Derek Lowe's commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry. An editorially independent blog from the publishers of Science Translational Medicine. All content is Derek’s own, and he does not in any way speak for his employer.
The announcement by the Biden administration about waiving IP rights to the coronavirus vaccines obviously calls for some comment. Keep in mind that I have been doing research in the pharma industry for over 30 years now, so my viewpoint is obviously going to be affected by that, for better and for worse. With that… Read More
I’ve been getting a lot of questions in the last few days about several Spike-protein-related (and vaccine-related) topics, so I thought this would be a good time to go into them. There’s been a recent report about the vascular effects of the Spike protein alone (not coronavirus infection per se), and another presentation on similar… Read More
In the last post, I mentioned the Twitter response to the Brazilian rejection of the Gamaleya vaccine. I believe that the official blue-check-marked “Sputnik V” Twitter account is run by the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the sovereign-wealth part of the Russian state that is in charge of rolling out the vaccine to different countries. Read More
We have two pieces of news about the Gamaleya Institute’s “Sputnik-V” vaccine today. Neither of them are going to be enjoyable to go into. First off, many may have heard that the Brazilian regulatory authorities had a hearing yesterday to see if this vaccine would be approved for use there. They have turned it down… Read More
Lots of work going on today, so let me just send the readership to this excellent article about Novavax, by Jason Mast at Endpoints. That vaccine has moved into even more prominence lately with the recent adenovirus vaccine events, and it seems clear that it could be a big part of getting the world vaccinated. Read More
One of the ways in which this pandemic will be looked back on as a pivot point will (almost certainly) be in the use of mRNA vaccines. It seems clear at this point that these have come through spectacularly against the coronavirus: every new study of their effects in the broad population just adds to… Read More
I last wrote about the small-molecule antiviral molnupiravir here, and we finally have more information from Merck and Ridgeback about its effects in clinical trials. An interim analysis of the Phase II data from trials in both outpatients and in hospitalized coronavirus patients has been completed, and the news is. . .mixed. In the outpatient… Read More
So what’s the side effect that caused the J&J vaccine pause? Blood clotting – but not the usual kind. This appears to be the same (or very similar) to the problem seem with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe, and both are very similar to a known syndrome called heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. That involves unusual binding to… Read More
Next up on the vaccine news front are some concerns about efficacy. In a very surprising statement, Gao Fu (the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention) said at a conference in Chengdu over the weekend that that the protection figures of the Chinese vaccines are “not high”. He called for research… Read More
Update: the FDA has now paused use of the J&J vaccine due to 6 incidents of what appears to be VITT. We have a lot of vaccine news to catch up on! First up is the latest on the possible clotting side effects seen with Oxford/AstraZeneca. This is looking more and more likely to be… Read More
