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The UK’s involvement in the next big EU research programme, Horizon Europe, is on the agenda in the third round of Brexit talks this week. The UK government has made it clear it wants to join the €94.1 billion programme. Over on Twitter, UK researchers are using the #onehorizon hashtag to plead for a deal. EU officials have not publicly tipped their hand on the issue, although it is understood there is support in Brussels for UK participation, provided the country budges on some other sensitive areas like competition law and fisheries. Progress on the overall deal is slow. "Time is short and there's an awful lot to do," Irish deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney said last week.
Coris BioConcept has developed COVID-19 Ag Respi-Strip, a disposable antigen test it says can identify if a person is infected in 15 minutes. The test uses a sample from a nasopharyngeal swab to identify traces of proteins of the virus. Although it cannot differentiate between SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, the company says it is quicker and cheaper than lab tests that use reserve transcription-polymerase chain reaction.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) issued a new call for proposals inviting organisations around the world to apply for funding to speed up development, scale-up manufacturing, and expand the geographical footprint of production of COVID-19 vaccine candidates. The call will be open until at least 30 June 2020 with applications reviewed on a rolling basis every two weeks. Applicants must be developing vaccines that can be approved in 12-18 months or less, and be in a position to increase the availability of vaccines for wide-spread global deployment. Since January CEPI has established a COVID-19 vaccine development portfolio comprising nine candidates, three of which in clinical testing. Following the World Health Organisation’s launch last month of the Access to COVID-19 tools accelerator, CEPI is now seeking to expand and diversify its portfolio.
A new process for harnessing and reconciling the multiple disease models that are now available for managing the COVID-19 pandemic has been developed by an international team of researchers in China, Australia, the UK and the US. At the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak a large amount of information was unavailable or unknown, leaving researchers to make decisions about how to incorporate this uncertainty into their models, and leading to differing projections. These disparate predictions have created uncertainty for policymakers in planning how to respond. The group describes the process for managing this uncertainty, to remove bias and ensure valuable insights and information are not overlooked, in a paper appearing today in the journal Science.
The European Commission approved a €7.3 million direct grant programme to support COVID-19 research in the Czech Republic. The grant scheme is open to any Czech company with the expertise to develop medical and paramedical technologies, 3D printing systems and applications that improve logistics. Companies will have 75 per cent of eligible costs covered by the scheme. Any results must be made available to third parties in the form of non-exclusive licences.
Moderna received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for a phase II study of its coronavirus vaccine involving 600 participants and said it is now finalising the design of the phase III trial, which is expected to start in early summer. At the start of this month the US biotech announced a partnership with the Swiss biologics manufacturer Lonza, to scale up production of the vaccine at Lonza sites in the US and Switzerland. The US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is supporting development and manufacturing scale up with funding of up to $483 million.
The Institute of Cancer Research in London has launched an AI-driven database bringing together global research on the biology and treatment of COVID-19 in a single online hub. Coronavirus-CanSAR is intended to support discovery of new drug targets and treatments by making available vast amounts of data on viral proteins, their interactions with human proteins, drugs and drug mechanisms, and clinical trials. The pooled data has been used to generate three-dimensional maps of how viral proteins interact with human proteins to highlight interactions that could potentially be disrupted with new drugs. The COVID-19 resource, built on an existing cancer research database, is funded by the medical charities Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust.
With contact-tracing apps starting to appear around the world as a COVID-19 protection measure, governments should adopt only those systems that safeguard personal data, according to a policy statement from the Europe Technology Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM-Europe). The group said the apps should also be “subject to scrutiny by the scientific community and civil society before, during and after deployment.” ACM is the world’s largest and longest established professional society of individuals involved in all aspects of computing, and its Europe Technology Policy Committee promotes sound public policy and public understanding of a broad range of issues at the intersection of technology and policy. The full statement is available in English. French, and Italian.
The Indian Council of Science and Technology published a list of 200 Indian technologies developed for use in tracking, testing and treating COVID-19. Most have been test up to proof-of-concept. The National Research Development Corporation is looking for partners to commercialise the products.
The Scottish government has announced a one-off £75 million increase in funding for the country’s universities, to replace lost research income and protect research jobs against the financial impact of COVID-19. A Scottish Funding Council analysis indicates universities face a loss of around £72 million due to COVID-19 this academic year alone, most notably through the loss of international student fees, cancelled conference bookings, and returned accommodation fees. A collective operating deficit of between £384 million and £651 million is forecast for next academic year.
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