LONDON - The director general of the World Health Organization has given a dignified and measured response to President Donald Trump’s decision to halt U.S. funding of WHO, pending a review of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Two phase III studies in China testing Gilead Sciences Inc.’s antiviral drug, remdesivir, in patients with COVID-19 infection have been halted after Chinese authorities reported a lack of eligible patients. Other studies, including trials sponsored by the Foster City, Calif.-based company, remain ongoing.
“Vaccines, obviously, are the ultimate solution for pandemics,” Rino Rappuoli told BioWorld. They have, he added, “already eliminated a lot of pandemic threats – smallpox, influenza, poliomyelitis.”
There will be lessons learned aplenty when the COVID-19 pandemic finally breaks, including how serological and molecular testing can be used to maximum effect to corral a future pandemic.
In order to redirect health care resources and protect patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, many drug companies have paused enrollment in some or all of their ongoing clinical trials.
A new, worldwide coalition of plasma companies seeking to develop and deliver a hyperimmune immunoglobulin therapy for fighting COVID-19 takes the view that many hands make light work.
DUBLIN – Sanofi SA and Glaxosmithkline plc are lending their considerable weight to the urgent global effort to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 by teaming up to develop an adjuvanted recombinant subunit vaccine that will employ technologies from each company. Paris-based Sanofi is contributing its recombinant spike protein antigen and its baculovirus expression system, which is also the basis of its U.S.-licensed influenza vaccine Flublok. London-based GSK is contributing its pandemic adjuvant technology.
LONDON – Companies represented in the expert group brought together by the World Health Organization (WHO) to work on the development of COVID-19 vaccines have signed a pledge to strengthen collaboration and sharing of data.
