BioPharmGuy News

December 31, 2020

BioPharmGuy News

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BioPharmGuy

Well, we (almost) made it. Tryin to make this newsletter family friendly, so not gonna use the first words that come to mind to describe this abomination known as 2020. But really it wasn't all bad, and generations of the past have seen worse, so we should all try to keep that in mind, focus on the positive and look ahead. Life only moves in one direction.

Mailbag

Top responses to last week's newsletter:

1) "Excellent newsletter, Many thanks and Happy Holidays"

2) "Thank you for the updates and Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

3) "What???"

Addition & Attrition

Been a busy year for us. We added 1790 companies, removed 447. We dramatically expanded our medical device and Europe coverage. May be the best in the world for Europe by the end of 2021. (Already the best coverage of America - USA! USA! USA!)

Since last week we added a mere 31 companies, and were too busy drinking to remove any. Summary of changes available in the usual file on our downloads page.

Industry

AstraZeneca

The UK predictably approved its home-grown Covid vaccine this week. The trials were not run as neatly as the Pfizer/Moderna ones and the results are not clearly great, but also not bad. This is an adenovirus vaccine, so it's more complex than the mRNA vaccines, but also room temp stable so much easier to deal with.

This product is stated as being 55-85% effective. That huge range should indicate how poorly designed/run the trial/s were. Doesn't seem that impressive in comparison with the existing 95% efficacious mRNA vaccines. Will be interesting to see how many people prefer to wait for the more effective ones.

There's always the chance that the mRNA vaccines prevent illness but not viral spread, while this new one does prevent spread. They could all become important parts of the anti-Covid arsenal.

Liquidia

If you had to choose a name for a drug company that was working on a dry, inhalable powder, you'd definitely go with Liquidia, right?

And Another One

A Chinese company thought "111" was a good name for their digital healthcare company. Good luck finding them on a search engine.

Health & Science

Cali Covid Explosion

Despite serious lockdowns, California can't seem to get its Covid outbreak under control. No good explanations have been offered, though predictably some skeptics are saying this proves lockdowns don't work. Free lesson for those folks from a seven-year old: just because something is bad doesn't mean it couldn't be much worse.

Next couple weeks are going to be a concern in California, especially when it comes to hospital capacity.

#Florida

If you thought the lack of Black Friday events meant no camping out in lines overnight this year, you were dead wrong. Senior citizens are being made to do just that to get access to their Covid vaccine in Lee County, FL. With nine months of planning time you may have thought there would be a better way, but if you're at all familiar with the US healthcare system you really should have known better.

CDC Covid Vaccine Tracker

The CDC has released a simple map showing vaccination progress across the US.

Recycling: Environmental Hoax?

Recently more scientists have started musing as to whether purposely not recycling plastics could actually be helpful (if slightly) when it comes to climate change mitigation - the oil started underground, the plastics would return it there.

That may still be an extreme position, but even the noted right-wingers at the Sierra Club & NPR are skeptical of America's current recycling system.

Put simply, the current US recycling framework is a sham. You can put stuff in the recycle bin, but it's still likely ending up in a landfill. Very little other than metal, glass and some paper gets recycled. It's almost all too dirty to recycle domestically and after China banned trash imports a few years ago, there is almost nowhere to send dirty recyclables except the landfill.

Release the Krakens

Among the laundry list of wealthy criminals recently pardoned by President Trump was Chris Collins, a former member of Congress who pled guilty to insider trading related to his contact with Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotech company. Surely it's just a coincidence that Collins also happened to be the first sitting Congressperson to publicly support Trump's 2016 candidacy. Way to drain that swamp, dude.

Pulse Oximeters

It's been known since at least 2005 that pulse oximeters don't work as well on darker skin and give incorrect and potentially life-threatening, false readings. A University of Michigan study this year again confirmed this problem. Ya think the FDA would have stepped in by now if the devices weren't working properly on lighter skin? Obviously. Shameful that this problem persists into 2021.

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