The European Commission (EC) has purchased an additional 150 million doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, including the option to buy other Covid-19 vaccine candidates from Moderna’s product pipeline. This purchase brings the EC confirmed order commitment to 460 million doses. Under the agreement, Moderna will also supply its updated variant booster vaccine candidate from 2022. The company’s vaccine booster dose will, however, have to be approved by the European Medicines Agency.
Drug discovery company Anna Biosciences has introduced an immunotherapy platform called Syntem, which fights Covid-19 by deploying engineered molecules to produce artificial immunity. Syntem’s laboratory-made molecules are multi-specific; they first identify and target the pathology, and then induce an immune reaction that attacks the virus or disease. Studies show that the Syntem platform can prevent viral infection and help remove Covid-19 infected cells.
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Histogen and its partner Amerimmune have announced top line results from a Phase I study of Emricasan in treating mild symptomatic Covid-19 patients. Patients treated with the drug experienced a complete resolution of mild Covid-19 symptoms through 45 days, while patients in the placebo arm did not experience symptom resolution at any point in the 45 days. The study found Emricasan to be safe and well tolerated in the 14 days of dosing and on the 45th day of follow-up, compared to placebo, with no reported complications.
