Even though COVID-19 is transitioning from pandemic to endemic across the world, it will remain first in mind as U.S. lawmakers look to reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) this year to ensure the country is better prepared for future threats. With a Sept. 30 deadline for reauthorizing PAHPA, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has its work cut out for it. But it won’t be starting from scratch. In opening a May 4 hearing on the reauthorization, HELP Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the committee would build on the efforts started last year under then-Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and now-retired Ranking Member Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
With the COVID-19 public health emergency ending in the U.S. next week, Congress is looking to use the lessons learned from the pandemic to draft a new iteration of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act to ensure the country is better prepared for the next pandemic.
The industry is not over the post-COVID-19 funding crash, and as the dust settles there are mixed signs for future prospects, with some metrics in decline, others more or less back to pre-pandemic levels, and some showing signs of improvement. But on the key productivity metric, there is a downward trend, with fewer new molecular entities (NMEs) approved by both the U.S. FDA and EMA over the last year and a half.
In its first markup of the 118th Congress May 2, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, under the new leadership of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), devolved into a brief mutiny of sorts as the committee members started to take up four bipartisan bills aimed at taming prescription drug prices.
With its sights set on a series A and an IPO following a £3.5 million (US$4.4 million) investment round in 2021, Scottish biotech ILC Therapeutics Ltd. is hoping to make waves with a sublingual interferon antiviral to treat COVID-19. The USP for the company’s lead, Alfacyte, is the fact that it’s an artificial version of interferon, so it has less of a propensity to cause the flu-like symptoms that can come from treatment with natural kinds, which hike levels of cytokines and interleukins. As a hybrid interferon that is composed of interferon alpha-10 and interferon alpha-12, Alfacyte is “up to 10,000 times less likely” to cause adverse effects, according to ILC CEO Alan Walker.
Rnaimmune Inc., a nonwholly owned subsidiary of Sirnaomics Ltd., has received clearance from the FDA for its IND application to conduct a phase I trial for RV-1730, a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine booster candidate.
As it requested, the U.S. FDA got an earful April 25 as people with long COVID and their caregivers shared their experiences with the condition that has no approved, or even authorized, treatment and is not that well understood, given its range of symptoms that vary from person to person.
Zephyrm Biotechnologies Co. Ltd. raised ¥200 million (US$29 million) in a series B financing to support phase I and II trials of the company’s human pluripotent stem cell candidates to treat lung diseases, degenerative joint diseases such as osteoarthritis, CNS diseases, inherited retinal degenerations and retinal degenerative diseases. The money will also be used for the construction of its technology platform and cell manufacturing bases.
While the pandemic is nearing its end, Chinese officials are calling for the development of novel, multivalent COVID-19 vaccines as an essential task moving forward.
While the pandemic is nearing its end, Chinese officials are calling for the development of novel, multivalent COVID-19 vaccines as an essential task moving forward. To date, China has 17 COVID-19 vaccine products that have completed or are in phase III trials, according to the NMPA.
