BioPharma

Dr Greg Cook, the director of access policy and advocacy for Bristol Myers Squibb Australia and New Zealand, spoke with BioPharmaDispatch about the company's submission to the parliamentary inquiry into access to new medicines and medical technologies.

More than 304 million doses have been administered across 114 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 7.93 million doses a day. Baxter will 'fill and finish' 60-90 million doses of Moderna's mRNA vaccine. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued new guidance to fully-vaccinated Americans.

Australian-based biopharmaceutical companies have marked International Women's Day 2021 with a range of activities.

An advocacy organisation has backed its call for reform of how the government funds opiate dependence by calling on a key parliamentary committee to investigate what it describes as the 'unlawful exercise of power'.

Emerging Adelaide-based CAR-T therapy company Carina Biotech is led by three women who have made their careers in science commercialisation.

Emily Amos, the managing director of Bupa Health Insurance, says premiums will continue to rise because the cost of health care is increasingly driven by the ageing of the population, medical advances but also inefficiencies and waste.

Australian clinical-stage drug development company Noxopharm (ASX:NOX) has announced that its lead investigational candidate Veyonda has been approved to move into its second and final stage of the NOXCOVID-1 clinical trial.

The health system's 'bandwidth' to deliver over one million COVID-19 vaccine doses per week will be tested in the first few weeks of the national program's next phase that will likely indicate the extent to which the October timeline is realistic.

The Department of Health has confirmed there have been deaths reported in a small number of aged care residents after they were administered a COVID-19 vaccine.

How would the Australian government respond if CSL moved to export doses of the vaccine it is currently producing in Melbourne before it met its supply agreement?

The number of countries that have administered over one million COVID-19 doses has reached 26. Australia currently sits with a group of countries that have administered fewer than 100,000 doses, including Malta, Algeria, Pakistan and Seychelles. A positive trial result for the antiviral MSD is developing with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics.

HBF Chief Executive Officer John Van Der Wielen said the opening of HBF Dental in Joondalup signified the insurer’s intent to be there for its members in the moments that matter.