Vir Biotechnology, Inc. (VIR) and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ALNY) announced Monday that they have selected a development candidate (DC) for VIR-2703 (ALN-COV), an investigational RNAi therapeutic targeting the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) genome.

Baltimore, Maryland-based Medifast, Inc. is recalling certain Optavia Oatmeal products citing undeclared milk, a known allergen, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a statement. The recall involves around 24,923 boxes of OPTAVIA Essential Old Fashioned Maple & Brown Sugar Oatmeal. The product is packaged in yellow and white cardboard boxes with the brand name.

Today's Daily Dose brings you news about aTyr Pharma joining the COVID-19 battle; Cara's pivotal KALM-2 trial; LabCorp's at-home collection kit for COVID-19 testing securing Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA, and Myovant's much-awaited clinical trial catalyst.

Applied Food Sciences, Inc. (AFS) takes the next step in demonstrating complete transparency by getting four of its core ingredients Non-GMO Project Verified.

From : Communities>>Regulatory Open Forum
Yes, exactly i asked same

- Libtayo decreased the risk of death by 32.4% compared to chemotherapy

Sangamo plans to utilize Mogrifyâs cell conversion technology to develop CAR-Treg cell therapies.

by Derek Willis

In an April report that warns of the risks of fraud in mail-in voting, a conservative legal group significantly inflated a key statistic, a ProPublica analysis found. The Public Interest Legal Foundation reported that more than 1 million ballots sent out to voters in 2018 were returned as undeliverable. Taken at face value, that would represent a 91% increase over the number of undeliverable mail ballots in 2016, a sign that a vote-by-mail system would be a “catastrophe” for elections, the group argued.

However, after ProPublica provided evidence to PILF that it had in fact doubled the official government numbers, the organization corrected its figure. The number of undeliverable mail ballots dropped slightly from 2016 to 2018.

The PILF report said that one in five mail ballots issued between 2012 and 2018, a total of 28.3 million, were not returned by voters and were “missing,” which, according to the organization, creates an opportunity for fraud. In a May 1 tweet that included a link to coverage of the report, President Donald Trump wrote: “Don’t allow RIGGED ELECTIONS.”

PILF regularly sues state and local election officials to force them to purge some voters from registration rolls, including those it claims have duplicate registrations from another state or who are dead. It is headed by J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney who was a member of the Trump administration’s disbanded commission on election integrity.

The report describes as “missing” all mail ballots that were delivered to a valid address but not returned to be counted. In a statement accompanying the report, Adams said that unaccounted-for ballots “represent 28 million opportunities for someone to cheat.” In particular, the organization argues that the number of unreturned ballots would grow if more states adopt voting by mail.

Experts who study voting and use the same data PILF used in the report, which is from the Election Administration and Voting Survey produced by the federal Election Assistance Commission, say that it’s wrong to describe unreturned ballots as missing.

“Election officials ‘know’ what happened to those ballots,” said Paul Gronke, a professor at Reed College, who is the director of the Early Voting Information Center, a research group based there. “They were received by eligible citizens and not filled out. Where are they now? Most likely, in landfills,” Gronke said by email.

A recent RealClear Politics article based on the PILF report suggested that an increase in voting by mail this year could make the kind of fraud uncovered in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District in 2018 more likely. In that case, a political consultant to a Republican candidate was indicted on charges of absentee ballot fraud for overseeing a paid ballot collection operation. “The potential to affect elections by chasing down unused mail-in ballots and make sure they get counted — using methods that may or may not be legal — is great,” the article argues.

PILF’s report was mentioned in other news outlets including the Grand Junction Sentinel in Colorado, “PBS NewsHour” and the New York Post. The Washington Times repeated the inaccurate claim of 1 million undeliverable mail ballots.

In a statement, the National Vote at Home Institute, an advocacy group, challenged the characterization of the 28.3 million ballots as missing. Of those ballots, 12 million were mailed by election officials in Colorado, Oregon and Washington, which by law send a mail-in ballot to every registered voter, roughly 30% of which are not returned for any given election. “Conflating voters choosing not to cast their ballots with ‘missing’ ballots is a fundamental flaw,” the statement reads.

In an interview, Logan Churchwell, the communications director for PILF, acknowledged the error in the number of undelivered ballots, but defended the report’s conclusions, saying that it showed potential vulnerabilities in the voting system. “Election officials send these ballots out in the mail, and for them to say ‘I have no idea what happened after that’ speaks more to the investments they haven’t made to track them,” he said in a telephone interview.

But 36 states have adopted processes where voters and local officials can track the status of mail ballots through delivery, much like they can track packages delivered to a home. Churchwell said there are other explanations why mail ballots are not returned and that state and local election officials could report more information about the status of mail ballots. “If you know a ballot got to a house, you can credibly say that ballot’s status is not unknown,” he said.

The EAVS data has been published after every general election since 2004, although not every local jurisdiction provides complete responses to its questions.

In the data, election officials are asked to provide the number of mail ballots sent to voters, the number returned to be counted and the number of ballots returned as undeliverable by the U.S. Postal Service, which provides specific ballot-tracking services. The survey also asks for the number of ballots that are turned in or invalidated by voters who chose to cast their ballots in person. It asks officials to report the number of ballots that do not fit into any of those categories, or are “otherwise unable to be tracked by your office.”

Gronke described the last category as “a placeholder for elections officials to put numbers so that the whole column adds up,” and said that there was no evidence to support calling those ballots a pathway to large-scale voter fraud.

Numerous academic studies have shown that cases of voter fraud are extremely rare, although they do occur, and that fraud in mail voting seems to occur more often than with in-person voting.

Pharmacists will not be automatically eligible for a new government life assurance scheme for healthcare workers in England who die from COVID-19 during the pandemic.

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Venture capital firm Frazier Healthcare has grabbed Scott Byrd, Ian Mills, and Gordon McMurray as its new Entrepreneur-in-Residence consultants.

Tough times at Orchard Therapeutics as it swings the ax across staffers and facilities, phases in new pipeline advances and reduces interest in others.

A recent study looking at the effects of caffeine on brief, high intensity exercise found the substance improved performance, regardless of genetic variations in how subjects metabolized caffeine.

Combining exercise with a bacterial strain isolated from an Olympic weightlifting gold medalist may synergistically increase endurance compared to training or the probiotic alone, suggests data from a mouse study.

Modern innovation typically occurs one step-improvement at a time. Some clients initially question whether their new application of an existing technology is patentable. Usually, the answer is ‘yes.’ Under U.S. law (and most other jurisdictions), an innovation to an existing technology is patentable so long as at least one claim limitation is novel and non-obvious....… Continue Reading

When it rains guidance, it pours. The MDCG just released Guidance on temporary extraordinary measures related to medical devices Notified Body audits during COVID-19 quarantine orders and travel restrictions. The guidance takes immediate effect and is valid for the whole period of duration of the pandemic COVID-19 as declared by the World Health Organisation. It […]

Here is where masks are currently required, as well as proposals that would dramatically increase face-covering requirements.

Los Angeles County, which continues to be the hardest hit area in California, announced 51 additional deaths linked to COVID-19 on Thursday.

Newsom said earlier this week that bookstores, florists and others can reopen for curbside pickup Friday, unless barred by tougher local restrictions.

As the economy has cratered, mortgage lenders tightened standards for people who are still interested in buying or refinancing a home.

California DMV will reopen 25 field offices after shutdown

Kings County Supervisor Doug Verboon said the outbreak at Central Valley Meat Company in Hanford accounts for nearly two-thirds of the coronavirus cases in the rural county, which has a total of 211 reported cases.

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Protesters of California's stay-at-home orders returned for another unsanctioned rally Thursday, telling law enforcement officers they are forgiven for arresting them last week.

Newsom cited the case when asked why personal services, such as nail salons, must remain closed.

Reopening California begins -- but very slowly, cautiously and under the shadow of a second wave.

Loyola swimming star Riley Griffis quickly read the reality of life outside the pool: 'The time away has shown it's something I need to function."

California college students will get emergency CARES grants

Parts of California, including Los Angeles County, are allowing some businesses to offer curbside service Friday.

California is slowly reopening, providing hope that you might soon see your favorite artist in concert. But from an arena stage? A computer screen? A drive-in?

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The vast majority of California isn't close to meeting Gov. Gavin Newsom's reopening requirements, a Times analysis finds.

Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered ballots be mailed to the state's 20.6 million voters for the November election while imposing new rules for in-person voting.

California reopening: On Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, the normally bustling shopping district that has been largely vacant amid the coronavirus, there were signs of life Friday as some retailers opened for curbside service.

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California's deal with Bear Mountain Development Co. for coronavirus equipment was one of the state's largest.

For the high school and college classes of 2020 — and their families — the coronavirus outbreak has left a large, empty space where signature coming-of-age moments should be.

By Anne K. Walsh & Charles D. Snow* —

By Sara W. Koblitz —

He said he couldn't provide more information because of health and privacy concerns.

Yokogawa Electric Corporation (TOKYO: 6841) announces that it has acquired a nanopipette*1 technology that was developed by BioStinger, Inc., a spin-off from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Yokogawa Electric Corporation (TOKYO: 6841) announces that its control system development organization has obtained ISASecure Security Development Lifecycle Assurance (SDLA) certification from the ISA Security Compliance Institute (ISCI) .

Persons with disabilities would be provided six months’ pension in advance for adapting their homes as per their requirement.