Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Positive Trends In Vaccine Development Race Are Converting Skeptical Scientists
The New York Times: A New Entry In The Race For A Coronavirus Vaccine: Hope
In a medical research project nearly unrivaled in its ambition and scope, volunteers worldwide are rolling up their sleeves to receive experimental vaccines against the coronavirus — only months after the virus was identified. Companies like Inovio and Pfizer have begun early tests of candidates in people to determine whether their vaccines are safe. Researchers at the University of Oxford in England are testing vaccines in human subjects, too, and say they could have one ready for emergency use as soon as September. (Zimmer, Sheikh and Weiland, 5/20)
Reuters: Exclusive: A Quarter Of Americans Are Hesitant About A Coronavirus Vaccine - Reuters/Ipsos Poll
A quarter of Americans have little or no interest in taking a coronavirus vaccine, a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday found, with some voicing concern that the record pace at which vaccine candidates are being developed could compromise safety. While health experts say a vaccine to prevent infection is needed to return life to normal, the survey points to a potential trust issue for the Trump administration already under fire for its often contradictory safety guidance during the pandemic. Some 36% of respondents said they would be less willing to take a vaccine if U.S. President Donald Trump said it was safe, compared with only 14% who would be more interested. (Ax and Steenhuysen, 5/21)
The Washington Post: Vaccine Misinformation Takes Root In Anti-Coronavirus Lockdown Facebook Groups
The question was posed bluntly to the nearly 100,000 members of a Facebook group devoted to ending Pennsylvania’s stay-at-home orders, with a user writing, “if there was a vaccine for coronavirus would you be likely to take it.”“Absolutely not.” “No.”“Never.” The resoundingly negative answers streamed forth, generating 1,700 comments and providing a window into brewing resistance to a potential coronavirus vaccine that experts say offers the surest path back to normal life. (Stanley-Becker, 5/20)
The New York Times: Trump’s Vaccine Chief Has Vast Ties To Drug Industry, Posing Possible Conflicts
The chief scientist brought on to lead the Trump administration’s vaccine efforts has spent the last several days trying to disentangle pieces of his stock portfolio and his intricate ties to big pharmaceutical interests, as critics point to the potential for significant conflicts of interest. The scientist, Moncef Slaoui, is a venture capitalist and a former longtime executive at GlaxoSmithKline. Most recently, he sat on the board of Moderna, a Cambridge, Mass., biotechnology firm with a $30 billion valuation that is pursuing a coronavirus vaccine. He resigned when President Trump named him last Thursday to the new post as chief adviser for Operation Warp Speed, the federal drive for coronavirus vaccines and treatments. (Kaplan, Goldstein and Stevenson, 5/20)
Stat: The Bizarre Saga Of A Biotech Frozen In Time In The Covid-19 Vaccine Race
Moderna’s work on a vaccine for coronavirus has made its founders into paper billionaires. Gilead Sciences has added $10 billion to its market value since the start of 2020. And a rising tide of Covid-19 speculation has sent one major biotech index to its all-time high. But Sinovac, a Beijing-headquartered company with a coronavirus vaccine already in human trials, has been entirely left out. (Garde, 5/20)
Reuters: Red Cross Aid Agency Warns Against Any Move To Limit Vaccine Access
The head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) appealed on Wednesday for the world to work together toward a coronavirus vaccine, warning against any unilateral action that could prevent access for poor countries. “The reality is that there is this risk,” Francesco Rocca, who heads the world’s largest disaster relief network, told Reuters. “Everyone must have access to these lifesaving treatments.” (Nichols, 5/20)
Reuters: AstraZeneca To Make Billion COVID Vaccine Doses If Tests Succeed
AstraZeneca expects to be able to deliver a billion doses of a possible COVID-19 vaccine this year and next if tests are successful, adding on Thursday it should shortly get results of an early stage clinical trial. The British drugmaker said it had signed the first agreements to supply at least 400 million doses of the vaccine, which it is developing with Oxford University. (5/21)
Reuters: Top HIV Scientist Says He Wouldn't Count On A Vaccine For Coronavirus Soon
A top U.S. scientist said on Wednesday that governments should not count on a successful vaccine against COVID-19 being developed anytime soon when deciding whether to ease restrictions imposed to curb the pandemic. (Galloni, 5/20)
Boston Globe: ‘This Is Not How You Do Science’: Cambridge Biotech Moderna’s Potential COVID-19 Vaccine Stirs Hope — And Criticism
Eight people. That’s all it took to move the market on Monday. The eight were study participants who received a potential COVID-19 vaccine and produced antibodies that killed the coronavirus in a laboratory dish. Within hours of issuing a press release about this finding, Moderna, the Cambridge-based maker of the experimental vaccine, saw its stock price jump by 20 percent. By day’s end, Moderna was credited with helping drive a 4 percent rise in the stock market. (Freyer and Saltzman, 5/19)
NPR: Why The Race For A Coronavirus Vaccine Will Depend On Global Cooperation
These days, it seems any morsel of good news about a coronavirus vaccine sends hopes — and markets — soaring. The reality is, developing and producing a vaccine is an incredibly complicated process — one that is heavily reliant on global cooperation, says Prashant Yadav, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. Yadav says cooperation is necessary for a number of reasons. For one, "just protecting U.S. population won't be sufficient for us to resume global travel and trade," he says. (Kelly, 5/20)
Kaiser Health News: Analysis: Get Ready For The Vaccine — They’re Never Simple
If there is a silver lining to the flawed U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, it is this: The relatively high number of new cases being diagnosed daily — upward of 20,000 — will make it easier to test new vaccines. To determine whether a vaccine prevents disease, the study’s subjects need to be exposed to the pathogen as it circulates in the population. Reopening the economy will likely result in the faster spread of the coronavirus and therefore more opportunities to test a vaccine’s efficacy in trial subjects. (Allen, 5/21)
ABC News: In Race To Find A COVID-19 Treatment, CEO Of Tiny Biotech Company Is 'Very Optimistic'
As manufacturers around the world race to find a drug to treat COVID-19, a tiny British-Norwegian company developing a treatment for the illness says it is "very optimistic" for the potential of a new drug that would require a patient to take only one pill a day. BerGenBio, a biotechnology company that employs just 38 people based in Bergen, Norway, and Oxford, England, has developed a drug called bemcentinib, which is currently in phase two of clinical trials. Richard Godfrey, the CEO of BerGenBio, told ABC News that he has high hopes that the drug, which was initially developed to treat cancer, will benefit coronavirus patients. (Davies and Haddou, 5/20)
