The coronavirus research field may be dominated by vaccines from the likes of Oxford University/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech, but a lot of interesting work is being done elsewhere by smaller academic and commercial projects looking at the potential of various novel antibody therapies against COVID-19. 

"There's a lot of hope and hype still in the microbiome sphere," Ferring's president Per Falk tells Scrip, but the rewards could be considerable for companies that can deliver well-documented safety and efficacy data and do not take try to take shortcuts.

AbbVie’s latest, largest acquisition may be cast in a new light as the pandemic throws stock markets into turmoil and commercial prospects up in the air.

After a trial failure in 2016, four rival companies could produce pivotal data this year