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Moderna Curbing Investments in Vaccine Trials Due to US Backlash, CEO Tells Bloomberg TV
Moderna does not plan to invest in new late-stage vaccine trials because of growing opposition to immunizations from U.S. officials, CEO Stephane Bancel said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday. Shares of the vaccine maker jumped 10.16% in morning trading.
“You cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the U.S. market,” Bancel told Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Bancel said regulatory delays and little support from the authorities make the market size “much smaller.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time vaccine skeptic, has moved rapidly to rewrite U.S. vaccination policy, including dropping recommendations for COVID-19 shots for pregnant women and children, directing states to limits their vaccine mandates and cutting funding for mRNA-based vaccine research.
GLP-1 Drugs Brought Our Eating Disorders Back — and Quitting the Shots Doesn’t Always Help
“Ed” was back — and this time, he was in the driver’s seat. The familiar voice telling Jenn Nourse not to eat had started growing louder after decades of lingering quietly in the back of her mind, a reminder of the eating disorder she’d battled as a teen. “I’d flirted with my symptoms on and off throughout my life,” she told The Post. “But I didn’t have a full-blown relapse until I started taking GLP-1s.”
The rise of weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy has been nothing short of meteoric, with millions turning to the injections to shed pounds and improve their health. But beneath the dramatic before-and-after photos is a darker reality for some users.
Six health care providers across the country told The Post they’ve treated patients whose long-dormant eating disorders resurfaced while on the drugs — as well as others who developed new struggles with food and body image.
Scientists Warn of Deadlier-Than-Cancer Harm ‘No One at Davos’ Acknowledges
Warnings that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) could become a deadlier global threat than cancer were issued at Davos this week, with experts cautioning that the world is heading toward a preventable crisis that is not getting the attention it needs. Speaking at the Frontiers Science House, Vanina Laurent Ledru, chief public health and government affairs officer of Institut Mérieux and bioMérieux, said AMR is set to become the next pandemic, with the potential to kill more people than cancer by 2050 if governments fail to act.
“One critical point that I am very concerned about is what I call the next pandemic enabled by public mistrust,” Ledru said, “and that is the COVID-19 in front of us with antimicrobial resistance. Basically, antimicrobial resistance or drug acquired infections will kill more than cancer by 2050. Is anyone talking about that at Davos? No one is speaking about it.”
In a press release, Frontiers — the research publisher behind the Science House — added: ““Antimicrobial resistance pandemic will kill more people than cancer by 2050 and no one at Davos is talking about it.”
Furry Llamas Are Big Pharma’s Secret Weapon to Find New Drugs
One llama is sprawled on the grass with its neck craned, basking in a patch of sunshine. Another stands on a dirt hill, ears flattened defiantly. A third rushes to greet visitors with a friendly nuzzle. This isn’t a petting zoo. The furry beasts are in Belgium for work.
Scientists have discovered the potential of the animals’ antibodies to thwart multiple diseases, and now drug developers are collectively plowing billions of dollars into a field that may yield a fresh generation of life-changing medicines. The targets include some hard-to-treat conditions like cancer, nerve pain and a chronic skin ailment.
ProPublica Publishes Unreleased Data on the Origins of Generic Prescription Drugs
ProPublica on Friday published never-before-released data connecting generic drugs to the factories that manufactured them. The data powers Rx Inspector, our groundbreaking tool that allows you to find the factories where your generic drugs were made and their Food and Drug Administration inspection track records.
The data, which ProPublica created by linking several FDA datasets, has never been made available by the agency before. It will allow anyone to connect prescriptions to the facilities they were manufactured in by linking National Drug Code numbers to FDA Establishment Identifiers of drug manufacturing facilities. Academic researchers said the data would contribute significantly to research evaluating the quality and supply of generic drugs.
“This bypasses an incredibly time-consuming barrier for people who want to study drugs and anything to do with manufacturing,” said John Gray, a professor at the Ohio State University. Gray and his team are working to assign generic drugs quality scores based on risk. The goal is to help government purchasers, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, buy medications based on quality, not just cost.
