Novavax Inc. said the company’s coronavirus vaccine was 89.3% effective in preventing Covid-19 in a trial conducted in the United Kingdom, and was nearly as effective in protecting against the more highly contagious variant first discovered in the UK, according to a preliminary analysis.
Moderna started development on a booster to the company’s Covid-19 vaccine, which is hoped to work against the recently discovered (and more transmissible) SARS-CoV-2 variant from South Africa.
Moderna believes the company’s Covid-19 vaccine protects against new variants found in Britain and South Africa, although it will test a new booster shot aimed at the South Africa variant after concluding that the antibody response could be diminished.
Merck KGaA’s drug development program suffered a setback with the company’s most important experimental medicine as the cancer treatment bintrafusp alfa, being jointly developed by GlaxoSmithKline, failed early in a lead trial.
A small trial of Eli Lilly’s donanemab showed the experimental Alzheimer’s drug slowed by about a third the rate of decline in a combined measure of cognition and function in patients at an early stage of the mind-wasting disease.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. expects to start a late-stage U.S. study of the company’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine candidate in the second quarter of 2021, the drug developer’s chief executive officer said.
Shares of Aprea Therapeutics plunged after the Boston-based company announced a late-stage cancer combination treatment failed to meet the primary endpoint of complete remission rate.
The U.S. Justice Department sued Walmart Inc., accusing the world’s largest retailer of fueling the opioid crisis in the United States, ignoring warning signs from the company’s pharmacists and filling thousands of invalid prescriptions.
France’s Servier bolstered its presence in oncology with the acquisition of the clinical and research-stage oncology business of Agios Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth up to $2 billion.
Countries across the globe shut their borders to Britain on Dec. 21 due to fears about a highly infectious new coronavirus strain, causing travel chaos and raising the prospect of food shortages days before Britain is set to leave the European Union.