Included in President Joe Biden’s sprawling strategy document for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic are an array of plans intended to ramp up vaccination efforts. Also included are proposals for accelerating the development of therapies such as antiviral compounds effective against SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses with pandemic potential. The “full-scale, wartime” plans have considerable relevance for the…

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX) will supply up to 40 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine this year to COVAX, a global initiative to provide vaccine doses to developing countries.  The companies said today that they expect the first doses to ship out during Q1; the vaccine will go to COVAX at a not-for-profit price. The…

President Joe Biden has unveiled a series of anti-COVID-19 measures in his first full day in office, including signing an executive order instructing federal agencies to use the Defense Production Act (DPA) and other tools to speed the manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines and materials. In total, the president has signed 10 executive orders intended to…

Amazon (NSDQ:AMZN) issued a letter to recently inaugurated President Joe Biden offering assistance with COVID-19 vaccine distribution. President Biden, who was sworn into office yesterday, was addressed in the letter from Amazon announcing its availability to help with his intent to distribute 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office. The letter…

Manufacturers of vaccine supplies and personal protective equipment can expect more work as the new Biden administration rolls out its plans to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. In one of his first official acts as president, Joe Biden announced a plan to “fully use” the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of testing supplies, masks,…

One of the chief objectives of various drug pricing reform efforts in recent years has been reducing Medicare costs for patients and the federal government.   Last year, CMS highlighted reductions in prices for insulin and other drugs covered under the Medicare prescription drug benefit (Medicare Part D). But it is more likely that Medicare drug prices for…

The perpetrators of a cyberattack against the European Medicines Agency found and later released data regarding the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX).  But the cybercriminals altered the data in a manner that could undermine trust in vaccines, according to a statement from the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The disclosed documents included internal emails from late 2020 that contained…

Last week, President-elect Joe Biden vowed to release COVID-19 vaccine doses from a government stockpile.  On Jan. 13, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) echoed that sentiment, stating it would “no longer stockpile millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses held to ensure Americans receive their second shot,” according to a brief notice.  But federal…

President-elect Joe Biden today announced that Dr. David Kessler, who led FDA through much of the 1990s, will serve as chief science officer of his administration’s COVID-19 response. Kessler’s achievements at FDA included speeding the approval of drugs to reduce the AIDS death toll. He’ll now be helping to lead efforts to speed authorization and…

President-elect Joe Biden has announced a proposal for a $1.9 trillion economic rescue package that includes $415 billion to fight the pandemic, including boosting COVID-19 vaccine deployment. Of that latter total, some $20 billion would be invested in a national vaccination program to establish community vaccination centers across the country, including mobile vaccination units in…