Moderna Inc.’s mixed results in mid-February from a trial with its mRNA influenza vaccine served to emphasize the need for a more comprehensive preventer of the still problematic-for-many seasonal bug – a space where Vir Biotechnology Inc. has been busy and is slated to report closely watched phase II data from the study called Peninsula in late spring or early summer of this year.
The U.S. FDA’s green light April 17 for Abbvie Inc. to expand the label of Qulipta (atogepant) – the first and only oral calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist for migraine, with language that includes prevention of such headaches chronically in adults – provided a welcome addition to the arsenal, but sufferers are still waiting for an improved remedy. Vaxxinity Inc. just might have it. And with a vaccine, no less.
While the pandemic is nearing its end, Chinese officials are calling for the development of novel, multivalent COVID-19 vaccines as an essential task moving forward.
While the pandemic is nearing its end, Chinese officials are calling for the development of novel, multivalent COVID-19 vaccines as an essential task moving forward. To date, China has 17 COVID-19 vaccine products that have completed or are in phase III trials, according to the NMPA.
The success of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) over the past 20 years is one of the biggest challenges in reaching its goal of eliminating HIV as a global public health threat by 2030, members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee were told as they moved toward reauthorizing the program for another five years.
With scientists yet to discover the specific antigen that confers protection from Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), there are currently no prophylactic vaccines available for the diseases it causes, the most well-known of which is infectious mononucleosis but which evidence suggests might also extend to immune disorders, multiple sclerosis and various cancers. This hasn’t stopped companies from trying, and one such player, EBViously Inc., is hedging its bets with a wider net, using as many proteins as possible to mimic the original viral pathogen and its complexity in a vaccine composed of non-infectious virus-like particles.
As investors await phase II/III data from Gritstone Bio Inc.’s closely watched trial with Granite, an individualized neoantigen vaccine for microsatellite-stable colorectal cancer, Wall Street was busy handicapping odds for firm’s new approach, given the struggles by personalized methods generally.
Final phase II data showing improved survival rates in cervical cancer is giving Nykode Therapeutics ASA even more confidence in taking vaccine candidate VB10.16 further into oncology. The company had been considering targeting head and neck cancer for months. Now, with these new data, it said it’s fully behind focusing on PD-L1 patients with up to one prior line of systemic therapy.
The latest U.S. FDA emergency use authorizations to fall by the wayside, as COVID-19 continues to evolve, are the ones for the first Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc.-Biontech SE’s mRNA vaccines.
Combining the personalized cancer vaccine mRNA-4157 (V-940, Moderna Inc.) with Keytruda (pembrolizumab, Merck & Co. Inc.) significantly extended recurrence-free survival in patients with stage III/IV resected high-risk melanoma in the randomized phase II KEYNOTE-942/mRNA-4157-P201 trial. Compared to Keytruda alone, adding the vaccine cut the risk of recurrence or death by 44% 18 months after treatment, lead investigator Jeffrey Weber reported at the opening clinical trials plenary of the 2023 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
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