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Which companies will likely produce the most COVID-19 vaccine in 2021?

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Since the beginning of the pandemic, much of society has pinned its hopes on the availability of a vaccine. Now that several are available across the world, there is hope, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, in a recent JAMA interview. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

One thing that will make the light at the end of the tunnel brighter as we head into the spring is the greater availability of vaccine doses. “The discordance between supply and demand will be diminished,” Fauci said.

The roster of companies producing vaccines is steadily increasing, making it possible to vaccinate a substantial portion of the world’s population this year. (Note: Most of the companies in this list have two-dose vaccines.)

Here’s a roundup of notable companies’ production targets for 2021:

Get the full story from our sister site, Pharmaceutical Processing World.

Deadline looming for MedTech Color pitch competition

Medtech entrepreneurs of color hoping to secure a portion of more than $100,000 in cash and in-kind services have until Feb. 5 to apply to MedTech Color’s first pitch contest.

The organization launched the contest last month, inviting Black and Latinx founders in the healthcare space to pitch their ideas to investors and corporate sponsors. The entire contest will be run virtually.

Angelique Johnson, co-founder of MedTech Color and CEO of MEMstim, said the contest is looking broadly at entrepreneurs in the healthcare space. Entrepreneurs can be focused on traditional medical devices, software, healthcare apps and other technologies.

“Our top prize is $25,000 and that’s non-dilutive,” Johnson said in an interview in the current episode of the DeviceTalks Weekly Podcast. “It’s income for the company. No strings attached.”

Winners will also be eligible for assistance from sponsors including ResMed, Johnson & Johnson and other medical device comp…

Deadline looming for Medtech Color Pitch Competition

Medtech entrepreneurs of color hoping to secure a portion of more than $100,000 in cash and in-kind services have until Friday to apply to Medtech Color’s first pitch contest.

The organization launched the contest last month, inviting black and Latinx founders in the healthcare space to pitch their ideas to investors and corporate sponsors. The entire contest will be run virtually.

Angelique Johnson, co-founder of MedtechColor and CEO of MEMstim, said the contest is looking broadly at entrepreneurs in the healthcare space. Entrepreneurs can be focused on traditional medical devices, software, healthcare apps and other technologies.

“Our top prize is $25,000 and that’s non-dilutive,” Johnson said in an interview in the current episode of the DeviceTalks Weekly Podcast. “It’s income for the company. No strings attached.”

Winners will also be eligible for assistance from sponsors including ResMed, Johnson & Johnson and other medical device compan…

Russia reports 91.6% efficacy for its Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine

Sputnik V in vials. Image from Mos.ru via Wikipedia.

The Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine could be more efficacious than those from AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) or Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) based on interim trial results.

The two-dose Sputnik vaccine was 91.6% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and 100% effective at preventing severe and moderate disease in a study involving 19,866 participants.

The data were published in The Lancet. No data, however, was available on the impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on the vaccine’s efficacy.

Get the full story from our sister, Drug Discovery & Development.

The top 5 MassDevice stories of the week — January 29, 2021

Two important medtech industry hires are among the top stories on MassDevice this week, with robotic surgery and COVID-19 vaccines also dominating the news.

Want to hear more about the week’s top medtech news on MassDevice? Executive editor Chris Newmarker and Tom Salemi will discuss the week’s “Newmarker’s Newsmakers” — as well as play some drum and bugle corps music — during our DeviceTalks Weekly podcast.

Without further ado, here’s this week’s MassDevice Top Five:

5. Titan Medical closes on $11.5M offering

Titan Medical (TSX:TMD; NSDQ:TMDI) closed on a previously announced offering, raising $11.5 million in aggregate gross proceeds. The Toronto-based surgical robotics company conducted the sale by way of a short form prospectus in each of the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario — as well as a private placement in the U.S. Read the full story.

4. Butterfly Network names new CEO before going public via merger

Dr. Todd Fruchterman…

Johnson & Johnson gearing up for COVID-19 vaccine data announcement

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is poised to announce new data related to its Ad26 COVID-19 vaccine early next week.

In an earnings call yesterday, management hinted that they expect results from the vaccine to be positive but stopped short at revealing details.

“We think it’s very important to follow the data — to follow the science,” said JNJ CEO Alex Gorsky after declining to answer a question related to COVID-19 variants and vaccine efficacy until the official data announcement.

Get the full story from our sister site, Drug Discovery & Development.

Johnson & Johnson pharma sales drive Street-beating Q4 results

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) posted fourth-quarter results today that beat the consensus forecast on Wall Street — with the company predicting a return to strong sales growth in 2021.

The New Brunswick, N.J.–based pharma, medical device and consumer products giant reported profits of $1.7 billion, or 65¢ per share, on sales of $22.5 billion for the three months ended Dec. 29, 2020, for a bottom-line decline of –56.7% on sales growth of 8.3% compared with Q4 2019.

Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were $1.86, 4¢ ahead of The Street, where analysts were looking EPS of $1.82 on sales of $21.7 billion.

CEO Alex Gorsky said in a news release that the company is leading in the fight against COVID-19.

“We continue to progress our COVID-19 vaccine candidate and look forward to sharing details from our Phase 3 study soon,” Gorsky said. “Johnson & Johnson was built for times like these, and I am extremely confi…

J&J touts results of robotic bronchoscopy trial

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) subsidiary Auris Health is touting positive results from a study of its Monarch robotic bronchoscopy system.

Monarch, a first-of-its-kind robotic technology, was cleared by the FDA in March 2018 for diagnostic and therapeutic bronchoscopies. In May, Auris touted interim results from an independent feasibility study designed to assess the platform. In that study, in 82 procedures, researchers reported that although most of the lesions were less than 3cm in size the outer third of the lung, they were able to reach them in 94% of cases.

Auris published the results of its Benefit study to evaluate the safety and feasibility of the Monarch platform, led by Dr. Alexander Chen (St. Louis, Mo.) and Dr. Gerard Silvestri (Charleston, S.C.) in CHEST.

The trial enrolled 55 patients across five leading institutions: Washington University (St. Louis), Medical University of South Carolina, the Cleveland Clinic, Henry Ford Hospital and I…

DePuy Synthes lands FDA clearance for Velys robotic knee system

Image from Depuy Synthes/Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) unit DePuy Synthes announced that it received FDA 510(k) clearance for the Velys system.

Velys is a robotic-assisted system designed for use with the Attune total knee system and its cleared indications for use and it will become part of the broader Velys digital surgery platform of connected technologies, according to a news release.

DePuy Synthes touts the Velys robotic-assisted platform as a first-of-its kind, table-mounted solution with an efficient design capable of integrating into any operating room. The company said it adapts to a surgeon’s workflow, offers control they are used to and heps execute accurate bony cuts.

Additionally, the Velys system offers gap balance data for visualization and joint stability predictions, along with accurate, consistent plan execution supporting the Attune total knee system.

Johnson & Johnson and DePuy Synthes acquire…

Medtechs can’t set digital strategies aside – DTW Podcast

Digital connectivity no longer belongs in the final slides of a medtech company’s pitch deck.

In the latest DeviceTalks Weekly podcast, three leaders pushing for connected medical devices explain the need to incorporate data collection and monitoring functionality in new devices.

Scott Huennekens, who advanced the “digital surgery” strategy when he helped launch Verb Surgical, says new medtech tools must be connected to provide maximum benefit.

“If you’re making a device, you have to understand and build into it how it will be connected for that episode of care as as well as how it fits into the continuum of care,” Huennekens said in an interview with the DeviceTalks Weekly Podcast. “It just has to be part of the way you’re thinking.”

Verb Surgical, of course, is now part of Johnson & Johnson’s surgical robot product line, Ottava, which the company unveiled last year.

In a separate interview on the podcast, Mark Toland, the former CEO o…

Drug companies agree not to release COVID-19 vaccine until it’s ready

[Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash]

Executives from nine different drug companies today announced a pledge to ensure safety with a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

The CEOs of AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN), BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Merck (NYSE:MRK), Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA), Novavax (NSDQ:NVAX), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Sanofi (NYSE:SNY), all of whom are developing vaccine candidates, all signed the pledge, which vows to “uphold the integrity of the scientific process” as they pursue regulatory approvals of the first vaccines for the novel coronavirus.

“FDA has established clear guidance for the development of COVID-19 vaccines and clear criteria for their potential authorization or approval in the US,” the pledge states. “FDA’s guidance and criteria are based on the scientific and medical principles necessary to clearly dem…

MedTech 100 roundup: Stocks were practically unchanged last week

Despite plenty of ups and downs coming in the stock market for the medtech industry, there was hardly any movement from week to week.

MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — sat at 89.6 points at the end of last week (Aug. 21). Overall, medtech stocks saw a -0.2% decrease from the 89.77-point total at the same time a week prior (Aug. 14).

Once again, the index nearly reached a high point during the COVID-19 pandemic, as on Aug. 18, it hit 90.4 points for the second time in as many weeks, a total that nearly poked past the previous mid-pandemic high (90.45), which came on Aug. 5.

The most recent high mark represents just a -2.1% dip from the Feb. 19 high point of 92.32, while the tally at the end of the week marks a -2.9% decrease from that pre-pandemic high.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Index saw a 0.72% increase from Aug. 14 to Aug. 21, having reached record highs on Aug. 18. Meanwhil…