U.S., European health agencies to partner drugmakers in coronavirus fight – Reuters

U.S. health agencies, the European drug regulator and 16 top drugmakers will collaborate on vaccine and drug development efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. National Institutes of Health said on Friday.The partnership, known as the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV), will focus on coordinating regulatory decisions and provide funding to move promising therapies into human trials.“We need to bring the full power of the biomedical research enterprise to bear on this crisis,” NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said in a statement bit.ly/34HYTfk.The participants include the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency and drugmakers Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline Plc.There are currently no approved treatments or vaccines for the coronavirus, which has infected 2.14 million globally, according to a Reuters tally.There are over 100 potential vaccine and therapeutic candidates for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, and the partnership aims to help prioritize development and connect clinical trial networks to test new and repurposed candidates quickly and efficiently.