Novavax Inc. reported an overall efficacy rate of 90.4% in a phase III trial of its COVID-19 protein subunit vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, which it conducted in the U.S. and Mexico. The vaccine provided 100% protection against moderate and severe disease and 100% protection against variants of SARS-CoV-2 deemed not to be of concern or interest. Gaithersburg, Md.-based Novavax is on track to file for approval during the third quarter. By the end of that period, it aims to ramp up production to a monthly run rate of 100 million doses and it aims to scale that to a monthly run rate of 150 million doses by the end of the fourth quarter.
Borrowing a chapter from venture capitalists, the U.S.’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is partnering with the nonprofit Global Health Investment Corp. (GHIC) to accelerate the development and commercialization of medical technologies and products needed to respond to or prevent future pandemics and other public health emergencies.
As infections and deaths continue to surge in some countries so does the demand for unfettered access to the technologies behind COVID-19 vaccines and other medical products. In seeking that access, several countries are stressing the need to develop their own manufacturing capacity as they look beyond the current pandemic.
Roughly a year and a half after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many unknowns remain about the future of the virus. How it will mutate, how long protection from either illness or vaccination will last, when it will cease to be a pandemic and instead be endemic, even whether the worst is still ahead. And there is also an increasing acknowledgment that there remain unknowns about SARS-CoV-2’s past.
The COVID-19 pandemic’s direct and indirect toll on the human condition is beyond calculation, but the effect on FDA regulatory activity is easier to assess. The problem for device makers is that a number of draft and final guidances are stuck in a pandemic-driven regulatory limbo, which seemingly guarantees that some compliance and product development efforts will run afoul of the agency’s expectations and potentially delay a product’s market access.
The latest global regulatory news, changes and updates affecting medical devices and technologies, including: HHS, DOJ officials highlight pandemic response needs; FDA says plenty of respirators available; NICE supports use of Danis for variceal hemorrhage.
The Made in America Tax Plan President Joe Biden is proposing to pay for his $2 trillion U.S. American Jobs Plan could change the way multinational drug and device companies do business, as well as curb M&As that take advantage of global tax benefits.
DUBLIN – Last May, a quartet of Dutch biotech industry veterans gathered for a socially distanced outdoor meeting in a private garden in Leiden to discuss what could be done to prevent the present COVID-19 fiasco from ever occurring on such a scale again. A new startup, Leyden Laboratories BV, emerged from that conversation, and it has just raised €40 million (US$47.3 million) in a series A round to develop broad-spectrum, self-administered, intranasal antiviral drugs to prevent infection.
CAJICA, Colombia – The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of Mexico’s techno-vigilance system, along with a chronic lack of reporting of inventories and adverse effects related to medical devices in use. These weaknesses were exposed during previous pandemics but the country’s antiquated tracking and reporting system has not changed.
The first Senate hearing for the nomination of Xavier Becerra as Secretary of Health and Human Services included the predictable questions about his qualifications, given his position as attorney general for the state of California. However, the candidate repeatedly emphasized price transparency for both hospitals and drug manufacturers, the latter of which are still laboring under the perception that price gouging is a common practice.