BioPharmGuy
Naming Names
We took a look at the distribution of worldwide drug company names by first letter and threw it on a chart. A, B, C are all in the top 10. At the extremes are 557 companies starting with A and only eight starting with Y. Three of those Y companies are working on monoclonal antibodies, which are molecules that happen to be shaped like a Y. The other five have no excuse.
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Addition & Attrition
13 companies added and two removed this week. One buyout, few renamed companies. Summary available on our
downloads
page
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AstraZeneca
It was their turn to churn out some
phase 1 Covid vaccine data
. This vaccine is an adenovirus vector vaccine. 91% of patients showed neutralizing antibodies after a single dose, 100% showed after the booster dose. The antibody presence did seem to trail off after 42 days. Normal side effects were seen for a vaccine - reports of pain/tenderness, malaise, etc. Those things mostly mean the immune response is working, which is the whole point of a vaccine. (That's why it's probably a bad idea to take anti-inflammatories after receiving a vaccine - it stops it from doing its job.)
So we have another candidate with a chance heading towards phase 3. Lot of arrows in the world's quiver now, hopefully one will hit the mark. Some people out there are attempting to compare data between different phase 1 vaccine candidates, but that's just pointless and meaningless. These trials are very small and immunization is a complex deal - neutralizing antibodies or T-cell response or any other factor is never enough to know if it will work. We would suggest ignoring any comparisons at this stage.
Also ignore the AstraZeneca executive who expressed confidence that this vaccine would provide 1+ years of immunity. There is literally no way of knowing that at this point and not even any data to
suggest
it. Seems like he's trying to out-Moderna, Moderna
Biohaven
They have a new migraine treatment approved and were looking to find a celebrity to promote it. They were lucky enough to find a famous migraine sufferer who
also
drums up business by her very existence. Congrats on the
new gig
, Khloe Kardashian!
Funding Tsunami
Noted biotech venture capitalist, Bruce Booth,
comments
on the unprecedented biotech funding boom - both private rounds and IPOs. Basically every IPO is oversubscribed and upsized; every company that wants funding can get it. The world is one big ATM with a double-helix on the side.
Are there really that many ground-breaking innovations that were simply in need of a few hundred million to become billion dollar ideas? Nope. So there will be quite the hangover whenever this party ends, but who the hell knows when the music will stop. For now, drink up!
CytoDyn
Phase 2 trial results were to be reported in a press release. Press release arrived and began with "
Impressive Results Reported
". As a rule, if it's your own release, you don't include totally subjective words in it at all, much less the headline.
Phase 2 trials are to show efficacy, ie whether a drug works. Yet CytoDyn only reported on serious adverse events in this release, which is language used to report on safety trials. They said efficacy data will come later. How a company can report safety data for an efficacy trial and determine it to be 'impressive' is mystifying. It's like getting excited about a kid's ability to read a math exam. It's fine, but far from the point of the exercise.
Most amazingly, 21% of people getting a placebo were registered as having serious adverse events. What in the world were they doing to those poor people? Bunch of shysters.
Tricida
This company is working on a non-absorbed, orally-administered polymer designed to treat metabolic acidosis in patients with chronic kidney disease. Got that? They have already named their hopeful drug
Veverimer
. Certainly not the most outlandish drug name, but doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Name needs way more X's.
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The Lowest Bar
Heat waves always send people to the beaches, even in Boston. Dude at Boston beach tried to rationalize why it's ok for him to be at a
packed beach
:
“I see why with everything going on this isn’t the best thing to be doing, but it’s not as bad as Florida.”
One rule in American life -
never
use Florida to rationalize your actions. Pretty sure the crowds of beach goers in Florida are part of why it's currently so bad down there.
Georgia
Department of Public Health making a case for most amateurish response to case surge. They apparently didn't like how bad the case counts looked on a map, so they just changed the already ridiculous and arbitrary ranges to make a less red map. Check out these totally logical case ranges from two different dates:
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Ahh yes, the classic 4,358-9,596 range. Geniuses.
COVID on Campus
Wired takes a
deep dive
into how various Universities are planning to approach this coming fall semester. Given the breadth of testing/tracing/online/isolation strategies they are attempting, we should have a pretty good idea what works come January. That may allow schools to switch to best practices and have a more normal winter semester.
What many people kind of gloss over in getting students & athletes (some of which are also students) back to campus is the fact that most faculty & staff are not nearly as young as the students who will certainly be the cause of any outbreaks on campus. Focusing on how the students aren't as likely to be ill or die from COVID is a big middle-finger to the faculty and staff. No strategy will work without faculty buy-in and the faculty, by and large, do not want to be in the classroom this fall.
Kids can't remember to bring a pencil to an exam - but sure, they'll remember their masks for every class.
Sample Pooling
The idea of
pooling
coronavirus test samples together and testing them as a single batch sounds kind of loony at first glance. But, provided it's done quickly, it can actually be a good way to reduce required resources.
Example: An entire family could get swabbed and sampled. Samples pooled, the test comes back negative, they're all good to go. Lab only ran a single test. Same goes for a pro sports team or whatever. Of course, if the pooled test comes back positive, then everyone will need an individual test.
Eventually, if the disease numbers are low enough governments could pool 100 or more samples together to quickly test many patients. Well, maybe not
that
government, but the others could do it.
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