The FDA may be more will­ing to look at Mod­er­na’s mR­NA-based flu vac­cine if the com­pa­ny re-filed it for a nar­row­er group of old­er adults, a se­nior agency of­fi­cial told re­porters in a call Wednes­day de­fend­ing the reg­u­la­tor’s de­nial of the ap­pli­ca­tion.

The of­fi­cial, who spoke to re­porters un­der the con­di­tion they not be named, said it was “en­tire­ly fea­si­ble” that Mod­er­na could re­sub­mit the ap­pli­ca­tion for on­ly 50 to 64 year olds. If the shot shows a clin­i­cal ben­e­fit in that age group, “then doc­tors can use it off la­bel if it ends up get­ting ap­proved on that sub­group,” they said.

Chi­nese pros­e­cu­tors have charged two of As­traZeneca’s for­mer se­nior em­ploy­ees with il­le­gal trade, un­law­ful col­lec­tion of per­son­al in­for­ma­tion, and med­ical in­sur­ance fraud, the com­pa­ny said this week.

As­traZeneca dis­closed the charges in its fourth-quar­ter earn­ings an­nounce­ment on Tues­day. The Fi­nan­cial Times re­port­ed Wednes­day that one of those em­ploy­ees is Leon Wang, for­mer head of As­traZeneca’s Chi­na busi­ness.

End­points News is ma­jor­i­ty-owned by the FT, but op­er­ates in­de­pen­dent­ly. As­traZeneca did­n't re­spond to re­quests for com­ment in time for pub­li­ca­tion.

As­traZeneca's Chi­na sub­sidiary was al­so charged with un­law­ful col­lec­tion of per­son­al in­for­ma­tion and il­le­gal trade, the com­pa­ny said. But it added that pros­e­cu­tors made no al­le­ga­tions that the sub­sidiary re­ceived an il­le­gal gain in con­nec­tion with the in­for­ma­tion col­lec­tion charge.

Vinay Prasad, di­rec­tor of the FDA's of­fice of bi­o­log­ics and vac­cines, over­ruled both the vac­cine re­view team and the head of the FDA's vac­cine team as part of the reg­u­la­tor's re­fusal to re­view Mod­er­na's flu vac­cine ap­pli­ca­tion, a source with di­rect knowl­edge of the ap­pli­ca­tion told End­points News.

The de­ci­sion not to re­view Mod­er­na's mR­NA-based flu vac­cine came to light on Tues­day, af­ter the biotech is­sued a con­tentious news re­lease say­ing that the agency had shift­ed the re­quire­ments for the vac­cine tri­al.

There were ear­li­er hints that Prasad may have act­ed uni­lat­er­al­ly, sign­ing the refuse-to-file let­ter that is usu­al­ly signed by pro­fes­sion­al staff. A cen­ter di­rec­tor step­ping in can be a sign of dis­agree­ment be­tween FDA lead­er­ship and staff be­low them. Prasad's over­rule was con­firmed ear­li­er Wednes­day by STAT.

One day af­ter bump­ing out CEO Paul McKen­zie, Aus­tralia’s CSL re­vealed what he left be­hind: de­clin­ing prof­it and a $1.1 bil­lion hole due to low­er US vac­cine de­mand and in­creased gener­ic com­pe­ti­tion.

CSL an­nounced McKen­zie would re­tire im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the board “rec­og­nized he didn’t have the skills that we want­ed for the fu­ture,” chair­man Bri­an Mc­Namee said Tues­day. The com­pa­ny has faced a tu­mul­tuous few years with failed spin­offs, head­count re­duc­tions and site clo­sures.

Net prof­it for the last six months of 2025 crashed by 81% and to­tal rev­enue dropped 4% to $8.3 bil­lion, CSL said Wednes­day. The com­pa­ny will take $1.1 bil­lion in im­pair­ment charges this year, most of it in the first half. Even with the head­winds, CSL main­tained its guid­ance for fis­cal 2026, pro­ject­ing rev­enue growth of 2% to 3%.