In this article, we present breakthroughs and challenges in vaccine development for COVID-19 pandemic, discussing issues related to pandemic preparedness and their implications for circular bioeconomy and sustainability. Notwithstanding the unprecedented accelerated speed of COVID-19 vaccine development, just 9 months after the emergence of the pandemic in Wuhan, China, benefiting from previous developments in SARS and MERS vaccines, significant gaps persist in global vaccine preparedness. These gaps include issues related to immunity and protection, particularly to the limited vaccine protection against recent emergence of concerning new viral variants in the UK, South Africa, and Brazil and the consequent need for vaccine redesign. We examine these gaps and discuss the main issues that could impact on global vaccine availability in the current pandemic scenario: (1) breakthroughs and constraints in development and production of leading global COVID-19 vaccines; (2) innovation and technological development advances and gaps, providing information on global patent assignees for COVID-19, SARS, and MERS vaccine patents; (3) local capacity for development and production of COVID-19, SARS, and MERS vaccines in three emerging agro-based countries (India, Brazil, and South Africa); and (4) future scenarios, examining how these issues and vaccines redesign for new SARS-CoV-2 variants could impact on global access to vaccines and implications for circular bioeconomy and sustainability in the post-COVID era.
Background: According to the World Health Organization, about 76-85% of subjects in low- and middle-income countries suffer with a mental disorder. From them the most prevalent are anxiety and depression ones, with an increase in the number of cases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Antidepressants are drugs used to treat depression, but they are also used to treat subjects addicted to drugs. The development of new technologies/drugs/compositions is important for promoting access not only to drugs, but better drugs. The present study aims: 1. To carry out a survey of drugs under active development used to depression and dependency treatment (at least); 2. To evaluate, through the patent landscape, the patent documents filed in the past 10 years related to this class of drugs (antidepressants) in the context of technological scenario and 3. To promote a discussion about drugs used as antidepressants and to dependency treatment (at least). Results: The search provided a scenario of a small number of drugs used for depression and drug dependency under active development, the highest development phases, the main mechanisms of action and the antidepressants used as antiaddictives. The patent landscape retrieved 2067 applied documents filed over the last 10 years, showing that China leads in the number of deposits of these drugs/compositions/methods to treat depression (with 1758 applications) made by Chinese Institutes and Universities, followed by the United States (291 applications) and Japan (193 applications). The patents’ search also allowed us to evaluate the documents which the claims addressed (at least) to the treatment of depression and as antiaddictive. Conclusion: The analysis of under active development drugs presented those used as antidepressants and to the treatment of substances dependency in different stages of development, including the drugs in clinical studies. Indeed, the applications’ analysis on antidepressants has generated information about the technologies involved, as well as allowing the evaluation of the applications that are also promising for the treatment of addiction and depression.
The aim of this work was to perform an extended stability study for the analgesic containing fentanyl, clonidine and ropivacaine in physiological saline solution 0.9% at different infusion sites, such as infusion bags, epidural infusion sets and syringes. The extended stability was assessed by an HPLC system equipped with a photodiode array detector set at 210 nm. The separation was conducted on a C18 column maintained at 40˚C and using an isocratic mobile phase consisted of buffer solution-methanol-acetonitrile (45:45:10, v/v/v). The presence of particulate matter and the pH of each solution were also investigated. Twenty-four hours after the preparation, the formation of one suspected product was observed and for all drugs, in 24 hours it was observed the concentration decrease in different sets (PVC infusion bags, syringes and epidural infusion administration sets). The pH values of each solution varied no more than 5% during the study and no particle was observed. Conclusion: The extended stability study was applied to the analgesic solution and promoted the detection of an unexpected peak in 24 hours. Based on it, further stability studies are necessary to determine the extended stability data.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.