The European Medicines Agency has recommended updating the vaccine product information to include heavy menstrual bleeding with both Spikevax and Comirnaty, and urticaria with Spikevax. The World Health Organization says that the Omicron BA.5 strain and all its descendent lineages continue to be dominant at global level.

National Resilience, Parker Institute team to incubate cancer startups. Metropolitan AntiViral Drug Accelerator will focus on eight molecular features of SARS-CoV-2 to create novel oral antivirals.

Mersana will help J&J develop antibody-drug conjugates against three targets, while AstraZeneca out-licenses a candidate for peripheral artery disease to Regio.

Private Company Edition: With $8.9bn raised in the second quarter, venture capital investment in biopharma companies reached its second highest quarterly total to date – behind only Q1 of this year. Also, Nimbus Therapeutics raised $105m and European drug developers get in on the VC action.