By Fraiser Kansteiner
Pfizer recently cited upgrades to its McPherson, Kansas plant as one of the ways it would double weekly vaccine output in the U.S. by mid-March. But that plant has endured an onslaught of FDA complaints since Pfizer acquired it in its 2015 Hospira buyout, with inspectors citing offenses as recently as last January.
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By Heather Landi
Home-based care companies, including Amazon Care and two health systems, are lobbying Congress to make permanent changes to home health care reimbursement policies. Intermountain Healthcare and Ascension are two of the founding members of the Moving Health Home coalition to change the way policymakers think about the home as a site of clinical service.
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By Nick Paul Taylor
Apellis Pharmaceuticals has stopped development of APL-9 in severe COVID-19 patients after an interim review of phase 1/2 mortality data. The review found adding the C3 therapy to standard of care had no meaningful effect on mortality, prompting Apellis to pull the plug on the program.
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By Fraiser Kansteiner
As the U.S. locks up supplies to make Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, Serum Institute of India and WHO are raising flags about global supply bottlenecks and raw materials shortfalls, Bloomberg reports. The supply disruption comes after the Biden Administration tapped the Defense Production Act to increase deliveries of Pfizer's shot in the U.S.
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By Kevin Dunleavy,Fraiser Kansteiner,Eric Sagonowsky,Angus Liu,Conor Hale
There is debate within the Catholic Church over the morality of taking the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, cell lines for which were initially developed with aborted fetuses. The U.S. reserving materials for Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine production could lead to supply bottlenecks around the world.
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By Nick Paul Taylor
The NIH has halted a clinical assessment of two Brii Biosciences antibodies in hospitalized COVID-19 patients for futility. Brii’s BRII-196 and BRII-198 became the latest anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to fail to improve outcomes in hospitalized individuals but remain in development in ambulatory patients.
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By Robert King
Sutter Health posted a $321 million loss for 2020, which triggered a massive review of which operations and services it should wind down.
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