DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Kennedy, Condemning ‘Censorship,’ Hits Democrats and Courts the Disaffected
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Rebecca Davis O Brien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Indeed, Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and scion of the storied Kennedy Democratic clan, is now a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories. The idea that the press has a stranglehold on public information is a core, animating belief in the health freedom movement, which broadly opposes regulation of health practices, including vaccinations. Two political action committees supporting Mr. Kennedy were formed by people who knew him through this movement, which accounts for some of his most ardent support. Some are libertarians, searching for a standard-bearer; others are disaffected Democrats; some are Republicans looking for an alternative to Mr. Trump. Mr. Kennedy’s audience in New Hampshire of at least 250 people included at least one person wearing a Trump 2020 hat.

Persons: Kennedy, John F, Kennedy’s, Trump Organizations: Kennedy Democratic, Silicon Valley . Tech Locations: Silicon Valley, New Hampshire

☆ A.I. doomers are a ‘cult’ — here’s the real threat, according to Marc Andreessen
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Andreessen Horowitz partner Marc Andreessen Justin Sullivan | Getty ImagesVenture capitalist Marc Andreessen is known for saying that "software is eating the world." When it comes to artificial intelligence, he claims people should stop worrying and build, build, build. Andreessen writes that there's a "wall of fear-mongering and doomerism" in the AI world right now. Andreessen writes that people in roles like AI safety expert, AI ethicist and AI risk researcher "are paid to be doomers, and their statements should be processed appropriately," he wrote. In Andreessen's own idealist future, "every child will have an AI tutor that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely helpful."

Persons: Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Andreessen Justin Sullivan, Marc Andreessen, Andreessen, It's, it's, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, Ben Horowitz Organizations: Getty Images Venture, Nvidia, Microsoft, Center, AI Safety, Tech Locations: China

☆ HPV vaccine: Some studies say one and done might be better
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Jen Christensen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

The HPV vaccine protects against the strains that cause most HPV-related cancers. But not every country has the same vaccination options, which is part of the reason WHO has been pushing to change the way doctors give the HPV vaccine. A one-and-done approach to the HPV vaccine could be a huge help around the world, experts say. But she’d also like more people to get the HPV vaccine. So I think that’s really, really important,” Abraham said.

☆ W.H.O. Ends Global Health Emergency Designation for Covid
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Stephanie Nolen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In Egypt, excess deaths were roughly 12 times as great as the official Covid toll; in Pakistan, the figure was eight times as high. Developing nations bore the brunt of the devastation, with nearly eight million more people than expected dying in lower-middle-income nations by the end of 2021. And Covid continues to spread: The W.H.O. recorded 2.8 million new cases globally, and more than 17,000 deaths, from April 3 to 30, the most recent numbers available. As many countries have reduced their testing for Covid, these numbers also probably represent a significant undercount.

☆ US FDA approves first RSV vaccine from GSK
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

May 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved GSK Plc's (GSK.L) respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, the British drugmaker said on Wednesday, making it the first shot to be cleared for protection against a common respiratory disease that can be fatal for older people. The vaccine was approved for people aged 60 and older, the company said. The approval makes GSK, which has been neck-and-neck with Pfizer (PFE.N) in RSV vaccine development, the first company to tap into a multi-billion-dollar market and puts it ahead of rivals such as Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) and Bavarian Nordic (BAVA.CO). Analysts have estimated the market for RSV vaccines to cross $10 billion by 2030. GSK expects the vaccine to be available before the next RSV season in the United States, Chief Commercial Officer Luke Miels told Reuters on Wednesday before the approval.

☆ Eli Lilly’s golden ticket is a regrettable winner
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Robert Cyran | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

NEW YORK, May 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Eli Lilly’s (LLY.N) Mounjaro might turn out to be the biggest selling drug ever. The pharmaceutical giant is maximizing the diabetes treatment’s gain by using a golden ticket to speed its U.S. approval for use in a possibly bigger market, obesity. Lilly’s peak sales for treating obesity might be about 10 times as high, Jefferies analysts estimate. At the industry multiple of 5 times revenue, that would pad its $535 billion market value by $30 billion. Lilly may have secured a Willy Wonka-like golden ticket that allows its obesity drug to reach customers quicker.

☆ A drug company abandoned a treatment for ‘bubble boy disease.’ After a 5-year fight, this little girl is about to get it
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Elizabeth Cohen Lauren Mascarenhas | Elizabeth Cohen | Lauren Mascarenhas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +29 min

The Sulacks weighed their options: Have a transplant with a match that was less than ideal – far less – or wait for gene therapy to become available. The news release didn’t say anything else about the SCID gene therapy. Or was the company abandoning its plans for SCID gene therapy altogether? In February, 2021, the parents of more than 20 children who were waiting for the gene therapy treatment, including the Sulacks, wrote a letter to Gaspar. Insurance companies have sometimes balked at paying for gene therapy, which is typically given in one treatment.

☆ Moderna says it hopes to offer new vaccines for cancer, heart disease, and other conditions by 2030
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Annika Kim Constantino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Moderna hopes to offer a new set of life-saving vaccines targeting cancer, heart disease and other conditions by 2030, a spokesperson for the company told CNBC on Monday. "It can be applied to all sorts of disease areas; we are in cancer, infectious disease, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, rare disease." Burton's remarks also come ahead of Moderna's Vaccine Day on Tuesday. He highlighted Moderna's personalized cancer vaccine, a highly anticipated mRNA shot being developed to target different tumor types. In February, the Food and Drug Administration granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to Moderna's personalized cancer vaccine in combination with Merck's immunotherapy drug Keytruda for patients with a deadly form of skin cancer called melanoma.

The summit is the same week as major South Korea-U.S. military drills that routinely anger Pyongyang, and North Korea has already staged multiple missile launches - a backdrop for the message that Japan, South Korea and the United States need to close ranks. In November South Korea and Japan agreed to exchange real-time intelligence on North Korea's missile launches, which experts say will help both countries better track potential threats. "South Korea is already taking a side and entering the Cold War," said Kim Joon-hyung, a former chancellor of the Korean National Diplomatic Academy. Yoon said high-tech cooperation on supply chains between Japan and South Korea would contribute significantly to economic security. 'SHARED INTERESTS'Washington had pressed for reconciliation, but a State Department spokesperson said the recent arrangements were the result of bilateral discussions between Japan and South Korea.

☆ China to promote vaccine development, new medicines
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) - China will prevent and control health outbreaks in a more scientific, precise and efficient way, and upgrade vaccines and develop new medicines to ensure enough supply for the public, Premier Li Keqiang said on Sunday. Last month, China's top leaders declared a "major victory" over COVID, claiming the world's lowest fatality rate, although experts have questioned that data. During last year's parliament meeting, the government said the country would speed up research and development of vaccines and drugs. On Sunday, the NDRC also said China will make continuous efforts to ensure the production, distribution and supply of key medical supplies. Reporting by Ethan Wang and Bernard Orr; Editing by William Mallard and Tom HogueOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Flu experts gather with H5N1 risk on the agenda
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Jennifer Rigby | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

But it is also a chance to discuss the risk of animal viruses spilling over to humans and causing a pandemic. At this week's meeting, H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b was a key topic, the World Health Organization (WHO) and global flu experts told Reuters. They will brief reporters on both the seasonal flu vaccine composition and spillover risks later on Friday. "We need to really continue the efforts for a flu pandemic." A number of companies that produce seasonal flu vaccines can also make pandemic flu vaccines.

☆ Fact Check-Moderna CEO did not say company made 100,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses before the pandemic started
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

At Davos 2023, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel spoke about how quickly the company was able to scale up vaccine production at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, not that Moderna had made 100,000 COVID vaccine doses before the pandemic began, as some are claiming online. The clip of Bancel responding to a question in January 2023 circulated in a tweet by the user @healthbyjames with the false caption, “URGENT — Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel Admits Company Produced 100,000 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses In 2019 Before The Pandemic Started” (here). Bancel responds by first recalling that, “when the pandemic happened, Moderna had made 100,000 dose in 2019 for the whole year. Moderna did not produce 100,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in 2019, Ridley said. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel did not say in a 2023 panel discussion that the company produced 100,000 COVID-19 vaccines prior to the pandemic.

"When you think about traditional drug and vaccine development and longevity of sales, it's usually much more spread out," Morningstar analyst Damien Conover said. The sudden inflow of revenue should prod companies to strike deals and link up with new partners, he said. Vaccine maker Moderna also expects 2023 revenue to fall sharply. The company's only product - its messenger RNA COVID vaccine - pulled in around $18.4 billion in 2022. Eli Lilly and Co (LLY.N) made $2 billion in 2022 from monoclonal antibody COVID treatments and is not expecting any revenue from the business in 2023.

☆ Bill Gates says Elon Musk's ambition to colonize Mars is not a good use of money
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Bill Gates questioned whether Elon Musk's current priorities would make him a good philanthropist, taking issue with his fellow billionaire's ambition to send people to Mars. Gates responded saying he doesn't think Musk is one currently but that this may change in future. Asked by BBC journalist Amol Rajan if going to Mars was a good use of money, Gates said: "Not in my view." In April, Musk said he asked Gates if he was short-selling Tesla — in other words, betting that the price of the electric carmaker's stock would fall. In a Bloomberg interview also in February 2021, Gates said that he wished he had "been more on the long side" of Tesla when asked about Musk's claims.

☆ Updated Covid boosters cut the infection risk from XBB.1.5 subvariant by half, CDC finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Berkeley-Lovelace-Jr.Jpg | Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

The updated Covid boosters reduce the risk of Covid infection from the predominant omicron subvariant by nearly half, according to early data published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings are “quite reassuring,” Dr. Brendan Jackson, the head of the CDC’s Covid response, said on a call with reporters Wednesday. As of last Wednesday, only about 15% of people in the U.S. had received an updated booster, according to CDC data. People who were vaccinated but had not received the updated booster were compared to those who got the updated booster in the previous two to three months. People who got the updated boosters are probably "much more likely to wear masks indoors or restrain their travel or not go to indoor restaurants," he said.

The only HIV vaccine in a late-stage trial has failed, researchers announced Wednesday, dealing a significant blow to the effort to control the global HIV epidemic and adding to a decadeslong roster of failed attempts. “I don’t think that people should give up on the field of the HIV vaccine,” Fauci said. Fauci said that a critical limitation of the Mosaico vaccine was that it elicited what are known as non-neutralizing — as opposed to neutralizing — antibodies against HIV. As with the Thai trial, the hope is to channel research findings into future HIV vaccine development. To prove a vaccine works, researchers must recruit participants who remain at substantial risk of HIV over time.

A key adviser to the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine panel is questioning whether more Covid booster shots are necessary for healthy, younger people. The FDA later backed the vaccine panel, authorizing a new formulation of the booster shots. “The people who are talking about why young people need it are missing the point,” he said, referring to the booster. Levy, the director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, continues to encourage Covid boosters for everyone who is eligible. Relatively few people in the U.S. have had updated boosters.

☆ CureVac says COVID vaccine produced immune response in early-stage trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Jan 6 (Reuters) - Germany's CureVac AG said on Friday its second-generation COVID-19 vaccine produced virus-neutralizing antibodies against the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron, based on preliminary data from an early-stage trial. CureVac is developing the vaccine with Britain's GSK (GSK.L) and the companies are looking to catch-up to similar vaccine development by rivals. The company said the vaccine was shown to be generally well tolerated in the trial. CureVac gave up on its first-generation vaccine candidate, CVnCoV, in 2021 after poor data. The company also said its flu vaccine, which also uses mRNA technology, successfully boosted antibody levels against flu and was well-tolerated in an early-stage study.

In 2019, Cambodia supplied 8,571 of the 33,818 research monkeys imported to the U.S., or 25%. In 2021, the number of monkeys from Cambodia more than doubled to 18,870, making up nearly 60% of the 31,844 research monkeys brought to America. Earlier this year, long-tailed macaques and pig-tailed macaques were listed as endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The decades long effort by animal rights groups to derail the monkey trade has made some impact. The incident shined a rare spotlight on the monkey trade, which largely goes on outside the view of the public.

☆ Strep A is surging in the UK and has already killed at least 19 children. Here's why it's taken so long to make a vaccine against this deadly pathogen.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Sarah Braner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Strep A is surging in the UK and has killed at least 19 kids, the UK Health Security Agency said. A vaccine would be better, but research groups have hit roadblocks during its development. Researchers have been trying to make a strep-A vaccine for decadesIf it's caught in time, strep A can be treated with antibiotics. There is no vaccine commercially available, but several research groups are working on developing one. A GSK spokesperson confirmed to Insider that it's also in the early stages of developing a strep-A vaccine but that it had not started human testing.

☆ Long Covid may be 'the next public health disaster' — with a $3.7 trillion economic impact rivaling the Great Recession
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Greg Iacurci | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

Norpel is one of millions of Americans with long Covid, also known as long-haul Covid, post-Covid or post-acute Covid syndrome. Key symptoms: Long Covid has been linked to more than 200 symptoms, according to The Rockefeller Foundation. Duration: There's no consistent definition of how long symptoms must persist for someone to be considered a long Covid patient. What experts do know is that for some, long Covid symptoms can last months or even years. "I don't know if it's for the rest of my life or not," Hurst said of feeling long Covid symptoms.

☆ White House requests $37.7 billion in new Ukraine funding, $10 billion for Covid relief
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Emma Kinery | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The White House is requesting nearly $40 billion in new funding from Congress to support Ukraine and an additional $10 billion for pandemic relief. Other House Republicans like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said at the beginning of the month "not another penny will go to Ukraine" under Republican leadership. The formal funding request also includes $9.25 billion for Covid-19 relief and $750 million to address other infectious diseases. The White House is requesting $2.5 billion for Covid-19 vaccine access and replenishing the Strategic National Stockpile, $5 billion for further vaccine development, $750 million for long Covid research and $1 billion to international aid combatting the virus. The White House also requested an unspecified amount for natural disaster relief to help Florida and Puerto Rico rebuild from Hurricanes Ian and Fiona.

☆ New hope China may soften on Covid boosts our stocks most tied to world's No. 2 economy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

After all, Chinese officials have not announced an official transition away from their very strict Covid policy. Nevertheless, the moves in certain stocks tied to China — including many owned by the Club — show the market is taking the vaccine policy change in stride. The cosmetics giant has a big China business and just a few days ago it cut its sales guidance partly due to China's Covid policy. The price move provided some support for oil stocks in Friday's volatile stock market. It's not immediately clear when expatriates in China could actually start getting a shot of the BioNTech-Pfizer Covid vaccine.

☆ We're closer to getting the first new pill to treat UTIs in over 20 years
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It would be the first new pill to treat uncomplicated UTIs in 20 years, GSK said. The drug, called gepotidacin, could become the first new oral antibiotic for uncomplicated UTIs in more than two decades, according to the company. GSK's drug was tested in uncomplicated UTIs, which are restricted to the the bladder and urethra and are generally less serious than complicated UTIs. On Thursday, GSK said two studies enrolled over 3,000 patients with uncomplicated UTIs. GSK, on the other hand, paid $66 million in September to license another antibiotic program being tested to treat complicated UTIs.

☆ Pfizer RSV vaccine given to pregnant mothers is effective at protecting newborns, company's data shows
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Pfizer's vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is highly effective at protecting newborns when the shot is given to the mothers late in their pregnancy, according to clinical trial data published Tuesday. RSV is a common respiratory virus that generally causes mild cold-like symptoms, but it can be dangerous for infants younger than 6 months. The vaccine was well tolerated with no safety concerns for the mothers or their newborns, according to Pfizer. Infants almost always show symptoms, but for babies younger than six months these symptoms can be more subtle, according to the CDC. Irritability, decreased activity and appetite, as well as pausing while breathing are all signs that an infant might have RSV, according to the CDC.

Search resuls for: "Vaccine Development"

25 mentions found