Meissa Vaccines’ intranasal live attenuated chimeric virus-based vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 (and its variants), which was cleared for Phase I trials, employs codon deoptimization to evoke a stronger-than-usual immune response.

Kaleido Biosciences said on March 24 the company’s experimental oral treatment cut recovery time as well as hospitalizations and emergency room visits in patients with mild to moderate Covid-19, in an early trial.

Newly announced findings from a Phase III trial conducted by CytoDyn indicate that the use of the late-stage biotechnology company’s CCR5 antagonist candidate Vyrologix (leronlimab) was safe and improved the survival rate in critically ill hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019.

FDA

Drugmakers should test any Covid-19 vaccines that have been retooled to combat new variants of the coronavirus in clinical trials designed to track the immune response of hundreds of subjects, which could take months, U.S. regulators said on Feb. 22.

After months of touting its efficacy to the western world, the efficacy of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine was validated in a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet.

Much of the attention on Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca has been on their Covid-19 vaccine efforts, and here is a look at what else is going on with these companies.

Merck is stopping development of the company’s two Covid-19 vaccine candidates, dubbed V590 and V591, after poor responses in Phase I trials.

The microscopic organisms living in our intestines may influence the severity of Covid-19 and the body’s immune response to it, and could account for lingering symptoms, researchers reported.

Surface Oncology agreed to grant exclusive worldwide licensing rights to GlaxoSmithKline for the development and commercialization of the Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech company’s SRF813, a fully human IgG1 antibody and immunotherapy designed to treat cancer.

Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate has a better immune response when a two full-dose regime is used rather than a full-dose followed by a half-dose booster, the university said, citing data from early trials.