Although 2020 was a tough year for the biopharma industry — and most other industries as well — it appeared to rebound significantly in mid-2021. However, biotech stocks are generally getting hammered during 2022, although to be fair, the entire stock market is down.
Although people who recover from COVID-19 usually gain some immune defenses against reinfection, they get additional protection from vaccines, especially against severe disease, according to two studies published on March 31 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Additionally, two gold-standard trials published in The New England Journal of Medicine on March 30 help settle questions about two controversial therapies touted by many early in the pandemic with decidedly mixed results – failure for the antiparasite drug ivermectin and success for antibody-rich blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors.
The World Health Organization updated its guidelines for COVID-19 treatments against the use of convalescent plasma for all cases of infection.
Another study is adding to a growing body of literature that suggests convalescent plasma from recovered patients with Covid-19 does not prevent further Covid-19 progression in at-risk people who visit the emergency room.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted a trial of convalescent blood plasma in the treatment of patients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 symptoms as it was unlikely to benefit this group.
A study published in JAMA suggests that treatment with vitamin C, in addition to thiamine and hydrocortisone, does not improve treatment outcomes in hospitalized patients with sepsis.
The new Covid-19 variant identified in South Africa can evade the antibodies that attack it in treatments using blood plasma from previously recovered patients, and may reduce the efficacy of the current line of vaccines, according to scientists.
A study showed the use of convalescent plasma provided no clinical benefit nor improved mortality in Covid-19 patients with pneumonia.
Using blood plasma from Covid-19 survivors to treat patients with severe pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus showed little benefit, according to data released from a clinical trial in Argentina.
The U.S. government will start distributing Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s newly authorized Covid-19 antibody combination on Nov. 24, beginning with more than 30,000 treatment courses, a health official said.
