U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy continued his last-minute musical chairs ahead of the Dec. 4-5 meeting of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) when he named Kirk Milhoan as the new chair of the panel that advises the CDC on vaccine schedules.
Both the FDA and the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices are on the threshold of revising how vaccines are approved and used in the U.S., but whether that opens to a precipice or a new era of stronger evidence and safer use is in the telling of the beholder.
Changes to a U.S. CDC website regarding autism and vaccines has sparked a backlash from numerous scientific and other groups, placing HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) in the spotlight once again for appearing to break promises made earlier this year to secure his nomination.
Changes to a U.S. CDC website regarding autism and vaccines has sparked a backlash from numerous scientific and other groups, placing HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) in the spotlight once again for appearing to break promises made earlier this year to secure his nomination.
Evaxion A/S is advancing its cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine program, EVX-V1, with new data demonstrating protective effects of lead antigens in the program. EVX-V1 is a next-generation, multicomponent vaccine program combining novel AI-discovered antigens with AI-optimized versions of established CMV vaccine antigens.
Investigators from the University of Science and Technology of China and RNAlfa Biotech have described a novel mRNA-based vaccine candidate against Dabie Banda virus (DBV), which has fatality rates of up to 30% in some East Asian countries.
Bavarian Nordic A/S will continue operating as an independent public company after an offer to be acquired by two private equity firms failed to win sufficient shareholder approval.
Moderna Inc. stopped its efforts to develop mRNA-1647 as a vaccine for preventing congenital cytomegalovirus infection, the most common infectious cause of birth defects in the U.S. The pivotal and placebo-controlled phase III CMVictory study of mRNA-1647 missed the primary efficacy endpoint, which was preventing the infection in seronegative females ages 16 to 40.
In vaccine development, one might think that targeting multiple epitopes increases the likelihood of improving outcomes. However, when several immunogens are administered together, the immune system does not always generate antibodies against all of them. Two parallel studies have overcome this challenge by using multiple simultaneous immunogens against HIV, effectively triggering various types of broadly neutralizing antibody (bnAb) precursors in two different preclinical animal models.