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BioPharmGuy
Mologic became a nonprofit after being acquired and with that we bid them adieu from the BioPharmGuy database. People often ask why we don't list nonprofits - there are some that function as drug/biotech companies in almost all respects. We used to list those, but it became a slippery slope deciding whether to include doctors who run clinical trials at their office, hospitals that offer lab services to outside parties, etc.
So probably seven years ago we decided that nonprofits/PBCs/B-corps are out. And that's the way it is.
Addition & Attrition
So much for all the removals this week. Got caught up in bunch of other stuff. Seven added, six removed. Summary file on our downloads page.
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Team Roast
Scienion was bought by CELLink about a year ago and they’ve finally decided to rebrand as Cellenion. Not exactly a beauty of a name, but we get it.
If you’re interested in learning more about them, click on the 'about us' tab and...oh no they didn't. A jumping team picture involving 23 people? What is this, the Dunder Mifflin group Christmas photo?
We count 18 mostly unobscured heads and 23 pairs of feet. Awesome job getting everyone in the shot! Plus only 14 of those 23 people were off the ground simultaneously – 61%...not great. At least they seemed to have given a jump waiver to anyone wearing knee-high boots.
Newsflash: If you have more than five people, don’t try the simul-jump!
Valneva
Their Chikungunya vaccine did well in phase 3 trials. The trial was conducted using the FDA's accelerated pathway, so they were permitted to use a surrogate marker to determine if the drug worked, as opposed to actually proving it prevented infection. What they showed was 98.5% of trial participants created Chikungunya-binding antibodies.
That's all well and good, but considering there is no Chikungunya in America, it seems an odd place to have conducted the trial. If their target market is Africa & Asia, shouldn't they have run these trials in African and Asian people? They probably produce the same antibodies as a cross-section of Americans, but maybe not.
Phillip Morris
Philip Morris is lighting up the acquisition market again, this time acquiring a company that makes asthma inhalers. Guess they would know how much demand there is for respiratory illness treatments. Aha! Maybe that explains their acquisition spree - they have such a finger on the pulse of lung diseases they may be best placed to maximize revenue from drugs treating them. Very clever.
Another company they invested in a while back is Medicago, which is producing therapeutics in tobacco-related plants.
So they sell tobacco to make people sick, use tobacco to make people well and in the interim, get paid for treating lung diseases. Win-win-win!
F, Robot
If you ask for directions, he'll pretend not to understand you. If you're a dollar short, he'll say he only has crypto. Introducing: Prixi, the world's first prick-robot, brought to you by Roxall.
Priority Review Vouchers
The FDA has the authority to award drug companies what's called a Priority Review Voucher. They award them to companies that get treatments approved for neglected tropical diseases, rare pediatric indications or some bioterrorism-related indications. Kind of an incentive to get people to do work on drugs without much commercial potential.
These vouchers can then be used on a future drug submission to accelerate the timeline of the FDA's decision - it effectively allows the holder to cut in line. They shave about four months off the time it takes the FDA to make a decision on a drug approval.
Crucially, these vouchers are tradeable. And they are worth some major cash. Last week Liminal Biosciences, who received their voucher in June, sold it for $105M, which has been roughly the going rate for the past couple years. Not bad...not bad at all.
Recro Pharma
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Boosters
The Biden administration announced this week that mRNA Covid boosters will be available to all Americans in September. Eligibility will begin eight months after a person’s second dose. Strangely, they made this statement while also saying the decision is dependent on clinical studies concluding that it makes sense to do this. Seems kind of backwards.
While it’s not entirely clear that boosters are even necessary yet, the booster clinical trials have not shown any ill effect of a third dose so far, and they have indicated increased protection from severe Covid. As long as that holds, it’s not foolish to ultimately offer a booster, especially for the oldest and most at-risk Americans.
The bigger issue is the billions of people around the world starving for their first vaccine while the US sidles up to the all-you-can-eat buffet. Politically, it’s understandable to make sure everyone in America has initial vaccine courses before sending supplies around the world. But considering two mRNA doses are still showing solid protection against hospitalization & death from Covid (in spite of what the misinformed on the internet might be saying), it would seem more reasonable to send these doses around the world for now.
On the vaccine topic, if you’d like to get an idea of how statistics are being manipulated by vaccine skeptics, this guy went deep into Israel’s experience where more hospitalized people are vaccinated than unvaccinated. That does not, in any way, mean the vaccines don’t work.
There is nuance to it, and Simpson’s Paradox is involved (which is a cool statistical paradox worth looking into on its own). As with a lot of statistics, it’s hard to summarize concisely, but basically the issue with blindly using those headline Israel results has a lot to do with old people being far more likely to get really sick from Covid and also being much more likely to have been vaccinated.
The takeaway of his whole thing is the final chart, which gives an age-based summary of hospitalizations per 100k people in each group. It unequivocally shows the vaccines doing an amazing job.
Bleeders Can't Be Choosers
At least a few fervent anti-vaxxers who find themselves in need of blood are reportedly requesting blood transfusions specifically from unvaccinated donors under the presumption that the other blood is tainted by the vaccine. Thankfully there is no record of anyone actually acceding to these absurd requests.
In one case, a young mother whose infant needed a blood transfusion was concerned about vaccinated donor blood. Lady - maybe focus on the bigger picture like letting doctors save your kid's life.
Thanks a lot, Facebook.
Medicare Drug Pricing
Medicare is not allowed to negotiate prices with drug makers - they just pay whatever drug companies charge everyone else. It's crazy because Medicare is enormous compared to other US healthcare organizations and could absolutely get better prices, just as Walmart can get better prices from their suppliers than your local convenience store.
President Biden has come out in favor of allowing Medicare to negotiate these prices just as Trump (at least initially) & Obama did before him. But don't get too excited - Congress will not go along, they never do. Healthcare and pharmaceutical lobbyists have WAY too much money for this to pass. When facing an estimated loss of $45B in excess government payments every year, pretty much no lobbying price tag is too high.
Ghouls. Funny Little Green Ghouls
Some people got their anti-vaxx article retracted recently and of course whined about it, but in this case one of authors had a unique spin as to why it was retracted - he blamed ghouls. More specifically, he suggested the ghouls impart a ghouling bias onto the publishing process.
Now, if you don't recognize that usage of the term ghoul, that’s probably because the dude just MADE IT UP and used it to defend his research. Great way to get people to take you seriously.
In his statement he also implored readers to pursue "...rational discourse so the scientific community could make their own assessment of the issues at hand." So he's saying centuries of vaccination and ever-increasing lifespans (Covid pandemic excluded) isn't enough to roughly indicate vaccines aren't a scourge? Sure. That makes sense.
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ETC.
Fish
Saw these oxymoronic low sugar candies at the drug store this week. Guess you could call them sweet-ish fish.
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