The past few days have been a reckoning for Pfizer,the pharma giant that gained most from the pandemic and has seen the biggest blow from its decline as demand for COVID shots and pills declined.
We can’t predict when the next pandemic will come,but there are things we can learn from the last one.
A new variant of COVID-19 is on the rise,and the bivalent booster offers better protection from it.
Not much is known about BA.2.86,which was first spotted by virus trackers earlier this week and has already been detected in four countries.
All adult Australians who have not had a COVID-19 infection or vaccination in the last six months can get an extra booster shot later this month.
Shares of Pfizer suffered a double-digit monthly decline as investors anticipate a troubled path ahead for the pharma giant,which expects sales of its COVID vaccine to slump 64 per cent this year.
“Too many patients who indeed need treatment have flooded in,” one nurse said in Beijing. “We feel helpless.”
BioNTech is one of the world’s two leading mRNA companies,and it has just announced it will open a research and development hub in Melbourne.
Australia risks being at the back of the global queue for variant-specific COVID-19 vaccines,with the government yet to strike a deal with Moderna for supply next year.
Novavax COVID-19 vaccines procured by the federal government are expected to be thrown out after expiring before they could be used.
Fortunes quickly changed for the drugmaker that produced one of the first COVID-19 shots but has since lost out to rivals.