In the rush to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, integral parts of the equation are being overlooked in the U.S., according to a whistleblower complaint filed this week by Rick Bright over his removal as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). Even if millions of doses of vaccine are ready to go by January, as the NIH’s Anthony Fauci a few weeks ago said could happen, there may not be enough needles and syringes to deliver those doses.

CAJICA, Colombia – A research team at the Autonomous University of Queretaro (UAQ), Mexico, is working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, joining about 100 other teams working toward a similar goal. Unlike other teams, however, this one is being led by veterinarians.

DUBLIN – Bavarian Nordic A/S, Europe’s largest independent vaccine developer, is placing a bet on virus-like particle (VLP) technology as a potentially useful contribution to the desperate global effort to push back against SARS-CoV-2.

DUBLIN – Shares in Valneva SE rose by as much as 32% during early trading April 30 on news that Pfizer Inc. is paying $130 million up front to in-license its Lyme disease candidate vaccine, VLA-15.

LONDON – The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global collaboration to accelerate development and production of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

LONDON – The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global collaboration to accelerate development and production of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, with leaders of countries around the world appearing live to pledge their support.

The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) commitment of up to $483 million to accelerate Moderna Inc.’s mRNA vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, in efforts to fight coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) would enable the company to supply millions of doses per month in 2020 and tens of millions per month in 2021 if the vaccine candidate is successful in the clinic.

LONDON – Researchers at the Jenner Institute in Oxford have given an inside view of how they are accelerating clinical development of a COVID-19 vaccine and at the same time putting in place commercial manufacturing for when phase III efficacy data are available, expected in August or September.

“Vaccines, obviously, are the ultimate solution for pandemics,” Rino Rappuoli told BioWorld. They have, he added, “already eliminated a lot of pandemic threats – smallpox, influenza, poliomyelitis.”

DUBLIN – Sanofi SA and Glaxosmithkline plc are lending their considerable weight to the urgent global effort to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 by teaming up to develop an adjuvanted recombinant subunit vaccine that will employ technologies from each company. Paris-based Sanofi is contributing its recombinant spike protein antigen and its baculovirus expression system, which is also the basis of its U.S.-licensed influenza vaccine Flublok. London-based GSK is contributing its pandemic adjuvant technology.