Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Quebec City, and GSK have announced the start of Phase 2/3 clinical trials of its plant-derived vaccine candidate for COVID-19 to evaluate its efficacy, safety, and immunogenicity. Based on the positive Phase 1 results, Medicago has decided to launch the Phase 2/3 clinical trial with GSK’s pandemic adjuvant.

The National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N.F. Gamaleya of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (Gamaleya Center) and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF, Russia's sovereign wealth fund), announce that the Sputnik V vaccine, the world's first registered vaccine against coronavirus (registered on the 11 th of August under the emergency use authorization mechanism) created on the well-studied platform of human adenoviral vectors, demonstrated high efficacy.

Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq: NVAX), a late-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation vaccines for serious infectious diseases, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track Designation for NVX-CoV2373, the Company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Currently in late-phase clinical development, NVXCoV2373 is a stable, prefusion protein made using Novavax’ nanoparticle technology and includes its proprietary MatrixM™ adjuvant.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) today announced their mRNA-based vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, against SARS-CoV-2 has demonstrated evidence of efficacy against COVID-19 in participants without prior evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, based on the first interim efficacy analysis conducted on November 8, 2020 by an external, independent Data Monitoring Committee (DMC) from the Phase 3 clinical study.

Novartis today announced new data from an interim analysis for the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled CAN-COVID trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of canakinumab in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and cytokine release syndrome (CRS)(6). The ongoing trial failed to meet its primary endpoint showing that treatment with canakinumab plus standard of care (SoC) did not demonstrate a significantly greater chance of survival for patients without the need for invasive mechanical ventilation, compared with placebo plus SoC up to Day 29(1).

Sanofi and Kiadis Pharma N.V. ("Kiadis" or the "Company") (Euronext Amsterdam and Brussels: KDS) have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Sanofi will offer to acquire all of the outstanding ordinary shares of Kiadis at a price per Kiadis share of €5.45 in cash (272% premium to the closing price on 30 October 2020), representing an aggregate adjusted equity value of approximately €308 million.

Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq: NVAX), a late stage biotechnology company developing next-generation vaccines for serious infectious diseases, announced the signing of a non-binding Heads of Terms document with the Australian Government to supply 40 million doses of the Company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, NVX-CoV2373, for the Australian community.