Important Takeaways:
- Elon Musk’s Neuralink Raises $280 Million to Develop Brain Implants
- Neuralink Corp., Elon Musk’s brain-implant company, has raised $280 million in new funding from investors to develop its technology.
- The startup announced the funding round in a post on Musk’s X social network, formerly known as Twitter. The deal was led by Founders Fund, a venture capital firm backed by billionaire Peter Thiel.
- Neuralink is the best-known player in a growing field of brain technology companies. Partly spurred by Neuralink’s high profile, investors have backed dozens of other startups exploring similar technology.
- One rival, Synchron Inc., enrolled its first patient in a US clinical trial last year, beating Neuralink to that milestone.
- Neuralink recently received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to conduct human clinical trials. The company is developing a small device that uses electrode-laced wires to link the brain to a computer. Placing the device requires drilling into the skull
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BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa on Tuesday said it had approved human clinical trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical subsidiary Janssen.
Brazil is the second-worst hit country for coronavirus cases and deaths after the United States, leading many vaccine developers to seek out clinical trials here.
Brazil had registered 3.4 million cases of the disease and more than 108,000 related deaths as of Monday.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine candidate is the fourth to be approved for human trials in Brazil, Anvisa said in its statement.
Brazil has already approved phase 3 human trials of potential vaccines developed by AstraZeneca in partnership with the University of Oxford, China’s Sinovac Biotech and Pfizer in partnership with BioNTech.
China’s Sinopharm also aims to carry out trials for a possible vaccine in Brazil in a deal with the southern state of Parana pending regulatory approval.
(Reporting by Ricardo Brito; writing by Jake Spring; editing by Alex Richardson and Jason Neely)
(Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson said on Wednesday it would start human trials of its potential COVID-19 vaccine in the second half of July, two months earlier than planned, as drugmakers race to develop a shot for the deadly respiratory disease.
The company has already signed deals with the U.S. government to create enough manufacturing capacity to produce more than 1 billion doses of its vaccine through 2021.
There are currently no approved treatments or vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus that has killed more than 400,000 people globally.
J&J’s study will test the vaccine against a placebo and assess the shot’s safety and immune response in 1,045 healthy people aged 18 to 55 years, as well as those 65 years and older. The trial will take place in the United States and Belgium.
U.S. biotech Moderna Inc is at the forefront of COVID-19 vaccine development and has started testing its candidate in a mid-stage trial that will enroll 600 patients. The company expects to begin late-stage trials in July.
AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline are all at various stages of development of their vaccine candidates.
There are currently about 10 coronavirus vaccines being tested in humans and experts have predicted that a safe and effective vaccine could take 12 to 18 months from the start of development.
(Reporting by Saumya Sibi Joseph in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
