Sev­en­teen months af­ter spin­ning out of Ox­ford, Vac­citech has lined up some big part­ners to help start the world’s first big hu­man study of a uni­ver­sal flu vac­cine.

The Na­tion­al In­sti­tute for Health Re­search is kick­ing this off by re­cruit­ing 500 pa­tients over the age of 65, the most vul­ner­a­ble group dur­ing every flu sea­son.

Every year, sea­son­al flu vac­cine man­u­fac­tur­ers gear up to cre­ate vac­cines that tar­get the pro­teins that lie on the sur­face of flu cells, look­ing to kick up an im­mune re­sponse against it. But they’re slap­ping a puck that has to hit a mov­ing tar­get that’s still months away from de­clar­ing it­self — a tough job that of­ten miss­es its mark.

The uni­ver­sal flu vac­cine, which for years now has been a Holy Grail of re­search in the field, will try and do the work by tar­get­ing un­chang­ing el­e­ments of the flu virus, mak­ing it far more ef­fec­tive. By go­ing af­ter core pro­teins, in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve they can arouse flu-spe­cif­ic T cells, as op­posed to an­ti­bod­ies, ei­ther stop­ping the flu or dulling its im­pact.

That’s the the­o­ry, in any case. And it could prove a life­saver for the hun­dreds of thou­sands of se­niors fac­ing the flu every year.

While this is be­ing billed as the first big hu­man study, much larg­er stud­ies would be need­ed ahead of any ap­proval, which is still years away — at best.

GSK, newly branded and soon-to-be demerged, shared interim results from its Phase II trial on its chronic hepatitis B treatment, one that it says has the “potential to lead to a functional cure.”

At a presentation at the EASL International Liver Congress, GSK shared that in around 450 patients who received its hep B drug bepirovirsen for 24 weeks, just under 30% had hepatitis B surface antigen and viral DNA levels that were too low to detect.

Sometimes, being late can give you an advantage.

That’s what Sanofi and GSK are trying to say as the Big Pharma partners report positive results from a late-stage trial of their next-gen bivalent Covid-19 vaccine, which was designed to protect against both the original strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Beta variant. Specifically, against Omicron, they note, the vaccine delivered 72% efficacy in all adults and 93.2% in those previously infected.

Despite whispers of a busy year for M&A, deal activity in the pharma space is actually down 30% on a semi-annualized basis, according to PwC’s latest report on deal activity. But don’t rule out larger deals in the second half of the year, the consultants said.

PwC pharmaceutical and life sciences consulting solutions leader Glenn Hunzinger expects to see Big Pharma companies picking up earlier stage companies to try and fill pipeline gaps ahead of a slew of big patent cliffs. Though a bear market continues to maul the biotech sector, Hunzinger said recent deals indicate that pharma companies are still paying above current trading prices.

Following the Supreme Court’s historic decision on Friday to overturn Americans’ constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years, Attorney General Merrick Garland sought to somewhat reassure women that states will not be able to ban the prescription drug sometimes used for abortions.

Following the decision, the New England Journal of Medicine also published an editorial strongly condemning the reversal, saying it “serves American families poorly, putting their health, safety, finances, and futures at risk.”