BEIJING – One day after the U.S. began the first human trial of an mRNA vaccine candidate for COVID-19 on March 16, China said Tuesday evening that it had approved the first clinical trial of a vaccine candidate developed by domestic researchers.
LONDON – The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic, but is pushing back strongly against countries giving up on stringent control measures.
PERTH, Australia – Mesoblast Ltd. plans to evaluate remestemcel-L in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by coronavirus (COVID-19) in the U.S., Australia, China and Europe.
Undetected cases were a major driver of the early spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China, despite being less infectious on a case-by-case basis, according to a modeling study published in the March 16, 2020, online issue of Science.
Mainz, Germany-based Biontech SE has struck two deals in its Project Lightspeed, one for inside China and one for outside China, to develop and commercialize a COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) prevention vaccine. The agreements caused the stock (NASDAQ:BNTX) to soar 29.3%, or $9.07, to close at $40 on Monday in the midst of a bear market.
The past week has seen a lot of movement in terms of tests to detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. “It is notable that the diagnostics community is coming together in a way we have not seen in our 20 years covering this industry,” wrote William Blair analyst Brian Weinstein in a March 14 note. “Regulators, lab professionals, and manufacturers are all in a frenetic fury to try and get testing up and running, and we generally see a sense of ‘in it together’ playing out.”
The number of biopharmas and nonprofits pitching in to find a treatment for COVID-19 continues to grow. In the past few weeks, that number has more than doubled and it shows no signing of slowing.
HONG KONG – South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) recently granted the first urgent-use licenses to four COVID-19 novel coronavirus diagnostic kits to battle the pandemic in the country, which is home to one of the largest outbreaks in the world outside of China.
Chronic disease patients are facing serious risks both from keeping away from necessary care settings, as well as from potential COVID-19 infection. One in five chronic disease patients was already starting to avoid seeking care in physician’s offices and hospitals, according to a survey that started early last week of a panel of 1,300 chronic disease patients across several indications.
The importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) has not been lost on drug development companies. Recently, to help accelerate the discovery of therapies to treat COVID-19, several deals have been established to help deploy those tools.
