The 17 members abruptly terminated June 9 from the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) are not going gently into the night. Instead, they’re raging against what could be the dying of the light. The 17 raised their collective voices in a June 16 JAMA opinion piece to decry what’s at stake with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy’s efforts, in his words, to “reestablish public confidence in vaccine science” by cleansing ACIP of what he claimed were conflicts due to members’ financial ties to industry.
The COVID-19 pandemic sent the world into a tailspin, raising ongoing concerns about biosecurity, a subject that encompassed the better part of the morning June 16, the first day of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s annual conference in Boston.
Researchers from the Institute for Basic Science of Korea and collaborating institutions have designed a new class of peptide-based inhibitors targeting a crucial interface within the SARS-CoV-2 replication complex, offering a potential new avenue for antiviral therapy.
And then there were eight. That is, eight members of the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP).Two days after dismissing the 17 members of the committee, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy named eight new members to the panel. Eight is the minimum required for a quorum, which will be necessary for the June 25-27 ACIP meeting.
Three years after litigation started over technology used in an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19, Biontech SE is acquiring its adversary, Curevac NV, through an all-stock transaction valued at about $1.25 billion. The amount is lower than the $3 billion in backpay Curevac could win through the lawsuit if a low mid-single-digit royalty were awarded, Evercore ISI analysts Jon Miller and Umer Raffat said. But the legal uncertainty has weighed heavily on the company, which shed 30% of its workforce last July and sold off rights to two of its infectious disease vaccines.
Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum für Infektionsforschung GmbH, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and Université de Lausanne have synthesized energy-coupling factor (ECF) transporter (bacterial) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of enterococcal and streptococcal infections.
Octant Inc. has received a $4.9 million grant from the Gates Foundation to support a new therapeutics program focused on human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancers. The initiative will develop affordable, broad-spectrum, small-molecule antiviral drugs designed to disrupt the interaction between hundreds of variants of the HPV E6 protein and the tumor suppressor protein p53.
When it comes to the U.S. biopharma market, pricing seems to be the driving focus of most congressional conversations – and government contracts. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ore., hit pause on that conversation at a June 11 House subcommittee hearing on the drug supply chain, when he asked if the U.S. is sacrificing security for price.
Microneedle technology could help simplify vaccine delivery to better support global immunization efforts, and Australia is leading the way in this innovative technology.
Despite the June 9 gutting of the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, the Department of Health and Human Services said the committee’s June 25-27 meeting will continue as scheduled. But a new panel has yet to be named, and typically ACIP members have a lot of behind-the-scenes work to do before a meeting.
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