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President Joe Biden's latest vaccination goals are in jeopardy. Nate Rattner breaks down the numbers. Meg Tirrell has the details on genetics company 23andMe's Nasdaq debut this week. We also have the latest on the fast-spreading delta variant.
Programming note: On June 29, CNBC's Financial Advisor Summit: The Innovative Advisor will bring together forward-thinking advisors to hear from industry heavyweights about the state of the markets. Hear from Ariel Investments CIO Rupal Bhansali, Omega Advisors CEO Leon Cooperman, Morgan Stanley Vice Chairman of Wealth Management, Carla Harris, FCI CEO Brian Edelman and more. Register now!
| | Biden on track to fall short of vaccinating 70% of U.S. adults July 4 | With less than three weeks to go until Independence Day, President Joe Biden's latest vaccination goals are in jeopardy. The U.S. averaged about 336,000 newly vaccinated adults per day over the past week. If the U.S. maintains that latest seven-day average, 67% of adults will be at least partially vaccinated by the Fourth of July – short of the president's goal to have at least 70% of U.S. adults partially vaccinated. Though the nationwide rate is falling short, at least 14 states and the District of Columbia have already crossed the 70% milestone.
-Nate Rattner | | | | Novavax's Covid vaccine data does not disappoint, but CureVac's late-stage trial does | If you thought all mRNA vaccines against Covid would work because the first two, from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, did so spectacularly, you found out this week you were mistaken. German drugmaker CureVac's 40,000-participant trial showed just 47% efficacy from its mRNA vaccine. The company cited a large proportion of variants in the trial, but there's also speculation that differences in the mRNA itself and CureVac's lower dose may have played a role. Meanwhile, Novavax's protein vaccine showed 90% efficacy in its major U.S. trial, but the company won't file for regulatory authorization until the third quarter because of manufacturing delays.
-Meg Tirrell | | | | Pfizer CEO sees a return to 'normal' globally by the end of 2022 | Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC this week he expects life could return to normal for developed countries by the end of this year and the rest of the world by the end of 2022. By the end of next year, there should be enough Covid vaccine doses for most world leaders to successfully inoculate their populations against the virus, Bourla said during an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC Evolve Global Summit. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech previously pledged to provide 2 billion doses of the vaccine to low- and middle-income countries.
-Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | | | | WHO says delta variant has spread to 80 countries and it keeps mutating | The delta variant has now spread to 80 countries and it continues to mutate around the world, WHO officials said Wednesday. The variant now makes up 10% of all new cases in the United States, up from 6% last week. Studies have shown the variant is even more transmissible than other variants (which were already more contagious than the original strain). WHO officials said some preliminary reports have found that it may also makes people sicker. The U.K. recently saw the delta variant dominate the alpha variant in the country, with the delta variant now making up more than 60% of new cases. "We cannot let that happen in the U.S.," Fauci said last week.
-Rich Mendez | | | | The delta variant could have different symptoms | Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London, runs an ongoing U.K.-based study that analyses Covid symptoms entered into an app. He said Covid is "acting differently now." The No. 1 symptom patients are entering into the app: headache. That's followed by sore throat, runny nose and fever. Younger people experiencing much more of a bad cold or "funny off feeling." A study of over 1 million people in between last June and January when the alpha variant became dominant revealed an expanded set of symptoms, including chills, loss of appetite, headache and muscle aches, in addition to the "classic" symptoms.
-Holly Ellyatt | | | | The U.S. goes big on antivirals; Regeneron's works for some hospitalized patients | Antibody drugs thus far have only been cleared for patients just diagnosed with Covid to try to prevent them from having to be hospitalized. But the UK's Recovery trial (which a year ago proved the life-saving value of dexamethasone) did it again, showing Regeneron's antibody reduced the risk of death for hospitalized Covid patients by 20%. A caveat – the benefit was seen only in patients who hadn't made their own antibodies. Former FDA Commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb said the results are strong enough for doctors to start using the drug right away, as Regeneron asks the FDA to expand its emergency use authorization. Later in the week, the U.S. announced a $3 billion investment in Covid antiviral drugs, like the pills in development from Merck, Atea and Pfizer. Their progress has been much slower than vaccines and other medicines, but they could make a big difference.
-Meg Tirrell | | | | All about DNA: 23andMe joins the Nasdaq, and a gene-editing pioneer joins CNBC | The consumer genetics company 23andMe started trading on the Nasdaq Thursday under ticker "ME." CEO Anne Wojcicki said the going-public (via SPAC) process revealed to her how poorly understood the company's model is by Wall Street: it's not only in the business of selling spit tests to tell people their ancestry and health traits, but uses genetic data (80% of customers opt in to research) to develop drugs. Meanwhile, at CNBC's Evolve Summit, CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna said the gene-editing technology's move from discovery to applications against disease has been among the fastest in medical history.
-Meg Tirrell | |
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