California court rules that company made misleading and potentially harmful statements in hundreds of thousands of ads
A California appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that Johnson & Johnson must pay penalties to the state for deceptively marketing pelvic mesh implants for women.
Johnson & Johnson had appealed in 2020 after superior court judge Eddie Sturgeon assessed the $344m in penalties against the US pharmaceutical company’s subsidiary, Ethicon.
Continue reading...GlaxoSmithKline’s £1.5bn Sierra Oncology deal comes after pressure from Elliott to boost its pipeline
The UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline has agreed a £1.5bn deal to buy a US cancer treatment developer, Sierra Oncology, as it tries to fend off pressure from the activist shareholder Elliott Management.
The deal will give Britain’s second-largest pharmaceutical company access to California-based Sierra Oncology’s momelotinib, a drug being tested on anaemic patients with a type of bone marrow cancer called myelofibrosis. GSK said the drug had “significant growth potential” and it expected sales to start next year, with one analyst predicting it could generate peak annual sales of about $1.7bn (£1.3bn).
Continue reading...Museum is latest institution to distance itself from family accused of profiting from US opioids crisis
The British Museum has become the latest cultural organisation to remove the Sackler family name from galleries and rooms they have supported.
George Osborne, the museum’s chair, announced the move on Twitter, saying: “We’re moving into a new era, presenting our great collection in different ways for new audiences.”
Continue reading...The move would allow for cheaper generic versions to be manufactured and distributed among developing nations faster
Global powers have inched closer to an agreement to waive patents for Covid-19 vaccines, a move that would allow for cheaper generic versions to be manufactured and distributed among developing nations faster.
A leaked document, seen by the Guardian, reveals details of a compromise struck between the United States, the European Union, India and South Africa that would end a deadlock over an intellectual property waiver, 18 months after the proposal was first taken to the World Trade Organization.
Continue reading...Pair join Gordon Brown and 126 others in attack on ‘self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality’
Prince Harry and Meghan, the actor Charlize Theron and the former British prime minister Gordon Brown are among 130 signatories to a letter lambasting wealthy countries’ approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, labelling it “immoral, entirely self-defeating and also an ethical, economic and epidemiological failure”.
In a strongly worded open letter published on Friday, the signatories warned “the pandemic is not over”, and said the failure to vaccinate the world was down to “self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality”.
Continue reading...Members of Sackler family would contribute sum over 18 years under latest proposal
Members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, are willing to kick in more money – up to $6bn in total – to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids as the company tries to work out a deal with state attorneys general who torpedoed an earlier settlement.
The offer was detailed in a report filed on Friday in US bankruptcy court by a federal mediator who asked the court to let her have until the end of the month to broker a new settlement.
Continue reading...Pharmaceutical pollution poses ‘global threat to human and environmental health’, major study finds
Humanity’s drugs have polluted rivers across the entire world and pose “a global threat to environmental and human health”, according to the most comprehensive study to date.
Pharmaceuticals and other biologically active compounds used by humans are known to harm wildlife and antibiotics in the environment drive up the risk of resistance to the drugs, one of the greatest threats to humanity.
Continue reading...Drugmaker’s total revenues increased by 41% last year with help from $4bn Covid jab income
AstraZeneca forecast higher 2022 sales and lifted its annual dividend for the first time in a decade after record revenues last year, but warned the boost from its Covid-19 products would decline.
The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker said it made almost $4bn (£2.9bn) last year from the Covid jab it developed with Oxford University. It moved away from its not-for-profit pricing in November, when it signed new contracts in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. The shot, called Vaxzevria, has not yet been approved by the US regulator.
Continue reading...Finding the right medicine at the right price was once a lottery – now the crowdsourcing service I set up is bringing down the cost of illness
In July 2015, as my 82-year-old grandmother, Sophie Mafuku, lay dying of a terminal illness in Zimbabwe, I spent a day speaking to fellow pharmacists as I tried to fill her morphine prescription. If it takes 24 hours for the grandmother of a well-connected medical professional to access scarce drugs, I thought, how long is it taking people with no connections? It set me off on a journey.
In Zimbabwe, systemic shortages are common. Sometimes, only a handful of pharmacies have particular drugs in stock. The shortages are caused by well-documented economic challenges, which affect Zimbabwe’s capacity to manufacture or import medicines.
Continue reading...Scientists warn Boris Johnson that failure means new Covid variants will put thousands of lives at risk across UK
Boris Johnson has been accused of taking a reckless approach to public health by lifting all plan B Covid restrictions in England while failing to take enough action to get jabs to 3 billion unvaccinated people in poorer countries.
The prime minister has robustly defended his record on the pandemic this week while awaiting the findings of the Sue Gray report on the “partygate” scandal, insisting he “got the big calls right” on the biggest global health crisis in a century.
Continue reading...Exclusive: QuantBioRes says it designs treatments for viral diseases based on electromagnetic frequency
A Danish “biotech” company in which Novak Djokovic holds a majority stake is working on a “frequency” treatment for Covid-19 that an expert says bears similarities to the principles of homeopathy.
The world No 1 men’s tennis player was forced to leave Australia on Sunday after the country’s immigration minister cancelled his visa on the basis that his presence in Australia might risk “civil unrest” as he is a “talisman of anti-vaccination sentiment”.
Continue reading...Combined vaccine should be ready in time for winter infectious season in 2023, says drug firm’s chief executive
Moderna is aiming to launch a single booster vaccination that will protect against both Covid-19 and flu within two years, its chief executive has said.
Stéphane Bancel said that the combined vaccine – which will protect against Covid-19, influenza and RSV, a common respiratory virus – could be available before the winter infectious season in 2023.
Continue reading...Alliance Healthcare took delivery on 24 December and then closed for four days, amid nationwide shortage
The sole distributor of Covid lateral flow tests (LFTs) to pharmacies closed for four days over the Christmas period just as it received a delivery of 2.5m devices, it has emerged.
Alliance Healthcare took delivery of the tests on Christmas Eve and then shut, the Times reported. It provides LFTs to pharmacies to give out to the public.
Continue reading...Paxlovid and molnupiravir were authorized by the US FDA last week, but supplies of Paxlovid are limited while molnupiravir is less effective than hoped
An effective and widely available treatment for Covid would be a significant breakthrough for managing the pandemic, but two antivirals recently authorized in the US come with some significant caveats, including low supply and use only among those at high risk for severe illness and death.
Paxlovid from Pfizer and molnupiravir from Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics were authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week. The pills could be a game-changer for the most vulnerable, because they can be taken at home twice a day for five days to prevent hospitalization and death. For those considered at high risk of serious illness, Paxlovid was found to be 89% effective when taken within the first three days of symptoms and 88% effective in the first five days.
Continue reading...German city where early Covid vaccine was developed uses its new-found wealth to slash debt and attract other biotech firms
The Pfizer/BioNTech jab is having an unexpected side-effect on the German municipality where scientists first developed it: for the first time in three decades the city of Mainz expects to become debt-free thanks to the tax revenues generated by the company’s global success.
Mainz’s decision to use its financial windfall to also slash corporate tax rates in the hope of attracting industry, especially biotech companies, however, is drawing criticism from neighbouring cities and economists.
Continue reading...The approval comes as reports of shortages in monoclonal antibody treatment arise and cases spike
People at greater risk of becoming seriously ill from Covid-19 will likely have more treatment options in January.
That’s the forecast in the wake of the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval this week of the first two antiviral pills used to treat Covid-19 and reports of shortages of a monoclonal antibody treatment used against the Omicron variant.
Continue reading...Pharmaceuticals firm says third dose of its Covid vaccine increases antibodies against variant by 37-fold
The pharmaceuticals company Moderna has said a booster dose of its Covid vaccine appeared to protect against the fast-spreading Omicron variant in laboratory testing and that the current version will continue to beits “first line of defence against Omicron”.
The decision to focus on the current vaccine, mRNA-1273, was driven in part by how quickly the variant is spreading. The company plans to develop a vaccine specifically to protect against Omicron, which it hopes to advance into clinical trials early next year.
Continue reading...Analysis: scientists are only starting to understand new Covid mutation but there is encouraging news from the laboratory, South Africa and on antiviral drugs
It’s hard to find much good news among the waves of grim statistics that have washed over the nation since the emergence of Omicron.
Once again, the NHS is threatened and again, the prospect of a new year lockdown looms. We seem to have gained nothing in the battle against Covid-19 during the past 12 months.
Continue reading...Early trials show jab effective in people of all ages who have already received doses of any vaccine
Efforts by the British and French drugmakers GSK and Sanofi Pasteur to produce a Covid-19 vaccine have suffered a further setback, with final clinical data on the jab and a potential launch delayed until next year as they struggle to find enough uninfected people to test it on.
The two vaccine specialists announced positive preliminary results from a trial that showed the vaccine raised antibody levels against Covid by nine to 43 times when given as a single booster shot in people who had already received doses of AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, for all age groups.
Continue reading...Focus on the exciting potential of T-cell immunity is spurring the sector on to create a new generation of jabs
The speed at which scientists worked to develop the first Covid jabs was unprecedented. Just nine months after the UK went into lockdown, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan officially became the first person in the world outside a trial to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. But the virus is mutating, and the emergence of the Omicron variant last month is already focusing attention on the next generation of jabs.
So what do we know about the new Covid-19 vaccines? One change is with delivery mechanisms, such as San Francisco firm Vaxart’s vaccine-in-a-pill, and Scancell’s spring-powered injectors that pierce the skin without a needle. But the biggest development is in T-cell technology. Produced by the bone marrow, T-cells are white blood cells that form a key part of the immune system. While current vaccines mainly generate antibodies that stick to the virus and stop it infecting the body, the new vaccines prime T-cells to find and destroy infected cells, thus preventing viral replication and disease. (The current vaccines also produce a T-cell response, but to a lesser extent.)
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