Two months before the outbreak, Moderna CMO Tal Zaks traveled from Cambridge, MA to Washington DC to meet with Anthony Fauci and the leaders of the National Institutes of Health.

For two years, Moderna had worked closely with NIH researchers to build a new kind of vaccine for MERS, one of the deadliest new viruses to emerge in the 21st century. The program was one test for a new technology designed to be faster, cheaper and more precise than the ways vaccines had been made for over a century. They had gathered evidence the technology could work in principle, and Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a longtime advocate for better epidemic preparedness, wanted to see if it, along with a couple of other approaches, could work in a worst-case scenario: A pandemic.

“[We were] trying to find a test case for how to demonstrate if our technology could rapidly prepare,” Zaks told Endpoints News.

Zaks and Fauci, of course, wouldn’t have to wait to develop a new test. By year’s end, an outbreak in China would short circuit the need for one and throw them into 24/7 work on a real-world emergency. They also weren’t the only ones with new technology who saw a chance to help in a crisis.

An ocean away, Lidia Oostvogels was still on vacation and relaxing at her mother’s house in Belgium when her Facebook started changing. It was days after Christmas and on most people’s feeds, the news that China had reported a novel virus to the World Health Organization blurred into the stream of holiday sweaters and fir trees. But on Oostvogels’s feed, full of vaccine researchers and virus experts, speculation boiled: There was a virus in China, something contained to the country, but “exotic,” “weird,” and maybe having to do with animals. Maybe a coronavirus.

Lidia Oostvogels

“I was immediately thinking like, ‘Hey, this is something that if needed, we can play a role,'” Oostvogels told Endpoints.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 86,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SUBSCRIBE SIGN IN

Another big IL-6 drug has failed to move the needle for Covid-19 patients, leaving that particular field of repurposed drug R&D on the ropes for the pandemic.

This morning it was Roche’s turn to outline a Phase III failure for Actemra, adding compelling data that have now all but extinguished the theory that an IL-6 drug could significantly help the most severely afflicted patients. That comes just weeks after Regeneron and Sanofi hit the red light on their trial for Kevzara after getting back-to-back readouts that made Roche’s trial a long shot at best.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 86,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SUBSCRIBE SIGN IN

Amid recent scrutiny on how Moderna’s top executives have been cashing out their increasingly valuable shares, the biotech is parting ways with a board member who’s also heading a hospital where its Covid-19 vaccine is being tested.

Elizabeth Nabel — the president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital — has followed in Moncef Slaoui’s footsteps in resigning from Moderna’s board of directors. She took the role in 2015, two years before the Operation Warp Speed leader did; and as with Slaoui and MIT professor Robert Langer, her term was due to expire in 2021.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 86,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SUBSCRIBE SIGN IN

Two years ago, after Pfizer abruptly shut down its entire neuroscience division, Bain Capital bet $350 million that those assets were still worth something and packaged them into a new biotech: Cerevel Therapeutics. A year later, they got seasoned executive Tony Coles, who had recently jumped back into the C-suite of another neuroscience startup, to run the company.

Now Coles is steering Cerevel public, in what he says is the largest ever transaction of its kind. Cerevel has agreed to merge with Perceptive Advisors’ specialty acquisition company ARYA II. Between the roughly $125 million Perceptive raised through ARYA and an additional investment of $320 million Bain Capital, Perceptive and — yes, really — Pfizer, among others, Cerevel will now move forward with an added $445 million in its coffers.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 86,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SUBSCRIBE SIGN IN

When Alexion $ALXN put down $930 million in cash last fall to buy Achillion, the biotech’s top execs were particularly proud of 2 clinical-stage assets, with a spotlight on the lead drug danicopan (ACH-4471) in Phase II. That drug, along with a companion therapy in Phase I, fit right in their R&D wheelhouse, noted CEO Ludwig Hantson.

But now the lead drug, redubbed ALXN2040, is being washed out and repositioned after failing 2 Phase II trials for C3 Glomerulopathy.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 86,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SUBSCRIBE SIGN IN

Deep into the pandemic, the executives at Roche are executing an unusual plan to lay off nearly 500 workers at South San Francisco-based Genentech.

The huge Roche subsidiary handed in their WARN notice to the state a few days ago, noting that 474 staffers were being permanently cut from the payroll.

A spokesperson for the company told me via e-mail:

The majority of these roles are from our field organization and, though formally associated with our South San Francisco headquarters, are actually located throughout the United States. These position eliminations are not related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the clinical trials for which Actemra is being studied in COVID-19 pneumonia, or any specific therapeutic area.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 86,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SUBSCRIBE SIGN IN

Sanofi swept away a lineup of drug and vaccine programs in its Q2 update, starting with a late-stage vaccine play with Daiichi Sankyo and running right through setbacks on their CD38 drug, the anti-inflammatory Kevzara, as well as a troubled alliance with Denali on ALS.

Gone is a longstanding Phase III development program with Daiichi Sankyo for a pediatric pentavalent vaccine in Japan, though there’s no word on what prompted the pullback.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 86,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SUBSCRIBE SIGN IN

On the heels of landing the largest Warp Speed contract to date, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline continued to make moves Friday afternoon.

The two companies announced they are in advanced discussions with the EU to supply up to 300 million doses of their Covid-19 vaccine candidate, coming just a few hours after securing their $2.1 billion deal with the US. Should the agreement be finalized, all EU member states will have the option to purchase the vaccine.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 86,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SUBSCRIBE SIGN IN