COVID-19

Operation Warp Speed’s seal was a combination of ’70s design, au courant clip art, and 18^th Century militarism, but just like the oddly assembled organization that it represented, the thing worked.

Uwe Schoenbeck, CSO of external science and innovation at Pfizer, knows the company set itself a high bar during the COVID-19 pandemic after rapidly bringing a breakthrough vaccine to market. While the circumstances for the development of Comirnaty were truly unique, Pfizer does not expect to rest on its laurels when it comes to innovative R&D.

Following a busy year for point of care diagnostics, the industry is facing a period of consolidation. The drive for new technologies is being countered by regulatory and financial issues.

Through an ever-growing number of partnerships, grants and investments in the health care sector, Microsoft is taking a lead from behind approach to improve and expand interoperability, increase data security and analytics, and provide partners with tools, technology, and a platform for growth.

Vietnam’s pharma market has seen constant growth over the last decade, driven by rising incomes and an aging population. Spending on drugs is expected to rise by more than 10% in 2021.

A potential decline in mRNA vaccine protection against the Delta variant is raising questions about the need for booster shots in the US. Ocugen Inc. and partner Bharat Biotech hope the changing dynamic of COVID-19 in the US will induce the FDA to reconsider additional clinical trial requirements for Covaxin, an inactivated whole virus vaccine authorized for emergency use in 16 countries. 

Royal Philips’ image-guided therapy business has rebounded, as expected, after the COVID-19 dip, and is now targeting expansion in a number of areas, as business leader Bert van Meurs explains. 

As the global access debate adapts to the stark inequities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool is emerging as a key player on issues ranging from vaccine tech transfer to making more drugs affordable against the spread of non-communicable diseases like cancer to middle- and low-income countries.

More COVID-19 vaccines are beginning to flow into Africa, as coordination between partner organizations and African governmental agencies improves. However, gaps remain in cold chain storage, information flow on the ground is lagging and vaccine hesitancy persists. Also, pandemic-related economic depression in some African countries is jeopardizing procurement and access to vaccines. 

With COVID-19 a residual but still very real issue globally, Novo Holdings asked the big diagnostics question at a recent high-level roundtable: How can stakeholders capitalize on this moment of acute public awareness of diagnostics to improve adoption of tests and screening in the long term? The CEOs of Roche Diagnostics, GE Healthcare, Labcorp and Synlab, among others, gave their thoughts on how the system must change.

Maintaining the positive changes that health care delivery underwent at the height of COVID-19 has been the talk of the health care industries, but will commercial organizations retain their enthusiasm once the pressures of the pandemic abate?

The divide between developed and developing countries for access to health care innovations has been spotlighted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Civil society groups pile on the pressure.

Concern looms in many countries as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise due to the delta variant. Vaccines are having a positive effect, but what is the outlook for those still vulnerable to the virus after inoculation? Not everyone will respond to vaccinations in the same way.

Shaped by Brexit, driven by COVID, squeezed by budgets and being engineered for the future, it seems that almost every element within UK health delivery and market access is undergoing change. How should the medtech industry prepare, and will there be implications beyond the UK?

Legal experts discuss the intricacies around pharma’s demand for indemnity, a key sticking point for supplies of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, and the path forward for countries like India.

Powered by prominent global health philanthropies and the UK’s world-class collaborative capabilities in disease surveillance, the new International COVID-19 Data Alliance (ICODA) is gearing up to address a crucial – and yet unanswered – policy question for public health:  can sharing data curated from a diversity of sources provide the hard evidence needed to improve patient outcomes against the virus – not just for today’s pandemic, but for future ones as well? Much will depend on a robust response from big pharma.