The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a considerable amount of testing innovation, including more extensive use of saliva as a medium for detection of pathogens. The U.S. FDA has announced an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Yale School of Public Health for the Salivadirect testing protocol that requires no extraction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s RNA, a feature that Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir said is “yet another testing innovation game changer that will reduce demand for scarce testing resources.”

LONDON – A large scale population study has shown that home self-testing with low-cost lateral flow diagnostics is a valid way of tracking the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 105,651 people across the U.K. tested themselves for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies with a fingerprick blood test as part of the REACT (REaltime Assessment of Community Transmission) study.

Chinese state-backed vaccine developer China National Biotec Group (CNBG), of Beijing, published an interim analysis of randomized phase I/II trials of its inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week.

According to an analysis conducted by BioWorld of the second-quarter 2020 financial reports filed by 120 public biopharmaceutical companies with market caps greater than $1 billion, and excluding big pharma companies, the amount that was invested in research and development during the period increased by 14% compared to the same six-month period last year.