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COVID Vaccine to Be Offered to Vulnerable Babies and Children in U.K.
Children aged between six months and four years old who are deemed clinically vulnerable will be offered two doses of a COVID vaccine, public health bodies in the U.K. have announced.
The move, revealed by the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA) after approval by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI), comes after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was approved for children of this age by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in December. Children who are not clinically vulnerable are not included in the U.K.-wide offer.
According to NHS England, the vaccines will begin to be offered to those eligible in England from mid-June. The body has advised that parents should wait to be contacted before coming forward.
UKHSA added that more than 1 million children aged six months to four years in the U.S. had received at least one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine since June.
Gardasil Cervical Cancer Lawsuit Claims Merck Falsely Represented HPV Vaccine’s Effectiveness
A Utah woman has filed a product liability lawsuit over cervical cancer diagnosed after a Gardasil vaccine, indicating the manufacturer over-promoted the safety and effectiveness of the widely used HPV vaccine. The complaint was filed by Caroline Grace Cantera in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on March 16, presenting claims against Merck & Co. as the defendant.
Cantera indicates that she was 19 years old when she received the first of three Gardasil injections in December 2016. After her second injection, in March 2018, a Pap test showed she had no signs of cervical cancer. However, after the third injection in April 2018, Cantera began suffering fatigue, severe stomach pains, anxiety and weakness throughout her body.
After first thinking it was stress, she sought medical help after her period lasted for more than four weeks and was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer. As a result of the Gardasil cervical cancer diagnosis, Cantera underwent multiple biopsies, CT scans, MRIs, chemotherapy, three brachytherapy treatments and 30 radiation treatments.
The lawsuit alleges Merck intentionally falsely advertised and overstated the safety and effectiveness of the HPV vaccine, which failed to prevent, and potentially caused, Cantera to develop advanced-stage cervical cancer.
Moderna’s CEO Bancel Suggests That Lower Demand for the COVID Vaccine Is a Justification for Quadrupling of the Price
Last month, during a Senate hearing in which Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel testified regarding the quadrupling in the list price of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, he cited lower consumer demand as one of several reasons for the need to raise the price. To an economist like myself, but also to the general public that’s an extraordinarily odd justification. Higher prices don’t reflect lower demand. Rather, they’re a function of a sub-optimal market.
Throughout the pandemic, the federal government has provided Americans with COVID-19 tests, vaccines and treatments free of charge, but this will soon change. On May 11, the U.S. public health emergency for COVID-19 will end. The Biden Administration says it’s “transitioning” COVID-19-related costs to public and private markets, including health insurers and pharmacies.
Late last year, the White House COVID-19 Response Team Coordinator Ashish Jha said his “hope is that in 2023, you’re going to see the commercialization of almost all of these products.” Of course, this does beg the question, aren’t all these products being commercialized now?
Commercialization is simply the process of doing something principally for financial gain. Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are definitely in this to make a profit, even when the federal government is the main purchaser.
Johnson & Johnson Shares Rise After Company Proposes Baby Powder Cancer Settlement
Johnson & Johnson shares on Wednesday climbed after the company proposed paying $8.9 billion to settle thousands of claims that its baby powder and other talc products caused cancer.
More than 60,000 claimants have committed to support the proposed resolution, which would require approval in bankruptcy court, the company announced in a securities filing late Tuesday.
J&J’s stock closed nearly 4.5% higher Wednesday. The company’s market value stands at more than $430 billion.
The pharmaceutical giant also said its subsidiary LTL Management refiled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after its first attempt faced legal challenges. The subsidiary is shouldering tens of thousands of talc lawsuits in a bid to reduce J&J’s losses from litigation and settlement.
Pfizer Moves on up to the West Side, Establishing New Nerve Center at Hudson Yards’ Spiral Skyscraper
From medication to meditation, Pfizer’s new West Side Manhattan headquarters is a ritzy real-estate ode to its workers.
For more than sixty years, Pfizer has operated out of a revamped revolutionary-era building near Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal and the U.N. And now, Pfizer is pulling back the curtain on its new home base at The Spiral in New York City’s Hudson Yards. Pfizer first telegraphed the move almost five years ago to the day and began welcoming roughly 2,500 staffers to the swanky new digs last December.
Pfizer’s move into the new headquarters “marks the beginning of an exciting and important chapter for Pfizer,” CEO Albert Bourla said in the press release. It comes as the long-time New York resident has expanded its business exponentially thanks to COVID-19 products.
Pfizer has been using the COVID windfall to grow in other areas through mergers and acquisitions. These include the $5.4 billion purchase of rare blood disorder drug developer Global Blood Therapeutics and the $11.6 billion buyout of Biohaven for its migraine portfolio. And Pfizer is beefing up in oncology, shelling out $43 billion to take over antibody-drug conjugate specialist Seagen.
The ‘King Kong’ of Weight-Loss Drugs Is Coming
The Wall Street Journal reported:
People who are overweight are flocking to the drug Ozempic to slim down. Looming is an even more powerful weight-loss treatment. The drug Mounjaro helped a typical person with obesity who weighed 230 pounds lose up to 50 pounds during a test period of nearly 17 months.
No anti-obesity drug has ever safely made such a difference. In the coming months, it is widely expected to get the go-ahead from U.S. health regulators to be prescribed for losing weight and keeping it off, and some patients are already using it unapproved for that purpose.
The advance of Mounjaro, which is already on the market to treat Type 2 diabetes, has excited doctors and patients who have been waiting decades for effective treatments, while helping turn its maker, Eli Lilly & Co., into the most valuable standalone pharmaceutical company in the U.S. with a market value of more than $300 billion.
Mounjaro could be one of the highest-selling drugs of all time with annual sales exceeding $25 billion. Novo’s Ozempic and Wegovy brought in close to $10 billion last year, with prescriptions rapidly growing.
Tampa Bay’s Redfish Are Contaminated With Pharmaceuticals, Study Shows
Over a four-day period last summer, Dustin Pack set out into Tampa Bay in search of one of the most coveted fish species in Florida.
He was fishing for science. Pack was recruited to hook redfish for a new statewide study, released this week, which examined the species’ blood for 94 commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals. With Pack’s help, a researcher at Florida International University caught 15 redfish around Tampa Bay, in areas ranging from the northern Hillsborough Bay to the bay’s southern mouth at Emerson Point.
Now the results are public: All 15 fish in Tampa Bay had drugs in their blood. Specifically, every redfish had a heart medicine called Tambocor in its system, according to the study published in partnership with the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, a Miami-based conservation organization. The pharmaceutical is prescribed to treat irregular heartbeats.
Across the nine Florida estuaries examined for the study, Tampa Bay and Apalachicola had the highest number of pharmaceutical detections, according to the research. Redfish throughout Florida have an average of two different drugs in their blood. In Tampa Bay, that number is three.
GSK Will Have to Pay Additional Royalties to AstraZeneca on Cancer Drug Zejula
When Emma Walmsley took over as CEO at GSK in 2017, one of her first moves was to beef up the company’s oncology portfolio with a $5.1 billion acquisition of cancer specialist Tesaro and its newly approved drug Zejula.
The ovarian cancer treatment generated 463 million pounds sterling ($571 million) in 2022, representing a 17% increase from the previous year. So far, so good, right?
Well, not exactly. After losing a patent case in court Wednesday, GSK will have to surrender a portion of its sales of Zejula to Tesaro’s partner on the drug, AstraZeneca.
An AstraZeneca spokesperson said the company was “pleased” with the decision. GSK plans to look at “next steps,” a spokesperson told Reuters.
