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Back in December last year, Novavax secured another major step forward in terms of expanding the reach of its COVID-19 vaccine. The Novavax shot Nuxavoid was given a recommendation for conditional marketing authorisation in the European Union by the European Medicines Agency, which came just a few days after it had received emergency use listing from the WHO.

Pharma is a competitive industry and organisations within it are constantly looking to find new ways to get ahead and to reach every part of the market. However, there are lines that even competitors can't cross and this is something that can be seen in action in the recent successful injunctions won by Boehringer Ingelheim against Dr. Reddy's Labs and MSN Labs. The two Indian labs recently released low-priced versions of the German pharma company's anti-diabetes drug empagliflozin, despite the fact that the German brand has a valid product patent in the country until 2025. The injunctions are interim injunctions and will mean that the Indian manufacturers will be restricted when it comes to the sale, use, import etc of generic versions of empagliflozin. The validity of Boehringer Ingelheim's patent in India provided a firm foundation for the injunctions, which were based on the infringement triggered by the actions of Dr. Reddy's Labs and MSN Labs.

2020 was the year in which the treatment that topped every list was the vaccine that would beat COVID-19. This year, as vaccines have been approved and rolled out, we have seen the focus switch to the part of the virus that we know much less about: Long Covid. For patients who suffer from Long Covid life can become a daily struggle with exhaustion and a whole myriad of challenging conditions, aches and pains.

The German biotech boom goes back many years but has recently gathered new momentum thanks to the success of the BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The business partnered with Pfizer on vaccine development and the success of the efforts resulted in billions in investment pouring into the biotech sector in Germany.

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges that faces the use of biometrics in healthcare today is the potential for hacking of data. The spectrum of attacks on this kind of data ranges from the low tech to the very high tech - and are only likely to increase in frequency and intensity as greater volumes of data start to exist. For those in biometric careers this has to be a key consideration, as well as for the governments that are increasingly integrating biometric information into public infrastructure and the enterprises that are responsible for delivering it.

A new advocacy organisation has been revealed with a focus on driving innovation and investment in healthcare across Europe. The Life Sciences Acceleration Alliance is a non-profit coalition that will have as its mission to advocate for policies that help to create a more robust early-stage life sciences ecosystem in Europe and which encourage further innovation. The collaboration will be based in Germany, France and the UK, where it will have three key hubs. The alliance is going to have two main functions, the first of which will be to bring together panels of experts who will be able to share insights and essential research with targeted stakeholders.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, the roles and responsibilities of pharmacovigilance professionals become evermore important. Assessing the efficacy and safety of treatments has been paramount to in helping countries around the world slowly take control of the situation. At present, The European Medicines Agency's Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) is assessing the risk of multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS) and the German Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, after a case in Denmark.

Researchers in Europe have created a deep learning-based approach that has the ability to accurately forecast the onset of Alzheimer's disease by more than 99%. The technique analyses brain pictures using Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning. It is quicker than manual analysis, which also necessitates a thorough understanding of the alternations linked with Alzheimer's disease.

As the international battle with coronavirus continues, scientists in Europe have been testing the efficacy of mixing the AstraZeneca vaccine with the Pfizer vaccine.

Throughout the international health crisis, the worldwide market for pharmaceutical contract manufacturing, which was anticipated to be worth US$ 100 billion in 2020, is expected to grow to US$130.2 billion by 2026.