Moderna’s Cancer Vaccine, Undercounted Covid Deaths And Sergey Brin’s Fight Against Parkinson’s

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Moderna came to the public’s attention for its efforts in developing an mRNA vaccine for Covid-19, but the company is now moving its portfolio forward in several different directions. On Tuesday, the company announced that its mRNA cancer vaccine showed strong results in a phase 2 clinical trial of Stage III/IV melanoma patients. The company’s vaccine was used in combination with Merck’s cancer treatment Keytruda, and reduced the risk of death or cancer recurrence by 44% compared to patients who received Keytruda alone. The two companies will be moving forward with this treatment combination next year with a phase 3 clinical trial and if the same results hold there, the next step would be working to obtain regulatory approvals, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel wrote in a blog post. “We are also rapidly expanding our efforts to study additional tumor types and are investing resources in scaling these programs,” he added.

And that’s not all. Moderna has also been collaborating with Vertex Pharmaceuticals to develop an mRNA based treatment for cystic fibrosis since 2016. On Monday, the two companies announced that their new drug candidate, VX-522, has had its Investigational New Drug application cleared by FDA, which means the companies will be able to take VX-522 into clinical trials. This treatment for cystic fibrosis is geared towards a small subset of patients who aren’t able to be treated with a current treatment for the disease. “This partnership brings together Vertex’s scientific expertise and decades of experience in developing cystic fibrosis medicines with Moderna’s proven leadership in mRNA technologies,” Bancel said in a statement.

A little housekeeping note: this is the last edition of the InnovationRx newsletter for 2022 as we’ll be taking a break for the holidays. We’ll be back with the latest in healthcare news on Wednesday, January 4.

Exclusive: Google Cofounder Sergey Brin Has Quietly Donated More Than $1 Billion Toward Parkinson’s Disease

Brin, who more than a decade ago revealed that he has a genetic mutation that gives him a higher risk of getting Parkinson’s disease, has quietly given hundreds of millions of dollars a year to research what exactly causes the debilitating neurological disease and, in time, how to cure it.

Read more here.

Deals Of The Week

Megadeal: Amgen has entered negotiations to acquire Horizon Therapeutics in a deal worth about $27.8 billion – which will mean about $500 million just for hedge fund billionaire John Paulson.

Psoriasis Treatment: Takeda announced this week it will be acquiring NDI-034858, an oral treatment for autoimmune diseases, from Nimbus Therapeutics, for an upfront payment of $4 billion and two milestone payments of $1 billion. The deal comes shortly after Nimbus announced positive phase 2a clinical results for psoriasis.

Oligonucleotide Therapeutics: GSK announced it’s collaborating with Wave Life Sciences to develop oligonucleotide therapeutics for multiple genetic disorders. The deal involves a $170 million upfront payment to Wave plus milestone payments and royalties down the road.

Noteworthy

New research suggests that elderly people who suffer from hearing loss can reduce risk of cognitive decline with hearing aids.

Walgreens has sold shares of AmerisourceBergen for proceeds of $1 billion, which will be used to help fund VillageMD’s acquisition of Summit Health.

U.S. employers must brace for healthcare cost increases at more than 5% for next year “and beyond,” according to a new report from employee benefits consultant firm Mercer.

Coronavirus Updates

According to official records, about 5.4 million people died from Covid-19 in the years 2020 and 2021. But today, the World Health Organization published new estimates suggesting that that number may be a significant undercount. The WHO estimates that in 2020 and 2021, nearly 15 million people died from the disease–nearly three times the official count. That higher estimate is based on excess mortality counts during the two years. According to the organization. India had the highest number of deaths–an estimated 4.7 million–followed by Russia, Indonesia and the United States. The research also reveals that the pandemic had a much more devastating impact on low and middle income countries than official numbers would suggest.

Long Covid Has Claimed At Least 3,500 In The U.S. So Far, CDC Report Says

Long Covid has been linked to at least 3,544 deaths in the United States so far, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which places a spotlight on the lingering impact Covid-19 can have on people who manage to survive an infection.

Read more here.

Other Coronavirus News

Health officials in China announced that going forward, the country’s daily Covid-19 case numbers will leave out people with asymptomatic infections.

The House of Representatives approved the National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, which lays out fiscal year 2023 spending for the Department of Defense and would repeal the military’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate. The bill is now in the Senate.

By mid-2023, the federal government will no longer pay for most Paxlovid treatments, which could lead to it being costly for some patients.

Across Forbes

Sam Bankman-Fried Is Denied Bail And Jailed Until February

National Lab Unlocks Nuclear Fusion — True Breakthrough, Novelty Act, Or Both?

Reinventing Anna: Fake Heiress Anna ‘Delvey’ Sorokin Is Ready For Her Next Close-Up

What Else We are Reading

Abandoned: The human cost of neurotechnology failure (Nature)

“Out Of Control”: Dozens of Telehealth Startups Sent Sensitive Health Information to Big Tech Companies (The Markup/Stat)

The global plan for COVID-19 vaccine fairness fell short. Will next time be different? (Science)