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Summary List PlacementLast February, as the new coronavirus started to appear in the US, scientists began revisiting an idea that had been abandoned by many top drug companies years ago: creating a universal drug for coronaviruses.  These viruses, known for their spiky appearance, can cause COVID-19, SARS, and the common cold, among other illnesses. Work on vaccines or treatments for two previous coronavirus threats,...

Summary List PlacementEuropean countries and Canada will receive fewer doses of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine than planned in the weeks ahead, an unexpected cut as Pfizer is renovating a critical manufacturing plant to eventually boost production. The disruption will happen in late January and early February, a Pfizer spokesperson told Insider. The global pharmaceutical giant is still aiming to produce 2 billion doses in 2021,...

Summary List PlacementJosh Mugele worked the night shift on Christmas. Though he had been tending to coronavirus patients since the start of the pandemic, his Georgia hospital was stretched to capacity like never before. There was one small comfort, though: Mugele had received the first dose of Pfizer and BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine on December 20. "I had three shifts in a row right up...

Summary List PlacementUS regulators authorized Moderna's coronavirus vaccine on Friday for emergency use, concluding there are no major safety concerns with the new vaccine.  But that doesn't mean the two-dose vaccine is side-effect free. More than nine in 10 people who got Moderna's shot registered some side effects, which were mostly mild or moderate in severity and lasted one to three days after an...

Summary List PlacementCoronavirus vaccines are now a reality, making perhaps the most formidable remaining challenge less about scientific research and more about manufacturing might. The leading vaccine-makers are now aiming to produce hundreds of millions of doses of their shots. The global demand for a COVID-19 vaccine is likely to vastly outstrip supply, turning more attention to the ability of companies to pump out...

Summary List PlacementThe first doses of a coronavirus vaccine should arrive in every US state on Monday morning, Operation Warp Speed co-leader Gen. Gustave Perna said Saturday.  The US Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer's two-dose vaccine for emergency use on Friday night, effectively launching the largest vaccination campaign in US history.  Perna, a four-star general, stands at the forefront of the mammoth logistical...

Summary List PlacementEvan Fein can't know for sure, but he is pretty certain he got Pfizer's experimental coronavirus vaccine about five months ago.  "I think I got a real vaccine, and not a placebo," Fein said, during a public comment period the Food and Drug Administration held on Thursday afternoon. The comment period was part of an advisory committee hearing, where top disease experts...

Summary List Placement3:15 PM: How the FDA views the benefits and risks of Pfizer's vaccine FDA scientist Dr. Susan Wollersheim discussed how the agency views the benefits and risks of issuing an emergency OK for Pfizer's vaccine. These will likely be the key topics for an open-ended discussion the expert panel will start in about an hour, ultimately leading to a vote on whether...

Summary List PlacementOregon made history in November when it passed a measure to create a regulated therapeutic psilocybin program, opening the door to what could be the first legal market for psychedelic medications on the state level.  The use of psychedelics as treatments for mental health conditions, as well as for a variety of ailments like opioid addiction and Alzheimer's disease, has been gaining...

Summary List PlacementEarly on Monday, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford announced preliminary results from a trial of their coronavirus vaccine. It should have been a moment of triumph. They said the vaccine was 70% effective, on average, at preventing COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus that's swept the world. That surpassed standards that some regulators have set for approval, though it...

Summary List Placement Amazon's new pharmacy service, announced on Tuesday, is all Wall Street can talk about.  The service, Amazon Pharmacy, offers discounts on drugs and free two-day shipping for Prime members. Customers in 45 states can now shop online for their medications. The rollout has sent healthcare stocks tumbling. Among those hit the hardest was GoodRx, a company that went public in September...

Summary List Placement 2021 is shaping up to be a critical year for the biotech industry. Drugmakers are racing to develop treatments and vaccines that will help combat the coronavirus pandemic. While that work progresses, biotech companies focused on finding treatments for conditions like Duchenne muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, and Alzheimer's disease are carrying on their work with pivotal data or approvals expected in...

Summary List Placement Dr. Lily Peng is clear-eyed about what Google is up against when it comes to doing business in the $3.6 trillion healthcare industry.  "Healthcare is not Google's jam," Peng told Business Insider.  "Healthcare is incredibly — well, complicated is an understatement. And there's all these different parts of healthcare," she said. The size and complexity of healthcare make it difficult to...

Summary List Placement Hello, Today's a big day in the race for an effective and safe coronavirus vaccine. A group of experts is meeting in a conversation that could have big implications for what it'll take for a vaccine to get cleared by the FDA.  Also in healthcare news: 11 charts that break down how the US compares to other countries in responding to...

Summary List PlacementPresident Donald Trump in a video Wednesday expressed his excitement over the new kind of coronavirus treatment that he received He said the treatments should be free, and he called on regulators to approve them. The drugs, known as antibody treatments, are a promising way of helping people infected with the novel coronavirus recover more quickly.  Trump received Regeneron's experimental antibody drug...

Summary List Placement   One of our best hopes for fighting the coronavirus pandemic may have started with a signed napkin in 1988. On that napkin, a neurologist named Leonard Schleifer scribbled the basics of a deal to start a new biotechnology company. His dinner companion, George Sing, a banker at Merrill Lynch, agreed to give Schleifer a million dollars in funding to launch...

Summary List Placement Microsoft's healthcare strategy is all about Azure, a web-based service and money-making machine. Microsoft uses Azure to build, store, and manage companies' data, sites, and mobile apps. As of June, the tech giant made more than $50 billion from Azure and other internet businesses like Office 365 and LinkedIn year-over-year, the company said during earnings. Long-term, the tech giant has the...

Summary List Placement Hello, Hope you all had good weeks! I celebrated the eighth birthday of my dog, Junior. (Photos here of him with his present, because we could all use more dog photos in our lives these days).  I also spent time reflecting on Tuesday's news that the pandemic has killed at least 200,000 people in the US. Reporter Jose Pagliery on Twitter...