GSK takes equity stake in Spero, and global rights to tebipenem except for certain Asian markets. Merck KGaA gets rights to Nerviano’s next-generation PARP inhibitor for cancer.

President Biden’s informal declaration that the COVID-19 pandemic is ‘over’ likely portends a formal end of the Public Health Emergency. But many of the US FDA’s COVID flexibilities don’t directly depend on that decision.

AnGes has terminated R&D work on a DNA vaccine for COVID-19 and will now look at intranasal candidates with a US partner. Although the original project received funding from the Japanese government, a spike in related costs caused the Japanese firm's net loss to triple last year, and the decision represents the latest in a string of pipeline setbacks.

The change to three vaccine emergency use authorizations was made quietly, most recently for the Novavax vaccine.