Pharma

Moderna, one of the front-runners in the race to develop a vaccine for the new coronavirus, said on Thursday it was preparing to launch the experimental vaccine and had already received $1.1 billion in deposits for supply. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company has signed deals with the US government and several other countries, and is in talks with a WHO-led group...

Health officials reviewing Gilead Science Inc's remdesivir against COVID-19 should consider all evidence, including a trial in which the medicine failed, before giving it the green light, the top WHO scientist said on Friday. US regulators appeared not to have done so when approving the drug this week, Soumya Swaminathan told a news conference. The US Food and Drug Administration on...

Covaxin, the coronavirus vaccine being developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has been cleared for the third phase of clinical trials. The Hyderabad-based vaccine maker had applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on October 2, seeking its permission to conduct Phase 3 trials for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The firm...

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd have received renewed approval to conduct late-stage clinical trials in India of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, the sovereign wealth fund said on Saturday. Large-scale trials of the Sputnik V vaccine in India were first announced and then knocked back by Indian regulators, who said the scale of Phase I...

Glenmark Pharma on Wednesday announced the launch of its generic version of Nintedanib (NINDANIB), used for the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis, in India. "Glenmark being a leader in the area of respiratory has been amongst the first to launch the branded generic version at an affordable cost for the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis in India, it said in a regulatory...

A vaccine against coronavirus is expected to be available in India by early next year and there could be vaccines from more than one source, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan today. "We're expecting that early next year, we should have vaccine in the country from maybe more than one source. Our expert groups are already formulating and devising strategies...

Johnson & Johnson said Monday it had temporarily halted its Covid-19 vaccine trial because one of its participants had become sick. "We have temporarily paused further dosing in all our Covid-19 vaccine candidate clinical trials, including the  Phase 3 ENSEMBLE trial, due to an unexplained illness in a study participant," the company said in a statement. The pause means the online...

India recorded 70,496 fresh cases of coronavirus and 964 deaths on Friday, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases to 69 lakh, according to the Health Ministry data. 78,365 people successfully fought off the viral disease on Friday, bringing down the overall active cases to almost 13 per cent of the total caseload. According to the government figures, total Covid...

The government plans to provide Covid vaccines to around 25 crore (250 million) people - of the country's 130 crore (1.3 billion) - by July 2021, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said Sunday afternoon. Dr Vardhan said the government would receive between 400 and 500 million vaccine doses for this purpose and that it would ensure "equitable access". The...

Scientists have developed a new method of testing for COVID-19 that doesn't make use of key reagents but still delivers an accurate result, an advance that may lead to an inexpensive diagnosis technique in developing countries where chemical supplies are in short supply. The method, described in the journal PLOS Biology, omits the step in the widely used reverse transcription...