Sparks flew both ways Sept. 4 as Democratic senators pushed for Robert Kennedy to resign as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during a Senate Finance Committee hearing ostensibly held to discuss the Trump administration’s 2026 health care agenda. But with Kennedy the only witness, the hearing focused on Kennedy’s perceived failings as HHS secretary. “The United States is in the midst of a health care calamity,” Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in his opening comments, which were laden with personal attacks.
The vaccine dominoes continue to fall in the U.S. This time one fell on the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, as one of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy’s most outspoken critics was removed from the panel nearly a year and a half before his term was to expire.
South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety approved Moderna Inc.’s Spikevax LP.8.1 vaccine as an updated shot for COVID-19 targeting the LP.8.1 variant, according to Moderna Korea’s announcement Sept. 1. The regulatory clearance comes days after the U.S. FDA accepted, on Aug. 27, Moderna’s supplemental BLAs for two of its COVID-19 vaccines, Spikevax and Mnexspike.
French vaccines specialist Osivax SAS has been awarded $19.5 million by the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to fund work on its universal influenza A vaccine.
Worrisome new signals caused the U.S. FDA – which earlier this month OK’d revised labeling for Valneva SE’s chikungunya virus vaccine Ixchiq – to suspend the product’s license altogether. Regulators pointed to four added reports of serious adverse events consistent with chikungunya-like illness, and told Valneva, of Saint Herblain, France, that the company must stop U.S. shipping and sales of the product. Shares (NASDAQ:VALN) closed Aug. 25 at $9.43, down $2.21, or 19%.
For more than 30 years, the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) worked together to harmonize their evidence-based vaccine schedules. Not anymore.
Avixgen Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Dx&Vx Co. Ltd., inked a $360 million license agreement with an unidentified U.S.-based biotechnology company, granting the latter rights to its advanced cell penetrating (ACP) peptide drug delivery platform.
Beijing Luzhu Biotechnology Co. Ltd.’s shingles vaccine LZ-901 outperformed GSK plc’s Shingrix (HZ/su) vaccine in a head-to-head phase III trial. A recombinant herpes zoster vaccine candidate independently developed by Luzhu, LZ-901 is the company’s core product.
In the wake of a lawsuit from the anti-vaccine nonprofit group U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy founded, HHS is reviving a vaccine safety task force that’s been lifeless for nearly three decades.
Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) secured 5.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer Inc./Biontech SE and Moderna Inc., officially including the mRNA-based vaccines in the country’s national immunization program on Aug. 5.
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