Covid-19 news - the latest biotech news from Labiotech.eu

Seven pharma companies form alliance to prepare for future pandemics

Jim Cornall — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 14:00:00 +0000

Seven pharmaceutical companies have established the INTREPID Alliance with the goal of accelerating progress in discovery and development of new antiviral treatments for future pandemics. The seven companies are AbbVie, Amgen, Gilead, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Roche and Takeda. The INTREPID alliance creation is in support of the 100 Days Mission, which seeks to have […]

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Unleashing the potential: Optimizing mRNA for the discovery of transformative medicines

External Contributor — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 09:34:05 +0000

By Dr. Alexander Zehnder, CEO, CureVac The success of mRNA vaccines in COVID-19 propelled the role of this new modality to the forefront of medicine. Not only are new prophylactic mRNA vaccines for various respiratory diseases advancing through clinical development, but mRNA medicines are now being developed in many wide-ranging applications, including cancer and rare […]

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Five innovations to take RNA vaccines to the next level

External Contributor — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 09:07:59 +0000

By Venkata Indurthi, PhD, chief scientific officer, Aldevron During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world turned to a previously unused vaccine technology to rapidly develop desperately needed vaccines, providing immunity to millions worldwide. These new vaccines made use of the body’s natural translational machinery, which turns mRNA encoding the SARS-Cov2 spike protein into an antigen that […]

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Key regulator of COVID viral receptor may be new drug target

Jim Cornall — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 08:45:00 +0000

Entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into human tissues depends on the activity of a host gene that regulates production of a key viral receptor, according to a study published in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Madison Strine and Craig Wilen of Yale University, U.S., and colleagues. The finding provides important new information on […]

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Industry responds to UK science strategy launch

Jim Cornall — Thu, 18 May 2023 09:45:00 +0000

The UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) has launched a 10-year science strategy, setting out how science can save more lives and contribute to the U.K.’s ambition of being a global science superpower. The strategy sets out how the UKHSA scientific capabilities – including genomics, vaccine evaluation, surveillance, data science, diagnostics and toxicology – will be […]

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Global partners announce The Big Catch-up vaccination effort

Jim Cornall — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 10:22:08 +0000

WHO, UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with Immunization Agenda 2030 and many other global and national health partners, are joining forces to call for “The Big Catch-up,” a targeted global effort to boost vaccination among children following declines driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, […]

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Can mRNA vaccines tackle multiple diseases?

External Contributor — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 10:04:01 +0000

By Dr. Myriam Mendila, chief development officer of CureVac World Immunization Week is April 24-30, and it’s an important week to highlight the action needed and to promote the use of vaccines to protect people around the world, of all ages, against infectious diseases. World Immunization Week aims to promote the use of vaccines to […]

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How to address declining vaccination rates in older adults

External Contributor — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 09:14:00 +0000

By Philip Dormitzer, global head of vaccines research and development, GSK The vaccines landscape has changed greatly over the last few years in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. New technologies have been applied at scale, innovative vaccine programs rolled out, and supply chains rearranged to help tackle global health challenges. But, while innovation has improved […]

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Can artificial intelligence predict future pandemics?

Jim Cornall — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 08:29:06 +0000

Before the first cases of COVID-19 became known, an algorithm based on artificial intelligence developed by a company in Canada had already detected a new virus spreading across the Chinese city of Wuhan. This demonstration of the potential of new technologies applied to predicting future epidemics led a group of researchers at the Universitat Oberta […]

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How Vaccine Platforms Can Prepare Us for Future Pandemics

Sachin Rawat — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 14:52:24 +0000

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the weaknesses in our defenses. Vaccine platforms will be powerful tools for reacting faster to future pandemics. Multiple COVID-19 vaccines became available across the world to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, signaling a historic moment for vaccine development due to the speed at which they were created. And with scientists believing that […]

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mRNA vaccines: a promising future

Roohi Mariam Peter — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 15:18:54 +0000

In 1978, nearly two decades after the discovery of messenger RNA (mRNA), the concept of a vaccine made from mRNA was materialized. Like its name suggests, mRNAs are messengers that aid in decoding genetic information from DNA to synthesize proteins, a key cellular function. Previous attempts at developing a vaccine using mRNA failed because mRNA […]

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InflaRx receives emergency use authorization for critically ill COVID-19 patients treatment

Jim Cornall — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 13:27:12 +0000

InflaRx N.V., a German company developing anti-inflammatory therapeutics by targeting the complement system, has announced that Gohibic (vilobelimab) has been granted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized adults. Vilobelimab is a first-in-class monoclonal anti-human complement factor C5a antibody that acts on […]

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Etana secures funding for oncology pipeline

Jim Cornall — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 11:15:00 +0000

PT Etana Biotechnologies Indonesia (Etana), an Indonesian biopharmaceutical company, has secured a new round of investment led by DEG followed by Yunfeng Capital, HighLight Capital and East Ventures. The round of financing will be used for further strengthening PT Etana Biotechnologies’ pipeline and portfolio especially in oncology. Currently, PT Etana Biotechnologies focuses on local biopharmaceutical production […]

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SpyBiotech receives more than $4 million to develop vaccine platform

Roohi Mariam Peter — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 16:00:54 +0000

UK-based SpyBiotech has received a grant of more than $4 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to build its SpyVector platform for the development of a cross-protective coronavirus vaccine. The platform, which is based on recombinant adenovirus – a viral vector which can induce cellular immunity – enables a covalent decoration with the […]

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New therapy for prevention and treatment of COVID-19

Jim Cornall — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 17:15:00 +0000

ExeVir Bio, and its scientific founders at Belgium’s VIB, Flanders’ leading life sciences institute, have published a pre-print paper by De Cae et al., entitled “Ultrapotent SARS coronavirus-neutralizing single-domain antibodies that bind a conserved membrane-proximal epitope of the spike.” Nearly all SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies used in the clinic show substantial loss of potency against the […]

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Scancell looking to partner after positive COVID vaccine data

Jim Cornall — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 12:13:24 +0000

Scancell Holdings plc, which develops novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and infectious disease, has announced preliminary immunogenicity data from its phase 1 COVIDITY clinical trial at the University of Cape Town (UCT) Lung Institute in South Africa. The objectives of the trial were to assess the safety and immunogenicity of two vaccine candidates, […]

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Foundation for the National Institutes of Health: partnering to tackle cancer

Jim Cornall — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 10:10:30 +0000

The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) takes on cancer through public-private research partnerships on prevention and early diagnosis. Dr Stacey Adam is associate vice president for research partnerships at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. In her role, she leads the cancer research partnership programs. Adam is a molecular pharmacologist/cancer […]

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Watch: pHion Therapeutics talks about next-generation mRNA vaccines

Jim Cornall — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 11:28:34 +0000

pHion Therapeutics is a U.K.-based vaccine development company. It is developing a pipeline of therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines focussed on viral infections and oncology. The company’s proprietary RALA platform can deliver anionic molecules, such as mRNA and DNA, in a stealth-like way, evading detection, to generate a potent antigen-specific CD8+ T-cell response. The RALA peptide-based […]

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Innovation in life sciences requires collaboration and community

External Contributor — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:15:07 +0000

By Claudia Tripp and Katie Nelson, Kadans Science Partner Collaboration has underpinned some of the most impactful innovations of recent years. For example, the rapid development of the COVID vaccine was only made possible due to collaboration. Pfizer’s rapidly-established partnership with BioNTech delivered the first vaccine at lightning speed. Having established an ecosystem approach to […]

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Ascletis phase I COVID trial progressing

Jim Cornall — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 10:14:57 +0000

Ascletis Pharma Inc. has announced the dosing of four healthy subjects in its multiple-dose escalation phase I clinical trial of oral 3-chymotrypsin like protease (3CLpro) inhibitor ASC11 in combination with 100 mg ritonavir tablets for COVID-19. The phase I clinical trial is expected to enroll 72 healthy subjects, including 60 subjects in single-dose escalation cohorts […]

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