Strong demand for virus testing services; snacking surges

The outbreak of the coronavirus has dealt a shock to the global economy with unprecedented speed. Following are developments Monday related to the national and global response, the work place and the spread of the virus.

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FRONT LINE VIRUS COMPANIES:

— Two vaccine candidates from Pfizer and BioNTech being developed to help protect against the virus that causes COVID-19 have received fast track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The designation was granted based on preliminary data from early-state studies that are currently ongoing in the U.S. and Germany as well as animal immunogenicity studies. The vaccine candidates are not currently approved for distribution anywhere in the world.

The companies may begin later-stage trials, which would put the treatments closer to launch, as soon as this month, subject to regulatory approval. They anticipate enrolling up to 30,000 subjects. If the ongoing studies are successful, and the vaccine candidate receives regulatory approval, Pfizer and BioNTech currently expect to make up to 100 million doses by year-end and potentially more than 1.2 billion doses by the end of 2021.

— Quest Diagnostics is seeing growing demand for its COVID-19 testing services, though at a cost. The company said Monday that second-quarter testing volumes in its base business (excluding COVID-19 molecular and antibody testing) declined approximately 34% from a year ago, according to preliminary results.

— PerkinElmer anticipates its second-quarter revenue will climb approximately 12%. The company said Monday that the increase was driven by better-than-expected demand for its solutions aimed at helping support customers’ COVID-19 testing needs.

PerkinElmer experienced strong demand for its RT-PCR and...