Lifeboat Foundation

As doctors around the world continue to mobilize against the coronavirus COVID-19 and try to develop a vaccine, one doctor thinks he may have an ace in the hole.

Years ago, Peter Hotez, a vaccine and infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine, worked on a vaccine that protected lab mice from SARS, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The project was abandoned and the vaccine never tested on humans because it took until 2016 — 16 years after the SARS outbreak ended — to manufacture it. But now, Hotez suspects that minor adjustments could turn it into a viable defense against COVID-19.

As coronavirus outbreaks have become more threatening outside China in recent days, attention has turned to the likely damage to global output and to the possible reaction of macroeconomic policymakers. This has become urgent with the catastrophic decline in China’s PMI business surveys yesterday. The question now is whether a global recession can be avoided.

The global economy faces a demand shock focused on services and consumer spending.

The Microsoft founder noted that the virus spreads faster than Ebola and warned the situation could lead to a pandemic, killing 10 million worldwide.

More than 2000 Australian suffering from advanced melanoma will soon receive financial relief with an expansion of treatments on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt says.

From March 1 the PBS listed Opdivo (nivolumab) will be expanded, assisting 1500 patients who might otherwise pay more than $100,000 per course of treatment without the PBS subsidy.

“Opdivo is a breakthrough immunotherapy which works by blocking proteins and helping the body’s own immune system to find, attack and destroy cancer cells,” Mr Hunt said in a statement on Sunday.

Shift by FDA expected to help increase tests to 10,000 per day.

Regeneron will work with the U.S. government to develop antibody treatments for the new coronavirus from China, disclosing Tuesday an expansion of a partnership that previously yielded an experimental drug cocktail for the Ebola virus.

The Tarrytown, New York-based biotech is one of roughly a dozen drugmakers now working on treatments for the coronavirus that emerged late last year in Wuhan, China. Most are smaller companies unlikely to possess sufficient funds to run large-scale tests, although Johnson & Johnson and Gilead have announced initial efforts in recent weeks.

The biotech hopes to replicate its past success in quickly advancing a treatment for Ebola. But, as that experience showed, proving a new antiviral isn’t easy.

Continue reading “Regeneron partners with US government to develop coronavirus treatment” »

Since the new coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 7, companies and academic groups around the world have been working at breakneck pace to develop new therapies for the virus, now called SARS-CoV-2. This week, two US biotech firms, Moderna and Gilead Sciences, positioned themselves as frontrunners.

The world’s first clinical trial of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus will soon begin in the US. On Feb. 25, Moderna announced that it has shipped its experimental vaccine to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which will conduct the trial. The entire process—from vaccine design to manufacturing to shipment—took only 7 weeks.

Gilead has a head start on an antiviral, while Moderna is pursuing a novel mRNA vaccine.

Continue reading “Gilead and Moderna lead on coronavirus treatments” »

The treatment could hold real promise as coronavirus infections and deaths outside of China continue to swell. “There is only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy and that’s remdesivir,” said WHO assistant director-general Bruce Aylward during a press conference in Beijing on Monday. The drug is already being enlisted in clinical trials in China.

Gilead’s antiviral remdesivir is being used in the first U.S. clinical trial to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Wuhan Coronavirus Pandemic — Washington state: 1 death and 1 community spread case and 1 travel case.

“One case involves a teenager in Everett with no travel history. He is a presumptive positive, meaning tests have come back positive for the virus, while pending confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is currently in home isolation. Health officials don’t know how or where the teenager was infected, and are working on identifying anyone the teen may have come into contact with. The student attends Jackson High School in the Everett School District.

The second case involves a King County woman in her 50s who recently traveled to Daegu, South Korea. Her status is also presumptive positive and she is in home isolation.”

Continue reading “King County patient first to die in US from coronavirus” »