The NIH-led study that gave the world the first positive, randomized remdesivir result has come back with a second one, showing that, when combined with remdesivir, an Eli Lilly molecule can slightly improve on time to recovery over remdesivir alone.

The ACTT-2 trial, a follow-up that began after the remdesivir section was completed, enrolled over 1,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients and found that those given the antiviral remdesivir plus the Eli Lilly JAK inhibitor baricitinib recovered a median of “approximately one day” sooner than those given remdesivir alone. Similar to the IL-6 inhibitors from Regeneron and Roche — which failed in Phase III trials — baricitinib was designed to tamp down the overactive immune response seen in the later stages of Covid-19.

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Six days after an abrupt and startling halt of their late-stage study of the Oxford vaccine for Covid-19, AstraZeneca is back in business. And we also learned on Saturday that Pfizer and BioNTech are boosting the size of their fast-running Phase III, with plans to add 14,000 people to the study to provide a more diverse group to test.

AstraZeneca put out a statement Saturday that UK regulators had offered a green light to start dosing again after concluding that it was safe for volunteers to take it. But the multinational player is not offering any detailed information about the severe adverse event that stopped the study, triggering headlines around the globe.

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Moderna was the first company to put a vaccine candidate into humans, but for much of the pandemic it was AstraZeneca and their academic partners at Oxford University putting out the most aggressive timelines. They signed deals with the UK promising to supply doses as early as September and Sarah Gilbert, the vaccine’s academic architect, talked, albeit cautiously, about getting efficacy data by that time.

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Anthony Fauci is doubling down on the message that a vaccine authorization by November 3 is “unlikely,” even if not impossible, joining a growing chorus of government officials who are going against ultra-optimistic timelines from certain developers.

Echoing Moncef Slaoui — the scientific chief of Operation Warp Speed — who sees a low chance of the ongoing Phase III trials reading out before the end of October, Fauci told Judy Woodruff on PBS NewsHour that data that can offer a definitive answer on the leading vaccines’ safety and efficacy are more likely to arrive “by the end of the year.”

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When the pandemic started up earlier this year, quite a few pharma execs felt it was the perfect opportunity to mend fences with the American people — which had developed a largely contemptuous view of drug makers. Nothing symbolized the industry’s public relations predicament better than the Gallup poll last September, which had pharma bumped to the very bottom of a long list of industries ranked by the public’s opinion.

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