The top pharma stories of early 2021

Image courtesy of Nataliya Vaitkevich via Pexels.

COVID-19 vaccines dominated pharma industry news during the first half of this year.

It’s little wonder, too, since vaccines are the best hope to return the world to some kind of post-pandemic “normal.”

As with any new medical treatments — especially ones authorized amid an emergency — there have been questions about side effects. Drug Discovery & Development delved into what experts and scientific studies are saying. The overall conclusion is clear: While reactogenicity is a valid concern, the benefits of COVID-19 vaccines greatly outweigh the risks for the vast majority of patients.

Here are eight stories of our stories that delved into potential COVID-19 vaccine side effects:

Dizziness among common COVID-19 vaccine side effects Tinnitus reports grow amid COVID-19 vaccinations Moderna COVID-19 vaccine might cause facial swelling for p…
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Tinnitus reports grow amid COVID-19 vaccinations

Photo by Kimia Zarifi on Unsplash

A handful of patients in Johnson & Johnson’s Phase 3 COVID-19 clinical trial complained of tinnitus, or ringing in the ears.

After reporting on the subject, we’ve received a steady stream of reports from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine recipients who experienced tinnitus.

The U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database cites 152 reports of tinnitus among 25,072 COVID-19 recipients of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna. The database also has 11 reports of sudden hearing loss and 39 reports of hypoacusis (loss of hearing acuity).

A U.K. database cataloging adverse events related to AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines also lists a number of cases of tinnitus. In a summary of adverse reaction reports for the 54,180 recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine from Jan. 1 to Feb. 28, there were 320 tinnitus reports. For the Pfizer-BioNTech vacc…

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Is J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine linked to tinnitus?

In Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE:JNJ) Phase 3 trial for the Ad26.COV2.S COVID-19 vaccine, six vaccine recipients developed tinnitus or ringing in the ears.

In five of those individuals, tinnitus had either resolved or was resolving. The condition was unresolved in the other trial volunteer.

No placebo recipients developed the condition.

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Is J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine linked to tinnitus? 

In Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE:JNJ) Phase 3 trial for the Ad26.COV2.S COVID-19 vaccine, six vaccine recipients developed tinnitus or ringing in the ears.

In five of those individuals, tinnitus had either resolved or was resolving. The condition was unresolved in the other trial volunteer.

No placebo recipients developed the condition.

J&J concluded that the tinnitus reports were likely unrelated to the vaccine. The principal investigator in the trial that two of the events were related and the remainder unrelated.

A 21-year-old volunteer involved in an earlier clinical trial for the J&J vaccine developed tinnitus and sudden hearing loss 34 days after receiving the vaccine. The patient recovered 69 days after receiving the injection. Johnson & Johnson also determined that the event was unrelated to the vaccine.

In all, some 43,783 volunteers participated in the Phase 3 trial. A total of 19,630 participants received the Ad26.COV…

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