- Genes, bugs and radiation: WHO backs new weapons in Zika fight (reuters.com)Brazil reports more cases of microcephaly under investigation (reuters.com)FDA recommends ban on blood collections from Zika-affected areas (reuters.com)Zika vaccine shows promise in mice, lifting maker Inovio (reuters.com)
Countries battling the Zika virus should consider new ways to curb disease-carrying mosquitoes, including testing the release of genetically modified insects and bacteria that stop their eggs hatching...Given the magnitude of the Zika crisis, WHO encourages affected countries and their partners to boost the use of both old and new approaches to mosquito control as the most immediate line of defence...WHO also highlighted the potential of releasing sterile irradiated male mosquitoes, a technique that has been developed at the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency...Fighting the infection at source by eliminating the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes responsible for transmission is moving up the public health agenda, especially as the same insects also spread dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever...An alternative approach uses Wolbachia bacteria, which do not infect humans but cause the eggs of females that mate with infected males to fail to hatch. Mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia have been shown to reduce mosquitoes' ability to transmit dengue...
- Zika update: Vaccine race swells, PaxVax CEO on how to stop ‘chasing epidemics’
As the Zika virus continues to spread, more biotechs are announcing their Zika vaccine programs. Meriden,.. Protein Sciences,..GeoVax Labs and.. PaxVax are the latest...Getting caught off-guard by epidemics like this has happened time and time again. And "chasing" outbreaks instead of anticipating them rarely results in a vaccine being developed in time. Witness the most recent Ebola epidemic: Merck's experimental vaccine, the furthest along in a crowded field, won't be submitted for regulatory approval until 2017, more than two years after the outbreak started...we had known about Ebola for decades...Companies got a head start in 2014 from partly developed candidates that had been shelved away. It is not so with Zika. "Almost everyone is pretty much starting from scratch...To avoid this and have programs in place before an outbreak hits...governments and nongovernmental organizations...should create economic incentives for companies to make vaccines for neglected diseases like Zika...the FDA's priority review voucher system, in which a company developing a vaccine for a neglected tropical disease receives a transferable voucher for expedited FDA review. Malaria and dengue have been on the list of neglected diseases for years, but Zika is not yet on the list
- Drugmaker Abbott to buy Alere for $5.8 bln (cnbc.com)
Drugmaker Abbott Laboratories said it would acquire Alere for $5.8 billion in a deal that would expand its diagnostics business and make it a leader in point-of-care testing...Point-of-care tests help increase the speed of treatment by bringing test results to doctors in a matter of minutes as they can be conducted in the physician's office, an ambulance or even at home...Alere, which has annual sales of $2.5 billion, makes tests for infections such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and dengue...Abbott, which had annual sales of $20.4 billion in 2015, said its total diagnostics sales would exceed $7 billion after the close of the deal...Alere's net debt, currently $2.6 billion, will be assumed or refinanced by Abbott.