NEW DELHI – If India’s government has its way, the country could launch a vaccine for COVID-19 in mid-August, an extremely short deadline that has caused controversy and pushed companies to speed up their development and the trials of prospective vaccines.
Six months to the day that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a public health emergency, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with its hideous red spikes, continues to taunt the world, hopping from host to host and haunting humans, many of whom wonder the same thing: What’s next?
Unraveling the eagerly awaited data from Genocea Biosciences Inc.’s phase I/IIa study with neoantigen cancer vaccine GEN-009 turned out less than simple, and the rollout of results – characterized by the company as positive, albeit early – were followed by a haircut for shares (NASDAQ:GNCA), which closed at $3.45, down $1.52, or 31%.
As Pfizer Inc. and Biontech SE start their massive phase II/III safety and efficacy trial evaluating a single nucleoside-modified messenger RNA candidate from their BNT-162-based vaccine program against SARS-CoV-2, smaller, privately held Codagenix Inc. plans a different approach.
The U.S. government will pay $1.95 billion to Pfizer Inc. and Biontech SE for the first 100 million doses of their jointly developed mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine once Pfizer manufactures it and receives the FDA’s approval or emergency use authorization. The two companies agreed, as part of Operation Warp Speed, to begin delivering 300 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in 2021.
LONDON – There were encouraging results from trials of three COVID-19 vaccines on July 20, with Astrazeneca plc, Biontech SE/Pfizer Inc. and Cansino Biologics Inc. all reporting T-cell responses in ongoing phase I/II studies of their respective products.
A safe, effective COVID-19 vaccine may be available by the end of the year or early next year, as will the supplies needed to deliver and administer hundreds of millions of doses. That’s the message five biopharma executives delivered to a House subcommittee July 21 as they updated U.S. lawmakers on the progress their companies are making on the vaccine front.
LONDON – There were encouraging results from trials of three COVID-19 vaccines on July 20, with Astrazeneca plc, Biontech SE/Pfizer Inc. and Cansino Biologics Inc. all reporting T-cell responses in ongoing phase I/II studies of their respective products.
LONDON – Glaxosmithkline plc (GSK) is putting £130 million (US$164.3 million) into one of the leading COVID-19 vaccines developers, Curevac AG, acquiring a 10% stake, and will also invest £104 million cash up front to fund research and development of the company’s mRNA vaccines.
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