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Moderna Is Still in a COVID Hangover
Moderna, the company that developed one of the first vaccines for COVID, had been having a pretty good year. Shares traded as high as $166 in May as the company notched an approval for its second product, an RSV vaccine for older people.
But then came yesterday’s earnings report. Moderna cut its full-year sales guidance from $4 billion to a range of $3 billion to $3.5 billion, saying that contracting in Europe on both its COVID and RSV vaccines was weak. That spooked investors, leading shares to fall 20%.
The worry: Selling these vaccines is a matter of managing big sales contracts with governments and health plans. Even Pfizer, which makes a competing RSV product, has fretted that it was outmaneuvered by GSK, which also makes an RSV vaccine. How does Moderna, still comparatively tiny, compete in RSV, or, for that matter, influenza? Especially when, as analysts at Leerink Partners put it, its RSV and flu shots have “flawed clinical profiles against well-entrenched incumbents.” It’s one more piece of evidence that although the COVID vaccine race led to quite an infusion of cash for companies like Moderna and Pfizer, it also led to quite a hangover.
Optimists point to the cancer immunotherapy Moderna is developing with Merck and expect the company’s RSV vaccine sales to hit $700 million in 2025.
Flu Vaccine Will Curb Bird Flu Risk for U.S. Farm Workers, CDC Deputy Director Says
In the face of serious concerns over the spreading bird flu virus in U.S. agriculture, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is pushing a major flu vaccination campaign among farm workers in a bid to prevent healthcare strain and combat potential mutations from the highly pathogenic bird virus.
Part of the campaign will seek to combat disinformation about vaccines, which has hampered previous efforts.
There are approximately 200,000 livestock workers in the United States, although the tally likely leaves out unofficial workers. It’s not clear what vaccination rates look like in the livestock industry. On average, only 47% of Americans get the flu shot each year.
The new $5m campaign will bring seasonal flu shots to farm workers and another $5m will go toward strengthening healthcare for them, including improved access to testing, treatment and personal protective equipment.
The campaign will distribute the seasonal flu shot, but not an H5N1-specific vaccine for bird flu, among communities that may have limited access to healthcare.
Henrietta Lacks’ Family Seeks Damages From Pharmaceutical Giants in Third Lawsuit
The family of Henrietta Lacks filed a lawsuit Monday against two large pharmaceutical companies, alleging the firms have profited from exploiting the Baltimore County woman’s cell line.
The lawsuit against Novartis and Viatris serves as the third installment of a legal saga that started with the family of the Turner Station resident hiring prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump and suing a biotechnology firm in 2021.
The Lacks family contends that the medical science industries have profited unjustly from cells belonging to their relative, who died in 1951 after having her cancer cells sampled at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore without her knowledge or consent.
Monday’s lawsuit is similar to the family’s first two cases — the first, which Thermo Fisher Scientific ultimately settled with the Lacks relatives, as well as a second, ongoing suit that followed against Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical. But the “unjust enrichment” suit filed Monday, days after Lacks’ 104th birthday targets two different pharmaceutical companies, which reported combined 2023 revenues topping $60 billion.
GSK Wins Latest Trial Over Zantac Cancer Claims
GSK (GSK.L) won the latest trial over claims that discontinued heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer, as a jury on Monday found that the drug was not responsible for an Illinois woman’s illness, a company spokesperson said.
Carrie Joiner had alleged in her lawsuit in state court in Chicago that she developed colorectal cancer from a carcinogenic contaminant called NDMA found in the once-blockbuster drug.
Zantac was sold at different times by GSK, Pfizer (PFE.N), Sanofi (SASY.PA) and Boehringer Ingelheim. First approved by U.S. regulators in 1983, it became the world’s best-selling medicine in 1988 and one of the first to top $1 billion in annual sales.
The companies collectively are facing thousands of lawsuits against them in courts across the United States. Several cases have settled before trial for undisclosed amounts. The only previous case to go to trial ended with a verdict in favor of GSK and Boehringer Ingelheim in May.
Researchers Create New Treatment and Vaccine for Flu and Various Coronaviruses
A team of researchers, led by the University of Houston, has discovered two new ways of preventing and treating respiratory viruses. In back-to-back papers in Nature Communications, the team — from the lab of Navin Varadarajan, M.D. Anderson Professor of William A. Brookshire Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering — reports the development and validation of NanoSTING, a nasal spray, as a broad-spectrum immune activator for controlling infection against multiple respiratory viruses; and the development of NanoSTING-SN, a pan-coronavirus nasal vaccine, that can protect against infection and disease by all members of the coronavirus family.
NanoSTING is a special formula that uses tiny fat droplets to deliver an immune-boosting ingredient called cGAMP. This formula helps the body’s cells stay on high alert to prevent attacks from respiratory viruses.
Despite the successful implementation of multiple vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, these vaccines need constant updates due to viral evolution, plus the current generation of vaccines only offers limited protection against transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
Enter NanoSTING-SN, a multi-antigen, intranasal vaccine, that eliminates virus replication in both the lungs and the nostrils and has the ability to protect against multiple coronaviruses and variants.
CDC, WHO Mull Stronger Mpox Warnings
Now that a deadlier form of mpox has spread beyond the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is poised to warn doctors in the United States about potential cases.
“I am considering convening an International Health Regulations Emergency Committee to advise me on whether the outbreak of mpox should be declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC),” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted Sunday.
It was unclear Monday when the WHO or the CDC would issue any alerts.
The Jynneos mpox vaccine, given in two doses, is effective for both clade 1 and clade 2 of mpox, according to the CDC. But less than a quarter of those most at risk for mpox in the U.S. have had both of those shots, according to the CDC.
BioNTech Counts on Shift to Cancer Drugs After Second Quarter Losses Quadruple
Losses at German drugmaker BioNTech (22UAy.DE) quadrupled in the second quarter from a year earlier, the company said on Monday, as it banks on a strategy shift towards new cancer treatments following a sharp drop-off in sales of its COVID-19 vaccine.
BioNTech reported a second-quarter net loss of 807.8 million euros ($885 million), versus a loss of 190.4 million a year earlier.
The company also saw a 23% drop in quarterly revenue to 128.7 million euros, mainly due to lower sales of its COVID-19 vaccines, whose development in partnership with U.S. partner Pfizer (PFE.N) and wide use during the pandemic made the small German biotech firm a household name.
Very Slow Malaria Pathogens Could Be Suitable as a Vaccine
Scientists have successfully tested a new approach for a malaria vaccine in animal experiments. They used genetically modified malaria parasites that developed normally in the mosquito but at a significantly slower rate in the mouse.
When later infected with unmodified pathogens, the rodents were protected from severe illnesses and typical malaria symptoms did not occur. The results have been published in EMBO Molecular Medicine.
Vaccinations against the tropical infectious disease malaria are the subject of intensive research worldwide. However, there is currently no vaccine that is sufficiently reliable and affordable.
They used genetically modified malaria parasites, which multiplied so slowly in mice after transmission by mosquitoes that the animals’ immune systems was able to fight them successfully. An immune memory was formed that protected the vaccinated animals to varying degrees from severe symptoms during subsequent malaria infections. The findings could support the development of reliable vaccines in the future.
