Eight new medicines recommended for approval

Drug could be ready for clinical trials before the end of the year

Experts says $20bn needed to vaccinate global population

Initial roll-out will see key workers utilise the app

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This product is promoted with unapproved claims to prevent, treat, mitigate, or cure COVID-19. FDA warns consumers to avoid unproven and potentially unsafe products. See the Warning Letter for more information:

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More information is available at www.fda.gov/consumers/health-fraud-scams/fraudulent-coron...

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The European medicines regulator has OK’d a label update for AstraZeneca’s Lokelma (sodium zirconium…

The ongoing spread of COVID-19 in Russia is leading to shortages of drugs against orphan diseases in…

Privately-held pharma and diagnostics firm Menarini Group has announced a definitive agreement to acquire…

Specialty chemicals company Evonik has kicked off a major expansion project at two German facilities,…

California’s Gilead Sciences has outlined a plan to ramp up production of newly USA-approved COVID-19…

Shares of Danish allergy immunotherapy specialist ALK Abello were up almost 10% at 1,788.00 Danish kroner…

Swiss drugmaker Ferring and its Rebiotix subsidiary have announced a world first with a microbiome-based…

Pandemic-based stockpiling among people with diabetes helped lift revenues beyond analysts’ expectations…

US drugmaker Alexion Pharmaceuticals fared better in its revenue and adjusted earnings figures in the…

The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for many life sciences companies due to a…

A multi-year collaboration between China’s Innovent Biologics and USA-based Eli Lilly is bearing fruit,…

Late Wednesday, the US Food and Drug Administration said it has granted accelerated approved for Tabrecta…

Canada-based BetterLife Pharma, previously known as Pivot Pharmaceuticals, has entered into an agreement…

The US Food and Drug Administration has granted accelerated approval for Retevmo (selpercatinib) capsules…

AbbVie may be working through COVID-19, but it's pressing ahead with its Allergan merger, too—and taking stock of products hit by pandemic lockdowns. That puts Allergan’s aesthetics business top of mind, but AbbVie CEO Rick Gonzalez figures customers are ready and able to return quickly for treatment.

Roche scored a major win with the FDA's backing for its COVID-19 antibody tests last week in a field marked by products of questionable quality. Now, to cover its booming production goals, Roche plans to infuse nearly half-a-billion dollars into its German manufacturing facility. 

Gilead made waves on Friday with its emergency FDA approval for remdesivir quickly on the heels of a controlled trial data release. But while it’s an important first step, other COVID-19 medicines will likely be coming down the line, analysts wrote.

German drugmaker Fresenius Kabi has made major investments in its U.S. manufacturing operations in recent years with some mixed quality results along the way. Now, one of the drugmaker's products faces a recall for more manufacturing woes.

Global coronavirus vaccine makers have been rolling out details about their manufacturing and launch plans—even ahead of any clinical data. Now, Pfizer says it will draw on three sites in the U.S., plus one in Belgium, for the early stages of a launch, provided its BioNTech-partnered shot wins a green light.

The world is waiting for Gilead Sciences to set a price tag for remdesivir, the first brand-new med authorized to treat COVID-19. Its choice will affect Gilead's reputation and bottom line, set a tone for follow-up meds—and either help polish up the pharma industry's image or create a new flashpoint for criticism.

Biogen has had a rocky road with its controversial Alzheimer's disease candidate aducanumab, resurrected late last year. But despite postponing the drug's FDA filing half a year, Biogen is still moving forward with plans to scale up production if aducanumab eventually passes muster.

Gilead Sciences' remdesivir, now called Veklury, has won a fast Japanese nod in SARS-CoV-2. The Big Biotech's scouting licensing partners to ramp up supply around the world. Eli Lilly has signed on China's Junshi Biosciences to develop neutralizing antibodies against the novel coronavirus. And more.

Global drugmakers are working overtime to keep supplies coming amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. But in manufacturing facilities packed with workers, COVID-19 presents a particularly difficult challenge—and now one Indian plant has been forced to shutter due to a rash of infections. 

Unlike its first U.K. reimbursement negotiations, Roche’s HER2 antibody-drug conjugate has won quick National Institute for Health and Care Excellence backing for routine NHS coverage to prevent HER2-positive breast cancer from returning after surgery in the so-called adjuvant setting.

Singapore registered 753 new coronavirus infections, its health ministry said on Saturday, taking the city-state's total to 22,460 cases.

I Thought Being a Health Care Reporter Would Make Cancer Easier. I Was Wrong.Alexandra Glorioso (Politico Magazine)Meet the pigs that could solve the human organ transplant crisisKaren Weintraub (MIT Technology Review)The Director of the NIH Lays Out His Vision of the Future of Medical ScienceFrancis Collins (Time)In a rural Wisconsin village, the doctor makes house calls — and sees some of the rarest diseases on EarthMark Johnson (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)‘I just want to live [...]

Three air cargo carriers, LAN Cargo S.A. (LAN Cargo), Aerolinhas Brasileiras S.A. (ABSA), and EL AL Israel Airlines Ltd. (EL AL), have each agreed to plead guilty and pay criminal fines totaling $124.7 million for their roles in a conspiracy to fix prices in the air cargo industry.

A Chicago police officer pleaded guilty today to violating the federal civil rights of a man whom the officer struck repeatedly with a dangerous weapon while the man was handcuffed and shackled in a wheelchair.

Phat Ngoc Tran, 35, pleaded guilty today in San Diego to conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise, the “Tran Organization,” in a scheme to cheat at least 12 casinos across the United States and Canada out of millions of dollars. Tran admitted that he and his co-conspirators unlawfully obtained up to $2.5 million during card cheats.

A Ghanian man was sentenced today in the District of Columbia for his role in smuggling East Africans into the United States. Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim, a/k/a Hakim, 27, a native of Ghana and naturalized citizen of Mexico, was sentenced to five years in prison by U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy and three counts of bringing aliens to the United States for profit.

Hassan Saied Keshari and his corporation, Kesh Air International, pleaded guilty this morning in the Southern District of Florida to charges of conspiring to illegally export military and commercial aircraft parts to Iran. 

A third individual pleaded guilty today to illegally accessing numerous confidential passport application files. Gerald R. Lueders, 65, of Woodbridge, Va., pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a one-count criminal information charging him with unauthorized computer access.

Three individuals were indicted today by a federal grand jury in the District of Massachusetts for conspiring to interfere with the civil rights of members of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, a Springfield, Mass., church with a predominantly African-American congregation.

A federal indictment was unsealed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon charging Harold James Nicholson, 58, of Sheridan, Ore., and Nathaniel James Nicholson, 24, of Eugene, Ore., with two counts of Conspiracy, one count of Acting as Agents of a Foreign Government, and four counts of Money Laundering.

A former high-level shipping executive was sentenced today to serve 48 months in jail and to pay a $20,000 criminal fine for his role in an antitrust conspiracy involving the transportation of goods to and from the continental United States and Puerto Rico by ocean vessel. This is the longest jail sentence ever imposed for a single antitrust charge.

The Department today announced that it has reached a consent decree with the Policía de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Police Department or PRPD) that will, if approved by the federal district court, resolve a complaint the Department filed in March 2008 alleging that the PRPD engaged in unlawful employment discrimination based on gender and retaliation, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin and religion, and also prohibits retaliation against persons for filing charges of discrimination.

Five commercial fishermen in St. Mary’s County, Md., a fish wholesaler, its owner and an employee have been charged in Maryland and Washington, D.C., for their role in the illegal harvest, sale, and purchase of hundreds of thousands of pounds of striped bass from the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River from 2003 through 2007.

Jimmy “Jimbo” Sullivan, the former chief of police in Mendenhall, Miss., pleaded guilty today to a felony civil rights violation, admitting that he used excessive force when he repeatedly stomped on the head of an arrestee.

Two Florida homeland security vendor employees were sentenced today for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services fraud by depriving their employers of money and the right of honest services, the Department of Justice announced today.

Timothy Oldani, 24, of Scott Depot, W.Va., and Joseph Oldani, 21, of Camp Lejeune, N.C., both pleaded guilty today in the Southern District of West Virginia to conspiring to steal military optics from the U.S. Marine Corps and illegally export them from the United States.

The United States has recovered more than $19 million from AMEC Construction Management Inc. (ACMI) to resolve allegations of fraud, false claims and kickbacks on four General Services Administration (GSA) construction contracts, as well as litigation over claims by the GSA for excess re-procurement costs incurred by GSA after it terminated ACMI’s contract to build the Thomas F. Eagleton United States Courthouse in St. Louis, Missouri. ACMI was formerly known as Morse Diesel International Inc.