U.S. government agencies announced that they purchased a total of 200 million additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA). The orders of 100 million doses from each of the only two FDA-authorized vaccines in the U.S. were made by the U.S. Health & Human Services Dept. (HHS) and the Defense Dept. (DoD). The U.S. has…

While estimates vary, achieving herd immunity against COVID-19 will likely require vaccinating at least 70% to 80% of the public, if not more. Some diseases, like measles, require a vaccination rate of 95%, according to the World Health Organization. Yet, many people in the U.S. public remains guarded about COVID-19 vaccines. Almost one out of three…

A Wisconsin pharmacist who allegedly spoiled 57 vials of Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA) pleaded guilty to two federal counts of consumer product tampering. Each vial contains 10 vaccine doses.  The pharmacist Steven Brandenburg, who recently had his license revoked, is accused of deliberately removing the vials from refrigeration for several hours before the vaccine was administered to 57 people. …

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) CEO Alex Gorsky said people may need COVID-19 vaccines annually, like flu shots, over the next several years. Speaking to CNBC, Gorsky cited the mutations and variants of the disease, several of which have already landed in the U.S., as the driving force behind differentiating capabilities of the vaccine to fight off…

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) is reportedly expecting to trim the time needed to produce COVID-19 vaccine batches to speed up production. The company, which along with BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX) developed one of two COVID-19 vaccines currently authorized in the U.S., is slated to cut the amount of time it takes to produce a batch of the vaccine from 110 days to…

Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) has announced that its chief financial officer Joshua Smiley has resigned. An independent investigation with external counsel discovered “consensual though inappropriate” communications between Smiley and a number of employees, according to a Lilly statement.  Lilly has installed a replacement, Anat Ashkenazi, who has worked at the company for almost 20 years. “We are…

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) announced today that it partnered with IDA Foundation to provide access to quality cancer treatments in developing countries. The supply agreement is slated to offer millions of patients access to innovative chemotherapy medicines for treating multiple types of cancer across 62 developing countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Western Pacific region, according…

Facebook announced today that it would delete unpaid posts with false vaccine information from its service. The move follows the company’s October decision to eliminate COVID-19 misinformation from its advertising programs. In December, the company went further, deleting posts with COVID-19 claims that government and health authorities had debunked. But Facebook had allowed some misinformation…

Merck KGaA (OTCMKTS:MKKGY) announced that it’s expanding its partnership with BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX) to supply lipids for the Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The agreement will accelerate the supply of lipids and increase the amount of lipid delivery toward the end of 2021 so they can be used as part of the drug delivery system of mRNA therapies…

Since the beginning of the pandemic, much of society has pinned its hopes on the availability of a vaccine. Now that several are available across the world, there is hope, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, in a recent JAMA interview. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel.”  One thing that…