COVID-19

Clotting problems and resulting complications are common in COVID-19 patients. Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna have now shown that a member of the anticoagulant group of drugs not only has a beneficial effect on survival of COVID-19 patients, but also influences the duration of active infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The results were recently published in the journal Cardiovascular Research.

Premas Biotech, a developer of novel biotherapeutic and vaccine candidates announced that Oravax Medical Inc., a US based company that Premas Biotech is a partner in, has received clearance from the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority to commence patient enrollment in a first in human, Phase 1 clinical trial, for its oral COVID-19 vaccine; and preparations to begin the trials are now underway.

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized for emergency use the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for children 5 through 11 years of age (also referred to as 5 to <12 years). For this age group, the vaccine is to be administered in a two-dose regimen of 10-µg doses given 21 days apart. The 10-µg dose level was carefully selected based on safety, tolerability and immunogenicity data. This is the first COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S. for individuals 5 through 11 years of age.

Antibodies in the airways quickly wane after SARS-CoV-2 infection, but vaccination results in a strong increase in antibody levels, especially after two doses, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal JCI Insight. The results suggest that having a second dose of vaccine also after recovering from COVID-19 may be important for protecting against re-infection and to prevent transmission.

LumiraDx a next-generation point of care diagnostics testing company announced it has received emergency use approval by India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation for its SARS-CoV-2 Antigen test for use in India. The test detects antigen nucleocapsid protein from a nasal swab with results in under 12 minutes from sample application.

 After helping several Indian companies in the development of vaccines for COVID-19 including clinical trials, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT)’s Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) has entered into a research collaboration with Nanogen Pharmaceutical Biotechnology JSC, a Vietnamese pharmaceutical company which is in the process of developing a vaccine for the disease.

The research team assembled an unprecedented dataset on mortality from 29 countries, spanning most of Europe, the US and Chile – countries for which official death registrations for 2020 had been published. They found that 27 of the 29 countries saw reductions in life expectancy in 2020, and at a scale which wiped out years of progress on mortality, according to the paper published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, a research-led, global integrated pharmaceutical company, today announced the successful completion of its Post Marketing Surveillance (PMS) study on Favipiravir (FabiFlu®) in India. The PMS study commenced in July 2020 to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Favipiravir in mild to moderate COVID-19 patients. A total of 1083 patients were enrolled in the prospective, open label, multicentre, single arm study.

The Institute for Stem Cell Science & Regenerative Medicine, Bangalore is an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. inStem’s mandate is to establish collaborative research programs in the field of stem cell biology, regeneration and repair in development and disease and with translational emphasis. In order to develop strengths in focused areas, research at inStem is programmatic, and is driven through collaborative inter- disciplinary themes, addressing questions, which are beyond the scope of a single laboratory.