Drugmakers are gearing up for massive coronavirus vaccine trials after promising early data

Hello,

Welcome to Dispensed, Business Insider's weekly healthcare newsletter.

This week, the healthcare team has been hard at work tracking what's happening on Capitol Hill as Republicans get ready to unveil their next coronavirus stimulus plan, parsing through the new — promising — data from the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, and diving deep into the mental health benefits employers are turning to.

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Republicans are gearing up to unveil their coronavirus stimulus plan

Kimberly Leonard spent her week up on Capitol Hill getting a sense of what's ahead for the now-delayed coronavirus stimulus plan from Republicans. (Stay tuned early next week for the official unveiling).

Meanwhile, Kimberly reports, top drugmakers developing coronavirus vaccines like Moderna are beefing up their lobbying spending.

Here's how much drugmakers like Pfizer, Merck and J&J spent on lobbying.

As part of the stimulus, Kimberly and policy reporter Joseph Zeballos-Roig report, Republicans are weighing a short-term extension for unemployment benefits.

The bill, as expected, is likely to provide more support for schools and hospitals — or as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put it: "kids, jobs, and healthcare."

You can read the full story here>>

The Trump administration and Senate Republicans are quibbling over the next coronavirus stimulus. Here's what's in store for the final bill, including more checks, loans for small businesses, and $100 billion to reopen schools.

AstraZeneca and Oxford's coronavirus vaccine showed an immune response in early data

Another week, another publication of early-stage coronavirus vaccine data. This week: A glimpse of how the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca is going.

Andrew Dunn reported Monday that the shot was able to generate an immune response in healthy volunteers.

But like with other leading vaccine candidates, we still need larger trials to figure out what level of immune response might protect people from getting infected with the novel coronavirus. Those're set to get underway as soon as next week.

In the meantime — it's important to remember that in the absence of an 100% effect vaccine, we'll need effective treatments that go after the infection.

I compiled a list of the most promising treatments that could be ready by the fall.

Amid all of this, the shares of vaccine-makers like Moderna have been climbing high with expectation.

SVB Leerink analyst Mani Foroohar shared Thursday why Moderna's stock is poised to tumble 20%. That's even if the biotech's coronavirus shot works.

Andrew's been keeping tabs on how far along in development vaccine candidates are.

Here's a snapshot of where we are now.

You can read the full story here>>

There are 24 coronavirus vaccine candidates now in human trials. Here's how drugmakers see the race for a cure playing out in 2020.

America's workers are more tired and anxious than ever

This week, Blake Dodge took a closer look took a closer look at how employers are trying to support their employees' mental health through a pandemic and civil unrest.

Particularly, she looked into the mental health startups the employers are turning to, which racked up a record-amount of funding from investors through the first half of 2020. She got a sense of whether they're being put to use and how that's playing out so far.

You can read the full story here>>

Companies are grappling with how to support tired, anxious workers. Startups that say they can help have bagged $588 million in 2020.

Investors are pouring millions into pharmacy delivery startups

Blake this week also caught up with the cofounders of Medly, a startup that raised $100 million from the likes of Volition and Greycroft.

Medly had been on Blake's radar in part because of a list she helped compile of 26 startups venture capitalists expect to take off amid the pandemic.

The Medly team told Blake about its plans for a national expansion, and the frequent question the team got from investors while raising the round.

You can read the full story here>>

How pharmacy startup Medly raised $100 million to take on Amazon and drug-delivering giants

I'll leave you with a daunting thought this week: Morgan Stanley is projecting we might have 150,000 new daily cases of coronavirus by the end of 2020, roughly double what we're seeing now.That's going to make getting back to the office tricky.

Thoughts, questions, tips? You can find me at lramsey@businessinsider.com, or you can reach the entire team at healthcare@businessinsider.com.

Remember to sign up for daily updates from the healthcare team.

- Lydia