LONDON – The SARS-CoV-2 variant first detected in India last year has joined those from the U.K., South Africa and Brazil as a “variant of global concern,” the World Health Organization said on May 10.

LONDON – Abingworth announced the final closing of its latest fund at $582 million, bringing the amount committed to the London-based venture capital firm in 2021 to more than $1 billion. The clinical co-development fund 2 will finance and manage late-stage development of phase III programs sourced from pharma and biotech companies, receiving a pre-negotiated fee when a drug is approved. The model obviously has appeal, with the new fund being significantly oversubscribed and exceeding its target of $350 million.

The European Commission posted a draft legislative framework for regulation of artificial intelligence, a document that spans all potential uses of such algorithms rather than just medical ones.

LONDON – A single dose of Pfizer Inc./Biontech SE’s COVID-19 vaccine does not promote a strong enough immune response to provide protection against variants of SARS-CoV-2, including the Kent variant B.1.1.7, which as of April 29 had caused 226,635 confirmed infections in the U.K.

LONDON – The latest tranche of data from an array of large-scale COVID-19 studies running in the U.K. provides real-world evidence that vaccines have a dramatic effect in preventing hospitalization and death, but that there are a very small number of vaccine failures. The data cover 3,842 people who received a vaccine and subsequently were admitted to the hospital between Dec. 8, 2020, when the national vaccination rollout began, and the data cutoff of April 10, 2021.

Astrazeneca plc’s saga of its COVID-19 vaccine continued this week with the European Commission (EC) deciding to begin legal action against the Cambridge, U.K.-based company, claiming it has failed to deliver doses in line with its contract.

DUBLIN – The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has reiterated its support for Astrazeneca plc’s Vaxzervia COVID-19 vaccine, following an interim analysis of a data review, which the agency’s Committee on Human Medicinal Products (CHMP) has conducted over the past two weeks.

LONDON – A large scale U.K. study looking at the impact of COVID-19 vaccinations on antibody responses and new infections in 373,402 people in the general population has shown a single dose of vaccine cut infections by 65%. Symptomatic infections fell by 74% and infections with no reported symptoms by 57%, 21 days after receiving the first dose of either Astrazeneca plc’s or Pfizer Inc./Biontech SE’s vaccine.

Versant Ventures has closed three new funds with an aggregate raise of $950 million to allocate to the next wave of innovative startups across North America and Europe. The money is new, but everything else is more or less unchanged. “It’s the same strategy, same team, same geography, same operational model,” Versant chairman and managing director Brad Bolzon told BioWorld.