Covid-19 roundup: UK preps for a wave of Omicron cases; Bourla suggests a fourth dose might be necessary

Boris Johnson at a press conference Dec. 8, after discussions on restrictions as a result of the Omicron variant (Adrian Dennis/Pool via AP Images)

With re­ports of Omi­cron cas­es in over 50 coun­tries, and at least 19 US states, some re­gions like the UK are now ex­pect­ing a rapid rise of Omi­cron as com­mu­ni­ty spread takes off.

While the UK has on­ly seen about 800 Omi­cron cas­es so far, the gov­ern­ment’s Health Se­cu­ri­ty Agency warned that if the re­cent growth rate con­tin­ues, ‘we ex­pect to see at least 50 per­cent of Covid-19 cas­es to be caused by the Omi­cron vari­ant in the next two to four weeks,’ ac­cord­ing to the New York Times.

John Ed­munds, an epi­demi­ol­o­gist at the Lon­don School of Hy­giene & Trop­i­cal Med­i­cine, said that plan B mea­sures an­nounced by PM Boris John­son were ‘ab­solute­ly not an over­re­ac­tion’ even if Omi­cron turned out to be milder than the cur­rent dom­i­nant vari­ant, ac­cord­ing to The Guardian.

Ed­munds told a Roy­al So­ci­ety of Med­i­cine we­bi­nar Thurs­day that it was ‘ex­treme­ly like­ly’ there’s more Omi­cron in com­mu­ni­ties, adding, ‘With the speed of spread of this virus, we may well have re­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of cas­es by Christ­mas.’

Mean­while, CDC di­rec­tor Rochelle Walen­sky said Wednes­day that her staff is ‘avail­able 24/7, as they have been through­out this en­tire pan­dem­ic, to pro­vide in-per­son and re­mote tech­ni­cal sup­port for the pub­lic health re­sponse to the Omi­cron vari­ant, in­clud­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions of the epi­demi­o­log­ic and clin­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of Omi­cron or oth­er SARS-CoV-2 in­fec­tions.’

An­tho­ny Fau­ci, Pres­i­dent Biden’s top in­fec­tious dis­ease ex­pert, added at the brief­ing, ‘We are do­ing live virus and pseu­do virus as­says that might be ready for in­ter­pre­ta­tion in the mid­dle of next week for the pseu­do virus and prob­a­bly the end of next week for the live virus­es. We’ll be able to de­ter­mine whether or not an­ti­bod­ies in­duced by our vac­cines lose their ca­pa­bil­i­ty of ef­fec­tive­ness with Omi­cron.’

Be­tween Nov. 26 and Dec. 6, CDC has worked with with more than 25 ju­ris­dic­tions on sus­pect­ed and con­firmed cas­es of the Omi­cron vari­ant, Walen­sky said.

Pfiz­er CEO Bourla sug­gests the need for a fourth vac­cine dose to fight Omi­cron

Da­ta on the Omi­cron vari­ant that are com­ing in the next two weeks will of­fer an ac­cu­rate look at whether Pfiz­er’s vac­cine can stand up to the new, more in­fec­tious vari­ant, Pfiz­er CEO Al­bert Bourla told CN­BC yes­ter­day.

‘When we see re­al-world da­ta, will de­ter­mine if the Omi­cron is well cov­ered by the third dose and for how long. And the sec­ond point, I think we will need a fourth dose,’ Bourla said. Al­though, Bourla’s opin­ion is con­flict­ed by his po­si­tion and ob­vi­ous in­ter­est in sell­ing as many vac­cine dos­es as pos­si­ble.

Bourla pre­vi­ous­ly said that a fourth dose like­ly wouldn’t be need­ed un­til a year af­ter the third, but he said this new, faster time­line is be­cause of Omi­cron.

The push comes as Fau­ci has al­so now in­di­cat­ed that an Omi­cron-tar­get­ed vac­cine might not be nec­es­sary.

While stress­ing that he was hy­poth­e­siz­ing, Fau­ci sug­gest­ed in an in­ter­view with STAT News that it’s pos­si­ble the cur­rent vac­cines will pro­vide enough pro­tec­tion against Omi­cron.

For a look at all End­points News coro­n­avirus sto­ries, check out our spe­cial news chan­nel.

Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann (via Agreus Group)

While the ultimate fate of Novartis’ big generics arm Sandoz may still be up in the air, there’s no doubt it’s in play as a potential buyout target.

Overnight, Reuters picked up on a report out of Germany that EQT and the billionaire Strüngmann brothers — enjoying a huge windfall from the overnight success of BioNTech’s mRNA Covid vaccine — are kicking the tires at Sandoz. And Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan confirmed it.

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Stéphane Bancel (AP Images, Boston Herald)

Moderna says that it’s on its way to having an mRNA vaccine against not one, but two different seasonal viruses.

The biotech released the first early data from its flu program Friday morning, announcing that all doses of the shot significantly boosted antibodies in younger and older adults without ‘significant safety findings.’ A 500-person Phase II dose-confirming study is already enrolled, the company said, and preparations for a large pivotal trial are underway.

Members of the public disembark a train at King Cross Station in London, on the day that extra measures are put in place to fight the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. Since Nov. 30, it’s been mandatory for people in England to wear face coverings in shops and on public transport. (Ben Cawthra/Sipa USA/Sipa via AP Images)

Like hundreds of other virologists and epidemiologists, Benjamin tenOever’s Thanksgiving weekend was interrupted with emails about an emergency Omicron meeting.

But when he logged onto a WHO conference call 9 a.m. Monday morning, officials had a surprisingly upbeat spin on the little-understood variant that had already prompted leaders around the world, fearful the strain could evade vaccines, to close their borders to broad swaths of Southern Africa.

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Mathai Mammen, J&J EVP of pharmaceuticals, R&D (Rob Tannenbaum)

The new J&J has a fresh corporate face to show the public — several in fact.

As the healthcare conglomerate follows a now familiar pharma path in separating itself into an innovation-focused R&D-based group from its less appealing consumer side, it’s promoting some key individuals to the executive committee that steers the company.

Those fresh faces include Mathai Mammen, the global head of R&D who joins the inner circle as executive vice president of pharmaceuticals, R&D. External innovation chief Bill Hait becomes executive vice president, chief external innovation, medical safety and global public health officer. Jim Swanson, until today simply the chief information officer, adds the EVP part to his title in moving onto the committee. And Vanessa Broadhurst, company group chairman, global commercial strategy organization, has been appointed EVP, global corporate affairs.

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Please signup to continue — it’s fast and free. This article is sponsored by Catalent and produced by Endpoints Studio. Angion’s lead organ damage drug took two strikes earlier this year, flopping as a repurposed effort for Covid-19 and whiffing in high-risk kidney transplant patients. The biotech reported a third on Thursday, raising serious questions about the program’s future.

In a Phase II study looking at some cardiac surgery patients at risk of kidney injury, Angion reported its ANG-3777 candidate missed badly on the primary endpoint. The results come about a month and a half after the kidney transplant study and less than five months after the Covid-19 trial, ostensibly leaving the candidate on the chopping block.

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For the second time, we brought the celebration to a live virtual audience, featuring an award presentation followed by a panel on what it takes to break the glass ceiling in biopharma with Kojin Therapeutics CEO Luba Greenwood, AskBio CEO Sheila Mikhail, and Silverback Therapeutics CEO Laura Shawver. Our panelists had a lively discussion on how the industry’s culture has changed, how to handle sexual harassment, the progress we’ve made and the challenges that still hold women back today.

We applaud each of our honorees for scaling the heights of biopharma R&D. You got to meet most of them via brief recordings we played during our live event. Below, you’ll find bonus videos offering a longer glimpse into those interviews. And if you didn’t get a chance to tune in to our main event live, you can replay the entire show.

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Uğur Şahin, BioNTech CEO (Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa via AP Images)

Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are now racing to develop Omicron-specific boosters, hoping to be ready if the new immune-evasive variant becomes dominant globally. But it wasn’t always clear that variant boosters could even work.

After the first Covid-19 vaccines were authorized and talk began of variants and next-generation vaccines, several vaccinologists raised concerns in the media and the scientific press about a potentially deleterious phenomenon that sounds as if it were born out of the Vatican’s immunology wing: Original antigenic sin.

Margaret Koziel has bounced back and forth between academia and biotech throughout her career — and after 25 years, she has landed her first position as part of a biotech’s top brass.

Koziel joined Axcella Therapeutics — founded by Flagship’s Noubar Afeyan, Geoffrey von Maltzahn and David Berry as Axcella Health — in 2019, and as of Monday, she is now in the C-suite as the biotech’s new CMO.
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