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Our monthly round up of key biopharma business stories from across Springer Nature’s portfolio of journals, including the latest on COVID-19 vaccines and a focus on oncology.
Raveena obtained her bachelor's degree in biochemistry from the University of Leeds, UK. She has worked in the biopharma industry for more than 15 years, focusing on dealmaking, partnering and licensing throughout. In her first role, Raveena started as an editorial assistant, moving on to become content editor, specifically involved with conducting partner searches to identify both products/technologies and partners for pharmaceutical clients. She then worked for a biopharma reports publisher, editing and writing dealmaking-focused reports. In 2015 Raveena became the editor of Biopharma Dealmakers.
On 29 January, Johnson and Johnson (J&J) announced that its vaccine was 66% effective overall in protecting against moderate to severe COVID-19, 28 days after trial participants received a single shot. Could this be the first one-shot vaccine to be approved?
Vaccine makers in India and China are investigating whether their recently approved COVID-19 vaccines are effective against a fast-spreading variant of SARS-CoV-2, following similar investigations by the makers of other leading vaccines.
The era of RNA vaccines has arrived—and dozens of companies are getting in the game. But future applications of the technology will run up against some challenges.
In June 2020 international funders undertook to buy enough COVID vaccines to immunize the 20% of people most vulnerable to the virus worldwide. But the project, a pioneering effort called COVAX, is struggling to meet expectations.
Busy phone lines, long queues and crashing websites are hampering attempts by many of the most vulnerable people in the US to get vaccinated, highlighting racial and economic inequalities.
In the absence of face-to-face meetings, both the FDA and industry implemented regulatory workarounds to maintain drug and biologics approvals. These could be here to stay.
