JEK
Senior Insider
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another working week. We hope the weekend respite was somehow relaxing and refreshing, despite the challenging developments outside your window. Nonetheless, the world keeps spinning, so we are busy reviewing our to-do list and readying ourselves for another busy day. To cope, we have fired up the coffee kettle and are brewing a cup of stimulation — salted caramel mocha is the choice today — and invite you to join us. Meanwhile, here are some tidbits. Hope your day goes well, and do stay in touch. ...
Merck (MRK) will stop developing both formulations of the Covid-19 vaccines the company was working on, citing inadequate immune responses to the shots, STAT writes. The company had adopted a different strategy from rivals by using a more traditional approach of focusing on shots based on weakened viruses. Work will continue on at least one of the vaccines, which is being developed in partnership with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, to see if using a different route of administration would improve effectiveness.
Moderna (MRNA) is accelerating work on a Covid-19 booster shot to guard against the recently discovered variant in South Africa, CNBC tells us. The company says its current vaccine appears to work against the two highly transmissible strains found in the U.K. and South Africa, although it looks like it may be less effective against the latter. The two-dose vaccine produced an antibody response against multiple variants, including B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, which were first identified in the U.K. and South Africa, respectively.
A press release from a Canadian research group raised hopes that treating people recently diagnosed with Covid-19 with colchicine, a drug commonly used to treat gout, could reduce the risk they will need to be hospitalized, STATwrites. But outside experts say the data provided were too limited to draw conclusions, leading to discussions of the risks of conducting science via press release, instead of in more detailed manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals.
Top Biden administration health officials expressed concern about limited vaccine supplies but offered measured optimism that the worse-than-expected rollout would be improved, while warning that the current crunch for doses posed a pressing threat, Politico notes. “I think that the supply is probably going to be the most limiting constraint early on, and we’re really hoping that after that first hundred days we will have much more production,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky told “Fox News Sunday.”
AstraZeneca (AZN) told European Union officials on Friday it would cut deliveries of its Covid-19 vaccine to the bloc by 60% to 31 million doses in the first quarter of the year due to production problems, Reuters reports. The company was expected to deliver to the 27 EU countries about 80 million doses by the end of March, and had also agreed to deliver more than 80 million doses in the second quarter. On Friday, though, the drug maker was unable to indicate delivery targets for the April-June period due to the production issues.
In response, European Council President Charles Michel said pharmaceutical companies will have to respect contracts they have signed for the supply of Covid-19 vaccines, France24 reports. He did not mention possible sanctions but maintained the EU would insist on transparency about the reasons for the delays. Michel also noted that, after it was first warned about supply delays of several weeks, the EU had managed to reduce these delays by taking a tough stance.
