruitment and recognition policies. I, too, have published in these journals and realise I am implicated in the perpetuation of this system. I will respect the views and needs of students and others I collaborate with on where they seek to publish in or review for. But as a token of protest, I declare that where it concerns my own work I will not submit a paper to these journals or review a paper for them, until such corporate predatory practices end. I do realise that my action is a mere token and not enough. There is more I myself need to do to make science universal, free, and accessible.
I hope you do not see this as an attack on your or the journal's credibility but consider it in a more progressive spirit. If you have read this far, I thank you for taking the time. Kindly accept my regrets once again.
Best regards,Shankar
It was a rant, a polite one, but a rant, nonetheless. As you can imagine, the Editor-in-Chief was not too happy about it.
§
Before the Editor-in-Chief wrote back, another member of the Editorial Board'--the person handling the manuscript'--wrote me appreciating my email and agreeing that scientific publishing had a lot of room to evolve, but personally preferred, as an editor, to engender small and positive changes from within. (Another member of the editorial board, a leading woman scientist from India, wrote saying she was not on the board as far as she knew. It turned out she had been invited a while back and had agreed to be on the board, but the journal had never involved her in its work, so she wrote again indicating that she would prefer her name to be removed. Why a woman scientist from India was on the editorial board but never involved in it is another story perhaps.)
With the Editor-in-Chief himself, a back-and-forth exchange of emails ensued, which I will paraphrase here. [I have tried my best not to misrepresent anything and have chosen to leave out names of the concerned people and journal as I have no issue with them individually and prefer to keep the focus on the issue of commercial scientific publishing rather than any individuals or particular journal. I have rearranged the discussion slightly for clarity and placed my interjections and asides, like this one, in square brackets.]
He started off by partly agreeing with me. He then said that Elsevier, Wiley, and Springer Nature are no more predatory than many other businesses that one has to deal with these days. He said that as academics we clearly have a duty to try to find alternative models, and emphasised that his journal was an open access journal, for which the authors had to pay $1650 to publish in, unless they were from a World Bank low-income country where they could ask for a waiver. [Actually, the current rate is $1820 for a paper of 12-15 published pages, which is about as much as a Masters student would need for a 5-6 month field research project in India.] He wrote about how they receive a large volume of papers and how many scientists they approach to provide their peer review. They needed over 1000 volunteer reviewers he said in one email, changing the figure in a later email to indicate they had more than 1000 authors and over 2500 reviewers each year.
Then he wrote that if every paper had to be reviewed by 2-3 scientists, every scientist who wants to publish in these commercial journals are also obliged to review 2-3 papers for every paper they intend to publish, otherwise the system would not work. He said that if I did not want to publish in such journals, I should then also not read these journals or allow my students to do so.
That last bit got my goat. I wrote back respectfully disagreeing with him. I said readers have a right to access the research (which is publicly funded or funded by other agencies) irrespective of whether they personally support commercial publishers. I did not need to stress the importance of enabling wide access in the case of socially relevant studies or conservation research as the editor himself was doubtless aware of it. It also struck me later that the published research itself would have referred to other earlier research in various journals. In papers related to my field of work that may have included my own work or those of colleagues. Saying I cannot read a paper in this journal was just as absurd as saying the authors have no right to refer to my work or any other research published in non-commercial journals. Science simply cannot work that way.
The Editor-in-Chief raised a number of other valid points. He said that there was a suite of publishing options available for authors these days and another member of the editorial board was planning to launch a new conservation journal that addressed some of these issues. He named one journal that offered a reader-pays alternative for authors who cannot pay the Article Processing Charge (APC), and another that was open access and ''provides competition'' to his journal. So if you don't like a journal for its policies you can find another one that better suits you. But, someone has to pay, he emphasised. Non-profit publishers don't have to take a large cut for shareholders but, according to him, they did not achieve the same efficiencies as the large commercial publishers. He noted how most society-owned journals, earlier published on a non-profit basis, have shifted to Wiley and other commercial publishers and been forced to charge huge fees because it costs too much to publish a journal. As far as the journal he edits was concerned, he pointed out that authors retain copyright alongside scholarly usage rights and Elsevier is granted publishing and distribution rights. Authors are paying Elsevier for publication and distribution only, which to him was reasonable. Furthermore, the articles were released under a Creative Commons license so people could use and re-use them in different ways (with attribution), so what was I complaining about? I should be reviewing for them since they are not doing any of the terrible things I was accusing them of.
There was stuff I agreed with and yet, much I still disagreed with. If someone has to pay and the authors are forced to pay to publish it is still an absurd payment in some ways, if you think of it, I wrote back. Companies like Elsevier rake in profits of 30-40% every year through a business model that appears unique to scientific publishing. Based on the figures the editor gave me, just this one journal he edited had more than 3000 highly-qualified scientists voluntarily contributing each year to Elsevier's extraordinary profits. Imagine that! As a 2017 article in The Guardian puts it:
Scientists create work under their own direction '' funded largely by governments '' and give it to publishers for free; the publisher pays scientific editors who judge whether the work is worth publishing and check its grammar, but the bulk of the editorial burden '' checking the scientific validity and evaluating the experiments, a process known as peer review '' is done by working scientists on a volunteer basis. The publishers then sell the product back to government-funded institutional and university libraries, to be read by scientists '' who, in a collective sense, created the product in the first place.
It is as if the New Yorker or the Economist demanded that journalists write and edit each other's work for free, and asked the government to foot the bill. Outside observers tend to fall into a sort of stunned disbelief when describing this setup.
Then there is the question of the APC that is levied by commercial journals that use an author-pays model (in journals that are not fully open access, an extra charge has to be paid to make it open access.) The APC is typically imposed without any transparency as to the real costs incurred by the publisher. Studies indicate that commercial publishers charge nearly 3 times more than similar non-profit publishers of reputed standalone journals. One can ask whether the huge profits made by the publishers under the guise of ''efficiency'' or ''scale'' are not better ploughed back into scientific societies (and nonprofits that support science) rather than to the pockets of wealthy companies and their shareholders. The commercial publishers appear to call all the shots. As Brian Nosek, a Professor at the University of Virginia and Director of the Centre for Open Science, said in an interview to Nasdaq, academic publishing is
the perfect business model to make a lot of money. You have the producer and consumer as the same person: the researcher. And the researcher has no idea how much anything costs.''
Even where learned societies had failed to run the journals on their own and had succumbed to handing it over to a commercial publisher to handle, as the editor pointed out was increasingly the case, most fail to disclose the terms of the arrangement with the scientific society. For instance, one of the leading societies in the field of nature conservation is the Society for Conservation Biology, whose flagship journal Conservation Biology is (unfortunately) published by Wiley, which levies a charge of $3000 for publication as open access. Fortunately, the society enables authors to publish their work at a reduced rate or ask for a waiver if they cannot afford the page charges: although such articles would be held by Wiley behind a paywall (about $42 per article, at present rates, for online access and PDF download). The journal website hosted by Wiley claims that ''payment of article publication costs furthers the work of the society and conservation worldwide'' but gives no indication as to what their deal is or what fraction of the profits are actually shared with the society.
For almost every commercial journal, I retorted in an email to the Editor-in-Chief, there is a non-profit equivalent that achieves the same quality at a significantly lower cost. They also make all papers available free for readers after a period of 6 months or a year (for instance, the journal Science published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science versus Nature produced by Springer; the Royal Society journals and PNAS, say, versus some sub-journals in the Nature crop). Further, any profits made from the academy or society journals contribute to a scientific rather than a business enterprise like Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature, or other big commercial publishers.
Take, for example, the journal Human Ecology, a Springer journal that paywalls its articles or publishes as open access after you cough up a cool $2780, every dollar of profit going to Springer's coffers. Contrast that with a superb journal in a similar field, published from the global South, like Conservation and Society published by the Indian non-profit and think-tank ATREE. This fully open-access journal, which recently was forced to go from diamond open-access to an author-pays model, has a transparent ownership and publication policy and levies an APC (only on authors from higher middle-income and high-income countries) of $600'--just one-fifth of Springer's rates. Another Indian journal, Ecology, Economy and Society-The INSEE Journal charges nothing to authors and readers for open access. For a comparable non-profit or society journal published from the West, the Resilience Alliance publishes a fully open access journal Ecology and Society levying an APC of $975, or just 35% of Springer rates.
In the Indian context, there is also this absurd situation where Springer republishes many diamond open access journals, such as through their republishing agreement for the journals of the Indian Academy of Sciences. The journals are entirely edited, printed, published, and distributed by the society or academy imposing no page charges on authors and making the publication freely available to readers on the academy's journal websites. Springer does zero editorial or publishing work but still charges the academy (for what? hosting on their online platform) and then paywalls the same papers at >$30 per paper. Just for parking it on their website! [Correction: Springer paywalls the papers, yes, but apparently does not charge the Academy.]
Another example is the journal Tropical Ecology published by the International Society for Tropical Ecology, which was diamond open access with no page charges until 2019, when they unfortunately succumbed to the 'efficiencies' and enticements of Springer. They now levy an APC of $2780 to authors who wish to make their paper open access, failing which they impose a paywall to each reader of ~$42 per paper.
Still, on the charges levied by commercial journals, the editor I was corresponding with had a different take. Like many things in life, you get [what] you pay for, he wrote. Journals like Nature have open access publishing charges that seem outrageous, but they were justified by the editing services of full-time professionals and unmatched quality they provided, and the citations the papers generated. If he had the money and his students produced something worthy of such attention, he would scrape it together to pay up.
This left me stupefied. If the publishing charges seem outrageous, it is perhaps because they are outrageous. Instead of figuring out a better way to make their work openly and freely accessible and appear on global databases and platforms, if leading scientists and academies worldwide subscribe to the costly vision of payment and efficiency and impact sold by commercial publishers, there is definitely something broken in the system. As a scientist from a non-profit organisation in a lower middle-income country like India I somehow could not countenance such sums of money being shelled out ostensibly to advance science. Have these journals come to command such power and clout that top scientists in the world will simply pay up unquestioningly? Do we still believe that counting citations is the way to build reputation in science? Can scientists who are so meticulous in preparing their papers and so generous with their time in reviewing them for free, in order to contribute to scientific growth and the growth of their community, not find better ways to advance science, academia, and community than relying on profiteering journals? Could we not invest more as a community in society-run, non-profit, open access journals and enhancing the list and quality of free journals, of which, as one can see from the Free Journals Network and the Directory of Open Access Journals, there are many?
According to a 2021 survey, at least 29,000 diamond open access journals are published around the world. While diamond open-access journals face many operational challenges, 70% of them manage to produce the journal at an annual operational cost of under $10,000. In other words, the amount of money a scientist pays as APC to Elsevier/Wiley/Springer or similar publishers for just three or four journal articles can be more than enough to support an entire journal for a year and produce science that is freely accessible worldwide. Even now, about 356,000 diamond open access papers are published per year compared to approximately 453,000 papers where the scientists have shelled out the APC (453,000 x average APC of $2000 implies ~$1 billion). Imagine if those funds can be routed to support scientific societies and their journals, produce free and better academic community resources and databases (rather than the tyranny of science citation indices and Clarivate Analytics, for instance). Imagine if that money could be used to provide free, open, and easy access to all scientific publications!
§
Free, open, and easy access to all scientific publications is what Sci-Hub provides. In our email back-and-forth, the editor and I never discussed Sci-Hub, which was why I started off on my rant in the first place. And yet, the exchange had made me acutely conscious of my debt to Sci-Hub and of my own failings as a scientist.
Alexandra Elbakyan at a talk in 2010. Photo: Apneet Jolly/Flickr, CC BY 2.0Alexandra Elbakyan, a scholar and computer programmer who created and runs Sci-Hub, is probably the one person who has contributed more to global dissemination of science and access to scientific literature than any other person in human history. Sci-Hub offered a way to access scientific publications, including those behind paywalls. One just had to put in the link to the paper or the DOI and Sci-Hub delivered it online (in PDF) almost instantly for free. In recent years, it has been invaluable for scientists in countries like India who have no other access to these journals.
Before Sci-Hub, if I wanted to read more than just the abstracts of pay-walled papers (or more than just the titles of papers that had no abstracts), I would have to ask friends in some (usually foreign) university to download it via their library access and send it over, or write emails directly to author after author and wait for them to respond with PDF soft copies. Neither did that work all the time nor was it even remotely an ideal way to do research.
It should hardly come as a surprise then that open access papers are more likely to be read and cited. In fact, a 2021 study published in a Springer journal (some poetic justice there), found that papers downloaded via Sci-Hub were cited 172% more often than those that were not. I am no fan of citation counting, but irrespective of whether scientists want greater readership, open access, or more citations, they must acknowledge Sci-Hub does a service. There are other points of view about Sci-Hub, but after the last few years as an admirer of both Sci-Hub and Alexandra Elbakyan, I know on which side of the fence I will stay.
Also read: An Interview With Sci-Hub's Alexandra Elbakyan on the Delhi HC Case
Sci-Hub is not just for scientists. It provides access to everyone. It is also particularly valuable to journalists and science communicators who often have no direct access to journals and find scientists both difficult to reach and reticent to communicate with journalists on a deadline. Take what the journalist and writer, George Monbiot, had to say, for instance:
As an independent researcher without university ties, I'm completely reliant on Sci-Hub for access to scientific papers, thanks to the greedy behaviour of academic publishers.I read about 50 a day. Now it's been hit by a blocking order, does anyone know a workaround? Thanks.
'-- George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) March 9, 2021
After definitively disrupting the status quo, Elbakyan soldiers on, while commercial publishers who feel threatened by her keep filing lawsuits. The recent case filed in a Delhi court by Elsevier, Wiley, and the American Chemical Society (ACS) brings charges of copyright infringement and asks for a dynamic injunction to block internet access to Sci-Hub nationwide. These three are among the top scientific publishers in the world, with ACS, despite being a scientific society and one of the wealthiest in the world at that, being opposed to or a laggard in supporting open access. The Delhi case '--a David versus Trio-of-Goliaths case, if ever there was one'--is still in court. Legal experts indicate a strong basis in law, ethics, and equity, going for Sci-Hub. One prays the court rules likewise.
§
It is easy enough to point a finger at greedy Goliaths, but what about the other fingers curled inward, biting into my fist, pointing to me? What had I done, as an individual scientist or as part of the scientific community, to make science free, open, and accessible? The floodgates opened. My thoughts and mortification came pouring out. I could barely keep track of the list of personal failures and all that I myself needed to do. I made a list.
1. Many of my own scientific papers were in pay-walled journals. I had shared them as much as I could earlier, but I could do more to ensure that every one of them was accessible.
2. A boycott of journals published by companies like Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Sage was one thing, but there were positive contributions I needed to make. I could do more reviews for diamond open access journals and also serve on their editorial boards, if invited. My record in this remains miserable. After turning down two such invitations in the past, I had served on the editorial board of one diamond open access journal (Current Science), only to resign after about three years giving workload as an excuse. I am one of the editors of a new diamond open access journal, Hornbill Natural History and Conservation, but I have done almost nothing for the journal so far. A society-run journal invited me to their editorial board and after the Editor-in-Chief assured me they were planning to make it open access and also bring a diverse editorial board with better gender representation, I have agreed to join, but am yet to contribute anything of significance.
3. Instead of paying outrageous sums to journals, I could donate instead modestly to Sci-Hub itself or other individuals and non-profits supporting open science (such as the Centre for Open Science, for instance). I could become a member of one or two scholarly societies relevant to my work, which publish open access journals.
4. Even if scientific papers are accessible, they are rarely intelligible to the wider audience, beyond our peers, that we are often interested in reaching: journalists, science communicators, policy makers, and interested citizens. I could put more time into sharing relevant research in more accessible avenues, especially Wikipedia, where my contributions have been minuscule so far. An encyclopedic review on a bird species, could be contributed to something like the online Birds of the World (which has made all species accounts open and freely accessible in India, although requiring a sign-up), rather than to any pay-walled journal, however reputed.
5. As a naturalist and biologist, I only have contributed a small fraction of my species observations to citizen science portals like eBird, iNaturalist, and India Biodiversity Portal. I have stockpiled thousands of useful and educational photos and other media, but shared only a tiny fraction so far where it can be used by the wider community, such as on Wikimedia Commons. There was a lot more I could do.
6. As for my scientific datasets, I have sat on most of them for years. I could easily share them on open repositories like OSF and Data Dryad, with CC-BY or Public Domain licenses, so other scientists have access to the data and could do more with it than I myself can by clutching onto it as personal intellectual property. Technical reports (grey literature that academics typically consider less worthy than journal publications), too, often contain valuable information and material unavailable elsewhere and I could upload mine to public archives like Archive.org with free licenses. I can make academic presentations and talks available, too, through suitable repositories.
7. I could re-do my CV to highlight public contributions to science and open access rather than try to pad it with an impressive list of publications in so-called high-impact-factor journals. For instance, the following summary of my contributions to Wikipedia should be in my CV. Although it only catalogues how little I have done so far, it should be at least as important to chronicle this as any other scientific work and publications of mine. (A bonus: as a regular editor I can gain access to scientific publications and digital libraries like JSTOR through the Wikipedia Library.)
8. Finally, I can ensure that in our own hiring and assessment practices, we do not privilege publication in the so-called high-impact-factor journals of these commercial publishers. If the scientific community does not privilege these journals, it will take the wind out of their sails and curtail the power commercial publishers currently wield. For an academic appointment, if publications are an aspect to consider, then the quality of the person's work, motivation, and aptitude should matter more than any journal they have published in (or are yet to publish in). We have applied this rationale as far as possible in our research and it has paid rich dividends by attracting people with excellent capabilities in basic and applied conservation science.
Also read: The Problems With Science Journals Trying to Be Gatekeepers '' and Some Solutions
§
Even if one accepts that the system of scientific publishing is unjust and broken, the responses to this so far (besides Sci-Hub, of course) seem like half measures. Boycotts like mine remain little more than tokenism. Deals arrived at by universities with publishers like Elsevier remain riddled with holes. Even the proposed ''one nation, one subscription'' policy that the Government of India proposes to negotiate where, in return for a centrally-negotiated payment to journals, all individuals in India will have access to journal articles, avoids the question of whether such huge payments should be made to benefit commercial publishers. As a nation, India's science budget (R&D) is only 0.7%, much lower than most nations in our position, and a large part of that budget goes to the private sector (42%), defence and space (29%).
In a way, each of the above half-measures is a lost opportunity to shake the system loose of its existing anchors to sail on new voyages in the sea of science. We need a far deeper commitment to and more active engagement with free and open access to science and scientific knowledge in all its various stages and shapes. If science itself has the innate capacity to shake free of old paradigms and shift to new realities, perhaps it can happen in the system of scientific publication, too. And the time for that is now.
T.R. Shankar Raman is the author of The Wild Heart of India and is a wildlife scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation. This post first appeared on his blog View from Elephant Hills, and has been republished here with permission.
Biden's border czar is stepping down - U.S. - Stripes
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 15:02
Biden's border czar is stepping down
(Tribune News Service) '-- Roberta Jacobson, President Biden's special envoy for border issues who has been grappling with large increases of migrants attempting to cross into the U.S., is stepping down after 100 days on the job, the White House announced Friday.
Jacobson, a highly regarded former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and career diplomat, said in an interview that she had always intended to serve for 100 days and feels she can leave as the Biden administration has built up teams to work on the immigration issue, including root causes in the home countries of many migrants.
Vice President Kamala Harris was recently appointed by Biden to oversee diplomacy with those countries '-- El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras '-- and the U.S. Agency for International Development is setting up an as-yet-unannounced special task force for Central America, according to people familiar with the matter.
"It had never been my intention to return to government," Jacobson told The Times. She had retired on May 5, 2018, in part because of disagreement with then-President Trump. "But sometimes you get the call that you can't refuse."
She agreed to become Biden's border czar shortly after he was inaugurated. "It was always going to be 100 days," she said.
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(c)2021 the Los Angeles TimesVisit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
These are the new powers that Merkel plans to acquire in battle against pandemic
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 14:53
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Trump HHS Officials Celebrated False COVID-19 Information | Crooks and Liars
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 14:45
It's not certain that Donald Trump did everything wrong when it comes to handling COVID-19, but he certainly tried. Not only did Trump promote false cures and downplay effective strategies, he deliberately avoided creating a national testing plan because he thought this would lead to a greater number of deaths in Democratically controlled states. That action alone meets the U.N. definition for genocide, and researchers have set the number of unnecessary deaths in the U.S. at 400,000.
But Trump didn't do it alone. At every step, he had the assistance of Republicans inside and outside the White House who worked with Trump downplay the threat, misdirect public concerns, and mock serious efforts to halt the spread of COVID-19. That included not just sidelining serious officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci and inserting unqualified Trump supporters like Scott Atlas, but forcing officials within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other agencies to either suppress information or alter statements.
A year later the House select subcommittee on the pandemic and its handling is finally getting a look at some of those internal calculations and decisions. The Washington Post has acquired copies of documents before that committee showing Trump officials pressured agencies and scientists to change their reporting to the public. Then those officials celebrated the fact that the nation had been duped.
In particular, the emails between former Health and Human Services (HHS) Public Affairs Chief Michael Caputo and former Science Adviser Paul Alexander show these officials working to force the CDC to make changes in reports on how COVID-19 spread. Then they celebrated their victory with a ''yippee.'' Alexander also managed to make changes in the ''sacrosanct'' Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR) to tone down the apparent damage done by COVID-19.
Even then, the changes to some reports'--in particular one about how the disease was spread among young people'--weren't enough to make Alexander and Caputo happy. So they worked with Atlas to create op-eds to ''preempt the story'' and promote the idea that schools could be opened safely. That included a fishing expedition in which they sought to throw out unfounded numbers about how closing schools was causing more death than it was preventing.
''I know the President wants us to enumerate the economic cost of not reopening,'' wrote Caputo. ''We need solid estimates to be able to say something like: 50,000 more cancer deaths! 40,000 more heart attacks! 25,000 more suicides!''
There does not appear to be any factual basis behind these numbers. Alexander, Caputo, and Atlas understood Trump's goal: He wanted the schools open no matter what, so they created a stream of fear, uncertainty, and doubt for the purposes of justifying that action.
In September of 2020, The New York Times reported on how Caputo and Alexander worked together to bully and silence scientists. For example, when 32-year-year CDC veteran Dr. Anne Schuchat made an appeal to Americans to wear masks, saying, ''We have too much virus across the country,'' Alexander went on the attack. In an interview with The Journal of the American Medical Association, Alexander claimed that Schuchat's real goal was to embarrass Trump. Alexander called her ''duplicitous,'' said that the threat of COVID-19 to children was ''zero,'' and stated of Schuchat, ''She has lied.'' Working together with Caputo, Alexander attempted to stifle Schuchat by threatening to hang all the deaths connected to the H1N1 virus on her decisions.
Select Committee Chair Rep. James Clyburn has written to both Alexander and Atlas stating: ''Our investigation has shown that Trump Administration officials engaged in a persistent pattern of political interference in the nation's public health response to the coronavirus pandemic, overruling and bullying scientists and making harmful decisions that allowed the virus to spread more rapidly.'' The committee is now seeking testimony from both Alexander and Atlas.
Caputo'--a nonscientist whose work as a media adviser included a stint in which he was hired to approve the image of Vladimir Putin'--put himself on medical leave in September. When he did so, he apologized to many members of the HHS staff and admitted that he had not read some of the reports he had pressured people to alter. However, this did not come before Caputo posted a Facebook video in which he claimed there were ''hit squads being trained all over this country" for an armed revolt against Trump's second term. He also claimed those hit squads were going to come after him personally. Two weeks later he was diagnosed with throat cancer. It's unclear if Caputo will be asked to testify.
During the 2016 campaign, Caputo worked for Trump while maintaining offices in both Miami Beach, Florida, and Moscow, Russia. He previously worked for Trump in creating an AstroTurf campaign to make it look as if people wanted Trump to buy the Buffalo Bills.
Clyburn has requested that Alexander and Atlas appear before the committee by May 3. Considering the documentation shows they deliberately sought to alter scientific reports and pressure scientists into providing the answers they wanted, it would not be surprising if getting Alexander and Atlas to show requires a court fight.
What's both amazing and distressing is how all of these men took their obligation to support Trump to be greater than their obligation to protect public health, even when they knew the scope of the threat. Trump said many times that he sought personal loyalty above everything else. He got it.
Published with permission of Daily Kos
Bill Gates' TerraPower is building next-generation nuclear power
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 13:54
When Bill Gates started learning about nuclear power innovation, "I was skeptical, but also intrigued," he wrote on his Gates Notes blog in 2019.
Like many people, Gates' opinion of nuclear power had been tinged by past disastrous accidents such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
But Gates was also interested in the potential of nuclear power as a clean energy.
After reading a paper about a new generation of nuclear reactors built with technical advancements to guard against such accidents, Gates founded TerraPower in 2008 to realize the benefits of these innovations.
Selected by the U.S. federal government to demonstrate the viability of nuclear power through its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), TerraPower aims to build "fully functional advanced nuclear reactor within 7 years of the award," according to the Office of Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy.
"We envision a 2050 grid that is powered by very significant wind and solar power, but is complemented by" Terra Power nuclear reactors, TerraPower president and CEO, Chris Levesque, tells CNBC Make It.
Levesque envisions that TerraPower will help the United States become a dominant force in nuclear power; as other countries transition their energy grids, "the United States will once again export reactors that set the standard for the world, just as we did for today's conventional reactors," Levesque says.
TerraPower's ability to achieve those goals will be in no small part due to the money and influence of the company's founder.
"The most important factor is that Bill Gates is behind this," principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology department of nuclear science and engineering Charles Forsberg tells CNBC Make It. "The most important factors in developing a new reactor are money and very competent people. Bill Gates brings both to the project."
Here's how TerraPower is building advanced nuclear power plants.
A safer cooling systemDespite nuclear power's baneful reputation, it is actually the safest form of power generation when analyzed by deaths per unit of electricity generated, according to Gates.
And TerraPower's Natrium Reactor plants will be safer still, thanks in large part to a more reliable cooling system for its reactors.
Nuclear fission, a process where atoms split and release a large amount of energy, generates a lot of heat. In conventional nuclear power plants, called light-water nuclear reactors, water absorbs that heat, turning it to steam. The steam then turns a turbine to produce electricity.
The problem is, that steam can also build up and create pressure inside of a reactor, which has the potential to cause an explosion.
So TerraPower's Natrium plant uses a different method, pioneered decades ago: liquid sodium as a cooling agent. ("Natrium" means "sodium" in Latin.) Liquid sodium has a higher boiling point and can absorb a lot more heat than water, which means high pressure does not build up inside the reactor.
"Liquid sodium has certain improved thermochemical properties when compared to water that can change risk profiles and reduce the probability of events that might be more probable in a light water reactor," says Brett Rampal, the director of nuclear innovation at non-profit Clean Air Task Force.
TerraPower's test facility is where the company does full-scale physical testing for fuel handling operations.
Photo courtesy TerraPower
Beyond that, TerraPower's cooling system does not rely on any outside energy source to operate in the event of an emergency shutdown of a reactor. Instead, its system works via the hot air rising from natural circulation within the system, called a reactor vessel air cooling system, or RVACS, says Levesque.
This can prevent accidents like what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. After an earthquake shut down the plant's reactor, its back-up cooling system failed. "They relied on pumps that had to be powered by diesel generators. When [a subsequent] tsunami disabled the diesels, they lost all cooling to the reactor, which led to melting and the further problems," Levesque says.
Such "passive" cooling systems, which rely on things like natural circulation or gravity, "are at the heart of advanced reactor designs and reduce the risk and severity of accidents," Rampal says. And they're trustworthy, Forsberg says: "This type of passive safety system has been demonstrated on a large scale."
Energy storage, like a batteryNatrium technology has the ability to store heat in tanks of molten salt for future use, "much like a battery," Levesque says. (The technology is similar to that used in solar plants, which use the technique to store power for when the sun is not shining.)
That storage capability can increase a Natrium Reactor plant's power output from about 345 megawatts to 500 megawatts for five hours, Levesque says.
An artist rendering of a TerraPower Natrium power plant.
Photo courtesy TerraPower
"It is the first nuclear concept to integrate large-scale energy storage capabilities," Levesque says. "This solves a real challenge utilities face as they plan for the long term and work to achieve decarbonization goals."
While TerraPower is a leader here, according to Rampal, other advanced nuclear companies are also considering storage.
"Most of the advanced reactor developers I have interacted with in the past five years include thermal storage in a conceptual plant layout," says Andrew Whittaker, an engineering professor at the University at Buffalo who researches nuclear structures. "It makes good financial sense."
Cheaper construction costsIn America, the cost of building a conventional nuclear power plant can be in the multibillions. (For instance, two units being built at Plant Vogtle in Georgia are expected to cost more than $25 billion, according to analyst estimates cited by Reuters.)
The target cost for a commercial Natrium plant is $1 billion in capital expenditures, according to TerraPower. That includes engineering, procurement and construction costs of the plant.
The lower cost estimate is partly due to Natrium plants operating at lower pressure (because of the liquid sodium); they do not require the same heavy duty, expensive construction materials, according to Levesque.
TerraPower plants are also smaller than conventional ones, which is "important for lowering the capital cost" Levesque says.
The size also makes TerraPower plants attractive to utility companies "looking to invest in a nuclear power plant to plug into their existing power grid," says Levesque. TerraPower's plants have the capacity to generate enough power to operate a small city, which is the "sweet spot" for utility companies.
"A very large plant is a big risk for a utility," Levesque says.
Less nuclear wasteRadioactive waste, a byproduct of nuclear fission, "produce fatal radiation doses during short periods of direct exposure," according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. With no permanent storage solution in use in the U.S., nuclear waste is currently stored at the facility where it was generated in concrete and steel containers.
Advanced nuclear reactors however, produces less waste. That includes Natrium technology, which utilizes radioactive uranium fuel (which powers nuclear reactors) much more efficiently and more completely than conventional plants, according to Levesque.
Inside TerraPower's lab.
Photo courtesy TerraPower.
"This is enabled by a very precise reactor design process that took advantage of today's high performance computing and advanced materials. Thus the used fuel, also called 'spent' fuel, occupies 2/3 less volume than today's reactors, per gigawatt-hour of power generated," he says.
Experts are mixed on whether this innovation is useful however. While Whitaker calls it a "significant gain in efficiency" that is "important," Forsberg says it's "not relevant," because it "does not really impact disposal costs."
Still, some say nuclear power is the wrong solutionDespite what Gates and TerraPower see as benefits, the debate over nuclear power is fierce.
On March 18, for instance, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a non-profit group of 250 scientists and related professionals, issued a 140-page rebuke of "advanced nuclear" reactor designs.
"If nuclear power is to play a larger role to address climate change, it is essential for new reactor designs to be safer, more secure, and pose comparable or'--better yet'--lower risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism than the existing reactor fleet," says Edwin Lyman, Director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, DC, in a statement released with the report. "Despite the hype surrounding them, none of the non-light-water reactors on the drawing board that we reviewed meet all of those requirements."
The UCS even recommends the Department of Energy (DOE) suspend its jointly funded ARDP demonstration project (in which TerraPower is a particpant) until regulatory agencies determine what kind of prototyping is necessary, and calls on the DOE to have an independent commission to review the project.
"It doesn't make sense to us for either government or industry to devote a lot of resources to pursuing high-risk, low-reward technologies '' or technologies that could be even worse than what we have now," Lyman tells CNBC Make It.
Instead, more federal government spending to improve conventional reactors is a better tactic, according to the UCS.
"Investment to address the shortcomings of conventional reactors would have a higher chance of success because there is a large base of operating experience and experimental data that researchers can draw upon," Lyman says.
In response to the UCS report, Levesque re-emphasizes the utility of the safety measures TerraPower's Natrium plant employs. And Levesque, who says he's spent most of his career working with conventional water-cooled reactors, does not object to reinvesting in their maintenance.
"But the fact is, light water reactors are based on 50-plus-year-old technology, and only incremental improvements can now be made. Moving on to advanced reactors like Natrium allows transformational improvements in economics and safety," he says.
Still others say focusing on nuclear power at all is the wrong approach.
Nuclear power, which has been around since the 1950s, "has proven to be very slow to deploy, very expensive, and fraught with dangers," says Robert W. Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University. "And no one has ever solved the problem with what to do with nuclear wastes."
Safe and affordable nuclear power is "a pipe dream" that "never materialized," he says.
Michael E. Mann, professor of atmospheric science at Penn State and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC), argues that nuclear energy "comes with unnecessary risks when better alternatives (i.e. wind, solar, geothermal) are available."
And "investment in nuclear likely crowds out investment in the safer alternative (renewable energy)," he says.
Both Howarth and Mann are signatories on a declaration that calls for decarbonization through 100% renewable energy, like wind and solar.
"A decade ago, perhaps one could still argue we need new nuclear power plants to combat global warming, and that better approaches were hopefully just around the corner," Howarth says. "But in 2021, it is very clear that we can completely rebuild the energy economy of the world moving forward built on renewable energy alone, with no need for fossil fuels or nukes. To build our future on renewables is that fastest, safest, and cheapest way to address climate disruption."
See also:
Bill Gates: Nuclear power will 'absolutely' be politically acceptable again '-- it's safer than oil, coal, natural gasBill Gates: These 5 concepts will help you understand the urgency of the climate crisis
Here's what you need to know about 'the social cost of greenhouse gases''--a key climate metric
BBC flooded with complaints over Prince Philip coverage | BBC | The Guardian
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 13:12
Within six hours of Prince Philip's death being announced the BBC had received so many complaints about its wall-to-wall coverage of the news that it opened a dedicated complaints form on its website, as television viewers turned off and went elsewhere.
The BBC curtailed dozens of broadcasts on Friday, taking the nation's most popular television and radio channels off air and reducing dozens of other broadcasts on stations across the country, to provide uninterrupted coverage of tributes to the Queen's husband.
BBC One played a series of pre-recorded shows, including Philip's children paying tribute to him, while BBC Two scrapped its schedule and simulcast the same shows as its sister channel. Friday night staples such as EastEnders, Gardeners' World, and the final episode of MasterChef were taken off air to make way for more tributes, an approach also taken by ITV.
Many viewers reacted by turning off altogether. BBC One dipped 6% compared with the previous Friday evening, while BBC Two's audience was down two-thirds. ITV ripped up its schedule for tributes to Prince Philip but still lost 60% of the previous week's audience, according to analysis of viewing figures by Deadline.
Although the BBC is used to finding itself in the middle of Britain's culture wars, its handling of Philip's death points to a deeper question over the ability of a national broadcaster to force the country together to mourn a single individual in an era where audiences are fragmented and less deferential.
When Princess Diana died in a car crash in 1997 the majority of the UK population had only just gained access to a fifth television channel. If the BBC wanted to enforce a mood of national mourning they had the power to cut off other forms of entertainment and keep dissenting voices at bay through the sheer enormity of their reach.
Nowadays, although the BBC's reach among the UK population remains enormous, the growth of Netflix and YouTube means audiences have somewhere else to turn.
Executives '' and royal courtiers '' will be nervously studying the release of television viewing figures and seeing if the decision to replace Friday night's episode of EastEnders with tributes to Philip will expose the fact that the British public's appetite for such material is limited.
People working in BBC News suggested that the long-planned scale of the coverage is because the corporation still bore the scars from the death of the Queen Mother in 2002, when its output was deemed insufficiently deferential by rightwing newspapers.
Among other issues, the media fixated on the BBC newsreader Peter Sissons for failing to wear a black tie as he announced her death. He later claimed that he had been left in the lurch by BBC bosses, who the previous year had floated proposals to tone down the extent of the coverage of the Queen Mother's death. Sissons said that as he entered the studio to announce her death he was told by the editor: ''Don't go overboard, she's a very old woman who had to go some time.''
There is also the ongoing battle between the government and the BBC over the corporation's future funding. With the new director general, Tim Davie, already battling Conservative MPs who accuse the corporation of not being sufficiently patriotic, the BBC will have been aware of the political risks of not being perceived to have struck the right tone.
In the end, almost the entire range of BBC services was affected in some way by the announcement of Philip's death, sometimes with mildly farcical results.
For instance, as a mark of respect to the Queen's husband, BBC Four's scheduled programme was taken off-air and replaced with a notice urging viewers to switch to BBC One for a tribute.
The channel had been due to show the England women's football team play France in an international friendly, leading to questions about whether a men's match would be kicked off television schedules in an equivalent situation. The game was still shown in full on the BBC's iPlayer service and BBC Sport website, apparently in the belief that showing women's sport on a digital service during a period of royal mourning is more respectful than allowing it on linear television channels.
Children watching cartoons on CBBC were greeted with a banner encouraging them to watch the news for a major story. Adverts were taken off BBC-owned commercial channels such as Dave, Yesterday and Gold out of respect.
The BBC's national radio stations initially replaced their output with a pre-recorded tribute, with some later returning to special sombre playlists, with the likes of Radio 1 stuck playing downbeat music with the occasional news bulletin update. Specialist music programmes were taken off air, while presenters kept chat to a minimum.
Some BBC radio cricket commentary were left continuing to provide coverage from grounds across England, unaware that no one was able to hear their output because it had been replaced. Even cricket fans on the BBC website coverage found their source of information cut off, with the corporation's county championship liveblog shut down immediately after Philip's death was announced '' even as play continued across the country.
One of the few broadcasters to buck the trend was Channel 4, which did air extended tributes to the late royal consort but provided an alternative for viewers by showing Gogglebox and the final of reality TV hit The Circle as planned.
One issue facing the BBC is when to return coverage to normal and how to respond to complaints. In a sign that the corporation is doomed to be criticised by all sides, the rightwing Defund the BBC campaign described it as ''disgraceful'' that the corporation was making it easier to complain about its coverage, saying: ''The anti-British BBC has set up a form to encourage complaints about the volume of coverage of Prince Philip's death.''
Another issue is how to serve parts of its audience who would like an alternative to the extensive coverage. By late Friday afternoon there was one death dominating the most-read stories on the BBC website: that of the rapper DMX.
