We would like to thank our first newsletter sponsor -
BioCentriq
. They're a newly launched CDMO offering services around cell and gene therapies. They operate as a nonprofit on the campus of NJIT and have a fully-professional staff, while also offering opportunities for students to gain some real-world experience. Importantly - though University affiliated, they do not retain any intellectual property - it remains solely with the client. Contract Pharma did a little
feature
recently.
BioPharmGuy
New Pages
Addition & Attrition
We added 79 companies this week, mostly European drug companies. Removed 10. Summary file available on our
downloads
page.
Coronavirus Email of the Week
"I am a chemistry student from Yemen. I studied the Corona virus, conducted several studies, and arrived at the vaccine and cannot find an official support body To view the research files and the way to develop the vaccine, contact me at the email"
...just the thought of chemistry students in Yemen working with this pathogen in a lab is a little unsettling. Poor countries mired in civil wars don't tend to have the most resilient healthcare infrastructure.
So Lonely
Our clients usually ask questions over email and that's mostly good enough. Since everyone started working from home, we have seen an absolute explosion in phone meetings. In a given week we are doing 6x as many. Guess people are yearning for some human contact. Luckily for us, they don't seem to mind our kids explaining the extent of their hunger in the background. Every ten minutes. Seriously. #newnormal
|
|
AbbVie - Allergan
AbbVie's $63B buyout of Allergan was finally
approved by the FTC
. This deal was first announced June 2019, which really feels like an entirely different era. This saga has been going on so long, we don't remember why it's even happening, though Allergan's CEO is gonna net $75M, so that's likely one of the reasons.
Surely he provided $75M worth of value above and beyond his $100M+ in salaries during his six years with the company. But that's not all! He also netted 36 months of free healthcare valued at $54k plus another $100k to pay for a personal secretary for two years. Really? Really.
Gilead/remdesivir
The Institute for Clinical & Economic Review (ICER) is an independent organization that attempts to come up with fair prices for pharmaceuticals. Currently they believe it will cost Gilead $10 to produce a 10-day course of remdesivir and they would be justified in
charging $4500
for it. Pretty pricey for a drug that has only been shown to shorten disease burden by four days.
Oddly, in coming to that $4500 number, ICER factored in extension of life. If you remember from last week's clinical study result, there was not a statistically significant extension of life span. To price this drug as if it is saving lives seems premature.
GRAIL
There are funding rounds, then there are GRAIL funding rounds. They just landed $390M in a series D. Eye-popping, right? Well, that brings them up to $1.9B over four rounds, so this $390M round is actually a
below average
round for them. Unreal.
|
|
Antibody Testing
A practicing allergist once told the BioPharmGuy he could pull people off the street, administer a peanut allergy skin-prick test, and 10% will show positive results. Truth is he was being very modest - it's allegedly more like
50%-60% false positives
when you test for a food allergy via a skin-prick test. (If that's true, it's WORSE than a coin toss) Yet these tests have been around and in use for a long time.
In that context, quick-result antibody testing for the brand-new Covid-19 was always going to be finicky. The reality right now is harsh - antibody testing is currently pretty much worthless. It's really the wild west out there. Everyone selling tests, no one doing enough work to find out if they work properly. Four tests later, this journalist
still doesn't know
if she has had Covid-19.
Peanut Pill Delay
On the topic of peanut allergies, Aimmune had to delay the launch of their
$10,680/yr
peanut-as-a-pill treament Palforzia due to the coronavirus epidemic. Once allergists are back in business they will re-start their sales/marketing activity.
Mutant Virus
Beware of scare-publications
talking about viral mutations making Covid-19 more transmittable in certain regions. It could be true, but there's no way anyone can know that yet. There are many differences between regions/countries that can better explain why it's wreaking havoc in some and seemingly dying off in others.
The US is a country where
44%
of citizens approve of the job their President is doing, a President who has consistently downplayed the threat of the virus since January. It shouldn't be surprising that the virus would be more freely transmitted in an environment like that where opposition to protective face masks has somehow become a political statement.
Italy is the third oldest country in the world amongst countries with 1M+ residents, and they also have a culture where three generations often live under the same roof. It would seem the virus would have an easier time finding victims in that scenario.
You can play this game infinitely, but until actual science happens, we cannot know whether mutations in this virus are harmful (or even helpful). We do know it is mutating in some way, because it's a virus and that's what viruses do.
Godspeed, Double Rainbow
As if 2020 wasn't enough of a nightmare, Paul Vasquez, better known as double-rainbow guy, recently went to the ER thinking he may have coronavirus. On his
facebook
page he stated: "it’s a long story that ends with me not having Coronavirus but a ticking bomb in my chest that could go off at any moment." The bomb apparently
went off shortly thereafter
. Next time you see a rainbow, think about his unbridled positivity. We could use a little more of that right about now.
|
|
Premium Listings Always Available
|
|
|
|
Promote your Company's Listing
|
Check your website analytics - we are likely one of your top referrers. You can quickly double or triple those referrals with a Premium Listing. You can try it for as short as one month. Full summary of all our upgrade options available here:
Promoted Listings
. Reply to this email or
send a message
if interested.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
