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Testimony revealed Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos issued marketing materials to future partner Walgreens that included the use of Pfizer’s corporate logo despite Pfizer’s decline to partner with the startup blood-testing company...The ongoing criminal trial of Holmes revealed the misrepresentation of Pfizer’s logo...Holmes, along with former Theranos President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, were charged with multiple counts of fraud in 2018. According to the charges that the government brought against the duo, from 2013 to 2015, Holmes and Balwani raised more than $700 million from investors for falsely claiming their single-drop blood-testing technology would revolutionize the medical industry...READ MORE

...Silicon Valley startup NowRx decided to avoid venture capital dollars...The online pharmacy aims to raise $73 million series C funding through SeedInvest, an equity crowdfunding platform...Once completed, the series C round will bring the company’s total funding to more than $100 million...The startup, which provides same-day and same-hour prescription medication delivery and telehealth services, aims to use the funds to expand into additional territories, and accelerate the technology roadmap for its proprietary pharmacy management software and logistics technology...The raise comes on the heels of strong growth as the company charted $13.4 million in revenue in 2020...READ MORE

Moderna on Thursday said it will build a plant in Africa to produce shots for COVID-19 as well as other vaccines for other diseases, although it has yet to pick a site or a country for the planned factory...The Massachusetts biotech intends to spend as much as $500 million on the plant, which it claims will be able to produce as many as 500 million vaccine doses a year. Along with manufacturing the actual vaccine product, the plant will also fill vial vials and package doses, Moderna said...African nations are well behind the rest of the world in COVID-19 vaccinations. Only 7% of the continent's population has had at least one dose, compared with 66% for the U.S. and Canada, 58% for Latin America and 57% for Europe...READ MORE

The past several months have seen thousands of hospitals announce COVID-19 vaccination requirements for staff and clinicians as a condition of employment...Although controversial, the policies picked up steam when Pfizer and BioNTech’s Comirnaty received a full regulatory approval and then really kicked into gear when the Biden administration made workforce vaccination a requirement for Medicare and Medicaid participation...Most health system leaders and professional organizations have been supportive of the requirement, with some describing vaccination as “the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all healthcare workers to put patients as well as residents of long-term care facilities first.”...READ MORE

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has given its go-ahead for the use of Moderna's and Janssen's COVID-19 vaccines as booster shots...after their initial series as well as the approval of mixing and matching vaccines...READ MORE

Drugmakers may face stricter rules to ensure the supply of medicines in the European Union, EU officials said...as the bloc tries to reduce its imports of pharmaceutical products from China and other foreign "autocracies"...At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, the 27-country bloc encountered protracted problems in obtaining a wide range of medicines and their ingredients from India and China, as supplies tightened amid lockdowns and export restrictions...The planned rules change is also aimed at reducing the EU's reliance on medicine ingredients produced abroad, as the Commission estimates that two-thirds of the global supply is concentrated in India and China...READ MORE

Even while pediatric COVID-19 cases remain high in the United States, there remains significant resistance by parents to vaccinate their children. Amid this reluctance, Pfizer and BioNTech have asked the FDA to authorize their vaccine for children aged 5 to 11, the companies revealed...An FDA advisory committee has scheduled a meeting on Oct. 26 to discuss authorization. The submission potentially sets up the vaccine for emergency use approval...but the companies may face a tough sell trying to convince parents that the shot is safe...Last month, only 34% of parents in the U.S. with children ages 5 to 11 said they would vaccinate them “right away,”...READ MORE

Before the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine authorization, there were no mRNA therapies approved anywhere in the world. The idea of using messenger RNA as a way to get your body to be the drug manufacturer has been around for some time, but only in recent years has it become practical. And it was the COVID-19 pandemic that provided the opportunity for the technology to push ahead...In terms of cancer...BioNTech has two types of mRNA vaccines for cancer. “First, we have our off-the-shelf vaccines, where we’ve identified molecular features of tumors that are shared by many patients...By targeting these molecules, you can fight the cancer without getting collateral damage to healthy cells.”...“Second, we have highly personalized vaccines. We identify cancer mutations that are unique to every patient...We biopsy the tumor, sequence it, and design a unique, individualized vaccine for each patient.”...READ MORE

...the US Department of Justice, three companies—Taro Pharmaceuticals, Sandoz, and Apotex—have agreed to fork over a total of $447.2m USD to settle their alleged violations of the False Claims Act. According to the government’s allegations, the firms conspired to fix the prices of various generic drugs, resulting in higher prices paid by federal health care programs and beneficiaries...The charges allege that between the years of 2013 and 2015, the trio of companies paid and received compensation, which is prohibited by the Anti-Kickback Statute, via arrangements on price, supply, and allocation of customers with other pharmaceutical manufacturers for certain generic drugs manufactured by the companies...READ MORE

No pharmaceutical company is eager to broadcast the role that abortion-derived fetal cell lines played in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, and that reportedly includes Pfizer...Project Veritas released a video Wednesday in which Melissa Strickler, Pfizer manufacturing quality auditor, produced what she identified as internal emails that showed top officials discussing how to downplay in corporate communications the role of embryonic cell lines in the COVID-19 vaccine program...“If they’re being this deceptive about it, I don’t feel comfortable being silent,” said Ms. Strickler in the video interview with Project Veritas President James O’Keefe...READ MORE