LONDON – Intensive monitoring of health care workers at two hospitals in London showed that despite having a blood biomarker of infection, 58 of them did not test positive for COVID-19 at any point, suggesting they may have been clearing subclinical infections before seroconversion.
The sprint of fighting COVID-19 has been in respiratory medicine. For patients who become acutely ill, the short-term danger is in respiratory failure. But increasingly, it seems like the pandemic’s marathon fight may come to be against the neurological symptoms of COVID-19.
LONDON – PCR point of care testing specialist Quantumdx Group Ltd. is poised to accelerate its commercial development in China, after the Hong Kong venture capital fund Vita Spring made a £15 million (US$20.3 million) equity investment.
LONDON – Researchers have pinpointed a little-studied gene as responsible for doubling the risk of respiratory failure in COVID-19 and shown exactly how it exerts its effect. The gene, leucine zipper transcription factor like 1, is activated by a single base pair change on chromosome 3 that occurs in 60% of people of South Asian ancestry and 15% of people of European ancestry.
As booster shots become increasingly available and COVID-19 vaccines for young children are introduced into pediatric offices, several potential therapeutics to battle the SARS-CoV-2 virus are lining up for regulatory authorizations.
Regulatory snapshots, including global submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Agilent, Detect, Renovia.
LONDON – A U.K. study following up 32.5 million people for 28 days after their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine has shown an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke after receiving the Pfizer Inc./Biontech SE product, and confirmed case reports of an increased risk of developing Guillain-Barré syndrome after the Astrazeneca plc vaccine.
LONDON – The U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has designated an offspring of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 as a “variant under investigation” after uncovering some early evidence it may have an increased growth rate.
Iceni Diagnostics Ltd. is accelerating efforts to commercialize a diagnostic for detecting COVID-19 using sugars rather than antibodies. Lateral flow diagnostics (LFDs) have been widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic to diagnose people with an active infection. The tests use antibodies, which attach to the SARS-COV-2 virus but Iceni’s Host-Pathogen Glycan Recognition technology has been touted as a potential alternative due to its polymer approach.
Phase II results from Atea Pharmaceuticals Inc. with AT-527 in COVID-19 treatment had pundits scrambling to stack the odds of success for the direct-acting oral antiviral against those of Merck & Co. Inc.’s molnupiravir, though cross-trial comparisons are beset by the usual hurdles, with two especially dramatic ones.
