President Joe Biden on May 12 commemorated the death of 1 million people in the United States from COVID-19, marking what he called “a tragic milestone” and urging Americans to “remain vigilant” amid the ongoing pandemic.

Direct Biologics, a regenerative biotechnology company with a groundbreaking extracellular vesicle (EV) platform technology, announced that the FDA cleared the company to proceed with a Phase 3 clinical trial using the investigational EV drug ExoFlo to treat Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) due to Covid-19. 

FDA

The U.S. health regulator granted emergency use authorization for Abbott Laboratories’ molecular test to detect and distinguish the coronavirus and two types of flu viruses with a single test.

Clover Biopharmaceuticals raised a $230 million series C round co-led by GL Ventures and Temasek, which will push the Chinese fusion protein company’s Covid-19 vaccine into Phase II/III testing and production planning.

German biotech firm CureVac enrolled the first participant for a Phase 2b/3 clinical trial of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate.

Auris Medical shares skyrocketed after the announcement of lab test results that appeared to show the company’s nasal spray AM-301 could potentially protect users against Covid-19, according to Business Insider.

The Covid-19-causing coronavirus is mutating while spreading around the world in the pandemic, but none of the mutations currently documented appears to be making the SARS-CoV-2 virus able to spread more rapidly, scientists said.

Genentech’s influenza treatment Xofluza (baloxavir marboxil) was granted approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in people 12 years and older, making it the first single-dose post-exposure prophylaxis strategy approved by the regulatory agency.

People who have had Covid-19 are highly unlikely to contract the disease again for at least six months after their first infection, according to a British study of healthcare workers on the frontline of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

After months of urging the public to wear masks and facial coverings to help stop infected people from spreading Covid-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated in newly released guidance that masks also protected the mask wearer from being infected.