Negotiations on boosting the World Health Organization’s budget to help it prepare for future pandemics made mixed progress last week, with Washington withdrawing criticism but other donors voicing opposition, sources involved in the talks told Reuters.

Moderna Inc. plans to develop and begin testing vaccines targeting 15 of the world’s most worrisome pathogens by 2025 and will permanently waive the company’s COVID-19 vaccine patents for shots intended for certain low-income and middle-income countries.

South San Francisco-based Cortexyme Inc. received a letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on January 25 placing a full clinical hold on the Investigational New Drug application for the company’s lead clinical asset atuzaginstat, which is in development for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Since the 1800s, scientists have pushed governments to overhaul water supply systems for cleaner, safer water to stop the outbreak of waterborne pathogens. Now, researchers are calling for a similar “paradigm shift” in indoor ventilation systems to combat Covid-19 and other airborne pathogens.

GlaxoSmithKline and Germany-based CureVac forged a strategic collaboration worth nearly $1 billion to develop up to five messenger RNA-based vaccines and monoclonal antibodies targeting infectious disease pathogens.

The chief executive of AstraZeneca, which is developing a leading coronavirus vaccine with Oxford University, said it is too early to deliberately expose trial participants to the pathogen, but it may become an option if ongoing tests hit a snag.

As some U.S. states look to start reopening their coronavirus-battered economies amid protests from supporters of President Donald Trump anxious to get back to work, hardest hit New York state began mandating the wearing of masks or face coverings in public to contain the pathogen’s spread.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is partnering with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. to develop a treatment for the coronavirus, making the drugmaker the latest to join the race to develop a therapy.

Shionogi & Co. Ltd. announced results from APEKS-NP, an international, double-blind, randomized Phase III clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of the investigational antibiotic cefiderocol in patients with nosocomial pneumonia (NP).