Novartis jumps into Covid-19 vaccine hunt, as Big Pharma and big biotech commit to billions of doses
Jason Mast
Associate Editor
After spending most of the pandemic on the sidelines, Novartis is offering its aid in the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.
AveXis, the Swiss pharma’s gene therapy subsidiary, has agreed to manufacture the vaccine being developed by Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Massachusetts General Hospital. The biotech will begin manufacturing this month, while the vaccine undergoes further preclinical testing. They’ve agreed to provide the vaccine for free for clinical trials beginning in the second half of 2020, but have not disclosed financials for after.
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Donald and Melania Trump watch the smoke of fireworks from the South Lawn of the White House on July 4, 2020 (via Getty)
Which drug developers offer Trump a quick, game-changing ‘solution’ as the pandemic roars back? Eli Lilly and AbCellera look to break out of the pack
John Carroll
Editor & Founder
We are unleashing our nation’s scientific brilliance and will likely have a therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year.
— Donald Trump, July 4
Next week administration officials plan to promote a new study they say shows promising results on therapeutics, the officials said. They wouldn’t describe the study in any further detail because, they said, its disclosure would be “market-moving.”
— NBC News, July 3
Something’s cooking. And it’s not just July 4 leftovers involving stale buns and uneaten hot dogs.
Over the long weekend observers picked up signs that the focus in the Trump administration may swiftly shift from the bright spotlight on vaccines being promised this fall, around the time of the election, to include drugs that could possibly keep patients out of the hospital and take the political sting out of the soaring Covid-19 numbers causing embarrassment in states that swiftly reopened — as Trump cheered along.
So far, Gilead has been the chief beneficiary of the drive on drugs, swiftly offering enough early data to get remdesivir an emergency authorization and into the hands of the US government. But their drug, while helpful in cutting stays, is known for a limited, modest effect. And that won’t tamp down on the hurricane of criticism that’s been tearing at the White House, and buffeting the president’s most stalwart core defenders as the economy suffers.
We’ve had positive early-stage vaccine data, most recently from Pfizer and BioNTech, playing catchup on an mRNA race led by Moderna — where every little sign of potential trouble is magnified into a lethal threat, just as every advance excites a frenzy of support. But that race still has months to play out, with more Phase I data due ahead of the mid-stage numbers looming ahead. A vaccine may not be available in large enough quantities until well into 2021, which is still wildly ambitious.
So what about a drug solution?
Trump’s initial support for a panacea focused on hydroxychloroquine. But that fizzled in the face of data underscoring its ineffectiveness — killing trials that aren’t likely to be restarted because of a recent population-based study offering some support. And there are a number of existing drugs being repurposed to see how they help hospitalized patients.
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Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk gestures to the audience after being recognized by President Trump following the successful launch of a Falcon 9 rocket at the Kennedy Space Center. (via Getty Images)
Tesla chief Elon Musk teams up with Covid-19 player CureVac to build 'RNA microfactories'
John Carroll
Editor & Founder
Elon Musk has joined the global tech crusade now underway to revolutionize vaccine manufacturing — now aimed at delivering billions of doses of a new mRNA vaccine to fight Covid-19. And he’s cutting right to the front.
In a late-night tweet Wednesday, the Tesla chief announced:
Tesla, as a side project, is building RNA microfactories for CureVac & possibly others.
That’s not a lot to go on. But the tweet comes a year after Tesla’s German division in Grohmann and CureVac filed a patent on a “bioreactor for RNA in vitro transcription, a method for RNA in vitro transcription, a module for transcribing DNA into RNA and an automated apparatus for RNA manufacturing.” CureVac, in the meantime, has discussed a variety of plans to build microfactories that can speed up the whole process for a global supply chain.
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UPDATED: Regeneron co-founder George Yancopoulos offers a combative defense of the police at a high school commencement. It didn’t go well
John Carroll
Editor & Founder
Typically, the commencement speech at Yorktown Central School District in Westchester — like most high schools — is an opportunity to encourage students to face the future with confidence and hope. Regeneron president and co-founder George Yancopoulos, though, went a different route.
In a fiery speech, the outspoken billionaire defended the police against the “prejudice and bias against law enforcement” that has erupted around the country in street protests from coast to coast. And for many who attended the commencement, Yancopoulos struck the wrong note at the wrong time, especially when he combatively challenged someone for interrupting his speech with a honk for “another act of cowardness.”
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Elias Zerhouni discusses ‘amateur hour’ in DC, the destruction of infectious disease R&D and how we need to prep for the next time
John Carroll
Editor & Founder
Elias Zerhouni favors blunt talk, and in a recent discussion with NPR, the ex-Sanofi R&D and ex-NIH chief had some tough points to make regarding the pandemic response.
Rather than interpret them, I thought it would be best to provide snippets straight from the interview.
On the Trump administration response:
It was basically amateur hour. There is no central concept of operations for preparedness, for pandemics, period. This administration doesn’t want to or has no concept of what it takes to protect the American people and the world because it is codependent. You can’t close your borders and say, “OK, we’re going to be safe.” You’re not going to be able to do that in this world. So it’s a lack of vision, basically just a lack of understanding, of what it takes to protect the American people.
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Second death triggers hold on Astellas' $3B gene therapy biotech's lead program, raising fresh concerns about AAV
John Carroll
Editor & Founder
Seven months after Astellas shelled out $3 billion to acquire the gene therapy player Audentes, the biotech company’s lead program has been put on hold following the death of 2 patients taking a high dose of their treatment. And there was another serious adverse event recorded in the study as well, with a total of 3 “older” patients in the study affected.
The incidents are derailing plans to file for a near-term approval, which had been expected right about now.
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Pfizer shares surge on positive impact of their mRNA Covid-19 vaccine — partnered with BioNTech — in an early-stage study
John Carroll
Editor & Founder
Pfizer and their partners at the mRNA specialist BioNTech have published the first glimpse of biomarker data from an early-stage study spotlighting the “robust immunogenicity” triggered by their Covid-19 vaccine, which is one of the leaders in the race to vanquish the global pandemic.
Researchers selected 45 healthy volunteers 18-55 years of age for the study. They were randomized to receive 2 doses, separated by 21 days, of 10 µg, 30 µg, or 100 µg of BNT162b1, “a lipid nanoparticle-formulated, nucleoside-modified, mRNA vaccine that encodes trimerized SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein RBD.” Their responses were compared against the effect of a natural, presumably protective defense offered by a regular infection.
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Covid-19 roundup: Vaccines will need to beat placebo by 50% to qualify for FDA OK; UK trial drops Kaletra
Amber Tong
Editor
The FDA will set the bar for approving a Covid-19 vaccine at 50% efficacy, the Wall Street Journalreported, meaning any successful candidate will have to reduce the risk of coronavirus disease by at least half compared to placebo.
That requirement is part of guidance that the agency is set to release later today, laying out detailed criteria for vaccine developers — some of whom are eyeing an OK by the end of the year, in line with expectations at Operation Warp Speed.
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Covid-19 has roiled clinical trial plans around the world, raising concerns over the industry’s future on new drug approvals
John Carroll
Editor & Founder
Over the past 4 months, a group of analysts at GlobalData tracked 322 biopharma companies — biotechs, pharmas, CROs and such — reporting on the trouble Covid-19 has caused for their clinical development plans.
Slightly more than half — 179 — are US operations, with about 1 in 4 scattered throughout Europe and in Canada. And the disruptions are clustered around mid-stage development, though a hefty number of late-stage derailments may well blunt the stream of approvals down the road.
An experienced biotech is stitched together from transpacific parts, with 265 staffers and a focus on ‘new biology’
John Carroll
Editor & Founder
Over the past few years, different teams at a pair of US-based biotechs and in labs in Japan have labored to piece together a group of cancer drug programs, sharing a single corporate umbrella with research colleagues in Japan. But now their far-flung operations have been knit together into a single unit, creating a pipeline with 10 cancer drug development programs — going from early-stage right into Phase III — and a host of discovery projects managed by a collective staff of some 265 people.
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