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Today markets dropped precipitously over fear of a Ukrainian invasion and higher interest rates and inflation. Gold gained a bit. The Dow Jones fell 600 and the S&P 500. Truist analysts chopped their forecasts for solar stocks and Plug Power PLUG lost 12.06% while NIO fell 13.38%. The 4th week of 2022 losses looks inevitable.

As always there were exceptions. Vodafone VOD gained 7% on news that it is in merger talkies with 3 UK (Hutchinson) and Iliad of Italy. Investor's Intelligence tipped Astra Zeneca and GlaxoSmithKline GSK and there was good news from other drug firms. 

A booster dose of AstraZeneca (Nasdaq: AZN), Pfizer (NYSE: PFE)/ BioNTech (Nasdaq: BNTX), and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) vaccines led to a significant increase in COVID-19 antibody levels in those who initially received the two-dose regimen of Sinovac (Nasdaq: SVA) COVID-19 shot, according to new peer-reviewed data.

The study involving more than 1,200 individuals in Brazil was designed to test a booster shot of either Sinovac’s (SVA) CoronaVac vaccine or rival vaccines from AstraZeneca (AZN), Pfizer (PFE)/ BioNTech (BNTX), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

While the antibody levels were low before the administration of the booster doses at six months following the primary vaccine series of CoronaVac, they significantly increased across every booster regimen 28 days after receiving the booster.

However, the highest responses were seen in mixed schedules involving RNA and viral vector vaccines, including the efficacy against Delta and Omicron.

*Oncology-focused BioLineRX of Canada has begun enrolling patients with unresectable metastatic solid tumors for its phase I-II trial of intratumoral vaccine candidate AGI-134. Results are expected H1 of this year. This is a second oncology trial by BLRX aimed at preventing metastases and secondary tumors. 

*Multiple sclerosis, a progressive disease that affects 2.8 million people worldwide and for which there is no definitive cure, may be caused by infection with the Epstein-Barr virus, according to a study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers. Their findings were published today online in Science. “The hypothesis that EBV causes MS has been investigated for several years, but this is the 1ststudy providing compelling evidence of causality,” said Alberto Ascherio, professor of epidemiology andnutrition at Harvard and senior author of the study. “This is a big step because it suggests that most MScases could be prevented by stopping EBV infection and that targeting EBV could lead to a cure forMS.”