Chronic disease patients are facing serious risks both from keeping away from necessary care settings, as well as from potential COVID-19 infection. One in five chronic disease patients was already starting to avoid seeking care in physician’s offices and hospitals, according to a survey that started early last week of a panel of 1,300 chronic disease patients across several indications.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has posted new legislation that would bolster antitrust enforcement and deter anticompetitive behavior in the private sector, but the bill faces considerable opposition. Glenn Lammi of the Washington Legal Foundation told BioWorld that the legislation would blunt investment in the life sciences due to provisions that would make the possession of a patent an indication of legally actionable anticompetitive behavior.

“We look forward to the day where we can get back to normal,” U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday at a COVID-19 news conference in which reporters sat every-other-seat apart. In an unusually somber tone, the president said it now looks like it will be at least July or August before the outbreak “washes through.”

The past week has seen a lot of movement in terms of tests to detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. “It is notable that the diagnostics community is coming together in a way we have not seen in our 20 years covering this industry,” wrote William Blair analyst Brian Weinstein in a March 14 note. “Regulators, lab professionals, and manufacturers are all in a frenetic fury to try and get testing up and running, and we generally see a sense of ‘in it together’ playing out.”

The U.S. effort to deploy diagnostics for the novel coronavirus has been plagued by missteps by the CDC and the FDA from the outset, leading to delays and missed opportunities. The Trump administration declared a national emergency March 13, but concerns remain about how quickly the array of available tests can be conducted and whether there are enough testing supplies to handle the anticipated demand.

The circuit breakers activated almost immediately when the markets opened this morning as the Dow plummeted, with investors moving into cash and away from equities. Clearly, they were not impressed with the Federal Reserve’s decision to slash its benchmark interest rate to nearly 0% to help combat the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.

Undetected cases were a major driver of the early spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China, despite being less infectious on a case-by-case basis, according to a modeling study published in the March 16, 2020, online issue of Science.

Mallinckrodt plc is engaging with the U.S. FDA, NIH and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to address the potential use of its INOmax (nitric oxide) inhaled gas to treat COVID-19-associated lung complications. INOmax is marketed in the U.S. by the Staines-upon-Thames, U.K.-based company to treat full- and near-term neonates with hypoxic respiratory failure associated with pulmonary hypertension.

Another volatile day of trading in health care stocks unfolded March 13, after a trebling of broader market carnage the day before and the declaration of a national emergency by U.S. President Donald Trump Friday afternoon. Substantial declines hit shares of Moderna Inc., Vaxart Inc. and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc., all of which had recently rallied on optimism over coronavirus-fighting efforts. Biopharma shares saw some recovery, with both the S&P 500 Health Care Sector and Nasdaq biotechnology indices each rising a bit more than 2% each before Friday's close.

As the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus continues to spread around the globe, companies are scrambling to develop effective diagnostics and vaccines to contain the outbreak and reduce future threats. Among those is Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Plymouth Meeting, Pa., which has been awarded a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to speed testing and scale of smart delivery device for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.