The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced two major initiatives to shed light on long COVID, a condition affecting millions. First, the agency plans to establish the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice. HHS is also set to launch new long COVID-19 clinical trials through its RECOVER initiative. Jointly, the…

Pfizer has made a strategic decision in the battle against obesity and diabetes. The pharmaceutical giant has chosen to discontinue its GLP-1 RA candidate, lotiglipron, to focus resources on the development of another – danuglipron. This Pfizer weight loss drug is now the lead candidate in late-stage trials for the treatment of obesity and diabetes.…

Pharma companies are ramping up their reliance on AI in drug discovery, clinical trials and manufacturing. Bloomberg recently frame the technology as providing a $50 billion opportunity to the sector. GlobalData noted that the pandemic played a role in stoking interest in AI. But given the hype often surrounding the technology, it can be difficult…

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) is enrolling subjects in a study combining an investigational pneumococcal conjugate vaccine with a booster dose of its Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. At present, COVID-19 and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines are among Pfizer’s bestsellers. The company expects COVID-19 vaccines to pull in $26 billion this year. Last year, the company’s Prevnar 13 pneumococcal 13-valent conjugate…

Americans will start receiving Johnson & Johnson‘s COVID-19 vaccine within the next 24 to 48 hours, J&J CEO Alex Gorsky told NBC’s Today this morning. FDA issued an EUA for J&J’s Ad26.COV2-S vaccine on Feb. 27, a day after an advisory panel unanimously recommended that the agency authorize the vaccine for adults 18 and over.…

In the early days of the pandemic, hopes were high that a vaccine could return society to normalcy. But now that FDA has authorized two vaccines, much of the general public is waiting for them to become broadly available. Some 4.5% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated as of Feb. 17, according to…

The pandemic has amplified the pressure pharmaceutical companies face to improve operational performance while also forcing them to accelerate innovation, clinical trials and production. All of this requires employees to work as efficiently as possible. Technology is available to meet these needs while also helping pharma companies respond to new worker safety challenges. Within pharma…

India is allowing reserved emergency use of the AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) COVID-19 vaccine and another from the domestic firm Bharat Biotech.  The country is producing both vaccines internally. Serum Institute of India has a contract to manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine and has stockpiled between 40 and 50 million doses.  Covaxin, the vaccine from Bharat Biotech, was…

NIH has paused enrollment in three clinical trials for COVID-19 patients taking full doses of anticoagulants. The studies found that, for COVID-19 patients requiring intensive care unit support, anticoagulants did not reduce their need for organ support. Independent boards overseeing the trials could not rule out the potential for harm for such patients taking anticoagulants. …

Research groups throughout the world are considering whether the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) tuberculosis vaccine can effectively slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.  Earlier this month, a group of Russian researchers analyzed roughly 100 studies that charted the virus’s spread worldwide. Regions that used the BCG vaccine had a lower infection rate than areas that…