CAJICA, Colombia – Previous research to develop vaccines for dengue and Zika virus could become the cornerstone for a vaccine against COVID-19, which the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is working on.
LONDON – Support is growing for human challenge trials in COVID-19 to be approved in order to speed up development of effective vaccines against the pandemic infection. The World Health Organization (WHO) has just released guidelines for assessing the ethical acceptability, saying such trials would allow for more rapid and standardized testing, accelerating development and enabling candidates to be prioritized.
PERTH, Australia – CSL Behring Australia, a subsidiary of CSL Ltd., will begin developing an anti-SARS-CoV-2 plasma product to treat people with serious complications of COVID-19.
HONG KONG – The Japanese government is tightening its grip on its listed companies, including those working on promising COVID-19 treatments. On May 8, the Japanese Ministry of Finance released a list of 518 companies that would be subject to stricter restrictions on receiving foreign investments.
HONG KONG – Japan has become the first country in the world to approve Veklury (remdesivir), Gilead Sciences Inc.’s experimental drug, to treat COVID-19. The fast approval was based on U.S. data and that country’s emergency use of the drug to tackle the pandemic, although it is unclear whether the drug is safe or effective for treating COVID-19.
The devastating societal and economic effects caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic should sound a warning bell on how ill-prepared we are in our ability to fight lethal infectious diseases for which no effective therapies or vaccines currently exist. Indirectly, the intense public attention on companies that are engaged in developing COVID-19 cures is also spilling over to companies researching to uncover new anti-infectives that will be needed to replace the diminishing arsenal of effective therapies to combat drug-resistant bacteria and fungi. This is certainly evident among public companies in the space, with the BioWorld Infectious Diseases index showing an increasing upward trend since the beginning of the year. At market close on May 11, the index had, in fact, grown in value by a whopping 47%.
After being hit with the major financial market meltdown when the COVID-19 outbreak decimated U.S. capital markets during March that saw the valuations of public biopharmaceutical companies developing new medicines plummet, it appears that they have put that reversal behind them with a dramatic price surge in April.
Having a COVID-19 therapy approved through an emergency use authorization (EUA) is not the same as having access to it, even if it’s free. Accounting for one-third of the nearly 4 million COVID-19 cases confirmed globally as of Monday and 28.5% of the 278,957 deaths, the U.S. is getting 40% of the 1.5 million vials of remdesivir Gilead Sciences Inc. is donating worldwide.
LONDON – Support is growing for human challenge trials in COVID-19 to be approved in order to speed up development of effective vaccines against the pandemic infection.
HONG KONG – The Japanese government is tightening its grip on its listed companies, including those working on promising COVID-19 treatments. On May 8, the Japanese Ministry of Finance released a list of 518 companies that would be subject to stricter restrictions on receiving foreign investments.
