BioPharmGuy News

February 25, 2021

BioPharmGuy News

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BioPharmGuy

Someone looking to breed the fastest falcon in the world contacted us looking to possibly CRISPR some genes and whatnot. Doubt there is a single "speed" gene for any animal, so that's going to be pretty difficult. But hey, people can dream.

Addition & Attrition

69 companies added, three removed this week. Did some work on Arizona medical device companies. Summary on our downloads page.

Industry

Theranos

The prosecution against Elizabeth Holmes in the Theranos fraud case is using her penchant for spending money as evidence against her, specifically trumping up the fact that she spent a lot on clothes and jewelry. Her defense team is painting this as a sexist attack trying to play on jurors' gender biases. For once in her life, she's probably in the right.

When a male CEO commits fraud, you hear about how many millions he bilked from the company, but whether he spent it on private jets, whiskey or suits isn't usually relevant. Yet here fancy clothes, jewelry and perfume are the focus.

If she's a scam artist, she's a scam artist. That's for the jury to decide. But trying to paint her as one based on clothing is low. Never mind the fact that she wore the same Steve Jobs costume EVERY DAY SHE WORKED AT THERANOS. How much can a plain plain black turtleneck cost?

More Stable Vaccine

Pfizer/BioNTech have submitted stability data to FDA indicating they believe their Covid vaccine is stable in a more standard pharmaceutical freezer for up to two weeks. Freezers don't seem to be an issue at the moment, but in order to get the vaccine out to the really rural areas or to less developed countries, this would be an important change in storage requirements.

GridMarkets

If you do computational chemistry simulations, GridMarkets has a secure solution that can save you time and money and is simple to use. Their turnkey pay-per-use solution permits one or many simulations on MOE, Amber, Gromacs or NAMD to be run in parallel off-site, leaving your local machine...usable. All requisite licenses are provided by GridMarkets. Free trials available - you can create an account to check it out.

OpenBiome

This group is winding down their poop-bank operation. The goal was to use stool donations for transplants (Fecal Microbiota Transplantation for you adults out there) in C. difficile patients whose gut flora were not able to recover. OpenBiome "experienced rising costs and significantly reduced revenues throughout the pandemic". Translation: sales were crappy in more ways than one.

There has been a push for more defined, lab-created versions of the Fecal Microbiota Transplantation materials, and hopefully those come available sooner rather than later. As off-putting as this concept may be, it works wonders in many people.

Health & Science

Is it the Vaccines?

Some are wondering how we can determine if the vaccines are indeed leading to this massive Covid case count drop. One thing to try is to compare states. West Virginia has little to no pharmacy chains, so they went it alone and relied on small town pharmacists. By doing so, they got a full week jump on the US and stayed ahead. Here are the case declines from Jan 9 to Feb 23:

America: 254k --> 68k; 73.2% reduction

West Virginia: 1493 --> 289; 80.6% reduction

Nice. Now let's check the other end of the spectrum - Alabama has continued to have the slowest vaccine rollout.

Alabama: 4242 --> 926; 78.2% reduction

Well then. As always, it seems there is not a simple answer. What's really most important? Immunity in the community? New, less-symptomatic variants? Residual drops from the end of holiday travel? Probably all of the above to varying degrees and maybe other factors as well. Pandemics are not simple.

Side note: Bloomberg now making their vaccine tracker data available via GitHub.

Safe Landing

The Perseverance rover landed safely on Mars after its seven month journey. It's only been 64 years since humans made anything leave Earth and now it's almost routine for NASA to safely land scientific contraptions on Mars and almost immediately send thousands of pictures 150 million miles back home. Ridiculous and amazing.

Covid Jerks

In a story straight out of an episode of Scooby-Doo, two Florida women dressed up as old ladies to try to get their second Covid shot. They had previously obtained a first shot, though authorities were not yet sure how. Creating a human totem pole beneath a trench coat is certainly a possibility.

Mom of the Year (for real)

If your son has a rare, incurable disease and you're told by doctors there is nothing that can be done, you can either do nothing or be this lady. She has helped make tremendous headway on a cure for her son's genetic condition and along the way was able to help shed light on the fact that this condition is much more common than anyone had realized.

If that wasn't enough, she's already making party plans for the celebration after he's cured - Vanilla Ice will feature as special guest DJ.

Etc.

Premium Spirits, Hold the Spirit

Tanqueray has launched an alcohol-free, gin-flavored beverage for those who wish to abstain but still pine for a tasty drink. This idea has some merit, at least until you find out they're charging $22 for a liter of flavored water. Oh and they happened to package it in the exact same bottle as their gin. Not confusing to consumers at all!. $22 for a bottle of gin-flavored water...get the hell out.

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