Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Shortages For Pneumonia Vaccine Begin As Demand Rises Due To COVID
Reuters: As COVID-19 Cases Spike, Pneumonia Vaccine Demand Rockets And Europe Runs Low
As COVID-19 infections rise, people seeking to avoid one lung disease compounding another are queuing up to get inoculated against bacterial pneumonia, causing shortages of a Merck & Co vaccine in parts of Europe. Demand for Merck’s Pneumovax 23, which is used to prevent pneumococcal lung infections, has hit record highs across the world, the company said. (Parodi, Burger and Erman, 10/23)
Stat: Covid-19 Is Pushing Pharma Companies To The Cloud
The drug industry has been gradually migrating to the cloud for years. But the Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly accelerated that shift for a simple reason: Researchers needed to run the biggest experiment of their lives in record time, and they lacked the power to launch it. (Ross, 10/22)
In other pharmaceutical industry news —
Stat: FDA Wants Pharma To Include Younger Women In Breast Cancer Drug Trials
The Food and Drug Administration is pushing drug companies to include younger people in drug trials for breast cancer drugs — a boon for the more than 16,000 American women under the age of 40 who are diagnosed with the condition each year. The FDA’s new guidance, published in draft form earlier this month, encourages drug companies that are investigating hormonal treatments for breast cancer to include people who are premenopausal in the drug trials, provided they take adequate hormone-suppressing drugs. (Ritzel, 10/23)
Stat: CRISPR Therapeutics' CAR-T Treatment Shows Encouraging Results
An off-the-shelf CAR-T cell therapy developed by CRISPR Therapeutics induced complete remissions in some patients with advanced B-cell lymphoma, but a patient death was also deemed to be related to the treatment, the company said Wednesday. The clinical trial results are preliminary and represent an effort by CRISPR Therapeutics to expand CRISPR-edited treatments into cancer care. The company, in partnership with Vertex Pharmaceuticals, is also conducting clinical trials of CRISPR-based therapies for patients with rare, inherited blood disorders. (Adam Feuerstein, 10/21)
Stat: New Rare Disease Gene Therapy Startup Recruits Former Sarepta Executive
A three-year-old gene therapy startup from Florida is relaunching Thursday with an infusion of health care investor cash and a chief executive officer recruited from Sarepta Therapeutics. AavantiBio will use $107 million in new Series A financing to fund the development of an experimental gene therapy to treat patients with Friedreich’s Ataxia, a rare, inherited disease that causes damage to the central nervous system and heart. (Feuerstein, 10/22)
In updates on the opioid crisis —
The Hill: Walmart Preemptively Sues DOJ In Opioid Case
Walmart filed a preemptive lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in what it says is an attempt to thwart an incoming suit for failing to thwart otherwise valid opioid prescriptions. The suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas asks the court to declare that the government has no lawful basis for seeking civil damages from the company based on claims that pharmacists filled prescriptions for opioids that should have raised alarm, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the suit. (Williams, 10/22)
