21
Dec
2020
More Than Words. Taking Steps Together Towards Greater Health Equity
Healthcare leaders have made many commitments this year on racial equity. The question now is how we turn words into action. Over the past couple years, I’ve become a believer in the power of small groups that share an immersive, cultivated experience. In September, I convened one such group on a two-day virtual journey to Montgomery, Alabama. This virtual conference... Read More
20
Dec
2020
Science in the Face of Fear: Vaccine Hesitancy and Public Trust
This month has been a media whipsaw. News of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines’ compelling efficacy and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s rapid response and issuance of an Emergency Use Authorization for both vaccines have been met with equal parts jubilation and fear from a divided public. For me, as a medical virologist and researcher, this remarkable achievement... Read More
19
Dec
2020
There Is Light at the End of the Tunnel, Yes. But it’s a Long Tunnel
I will start with the good news. The good news As of this writing, on Dec. 19, the FDA has just granted ModeRNA an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for a coronavirus vaccine. We now have two vaccines available, based on essentially the same mRNA-based technology, including the one from Pfizer/BioNTech that received an EUA earlier this month. It’s worth stating... Read More
17
Dec
2020
A Triumph of the Scientific Enterprise – Industry, Academia, and Government
Vaccines for COVID-19 are here. Some are looking for a fly in the ointment. But there’s no mistaking these vaccines protect 95 percent of people from getting sick from a virus that has killed 1.6 million people worldwide this year and threatens millions more. The one-two punch of messenger RNA vaccines for COVID-19 from Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna in... Read More
17
Dec
2020
A Grateful Physician Reflects on Getting the COVID-19 Vaccine
Tonight, I will receive my first dose of vaccine against COVID-19. I’m a hospitalist on the front lines, taking care of patients with COVID-19 in Philadelphia. The progress of this year takes my breath away. One year ago, in December 2019 in China, people starting falling seriously ill with pneumonia-like symptoms. By January 2020, a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was identified... Read More
17
Dec
2020
Round 2: What’s Changed and What Hasn’t in Caring for Outpatients with COVID-19
When one of my COVID patients called my cell phone a few weeks ago, my stomach dropped. “I feel worse,” she stammered. “I’m having more trouble catching my breath.” It was late morning on a Sunday. I was planning to take my son to the park, but after hearing those words, I knew this was not going to be a... Read More
16
Dec
2020
Startup Profiles: Exosite Drug Discovery & Efficient Gene Therapy for the Eye
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14
Dec
2020
Seeking Impact: Servier’s David Lee on The Long Run Podcast
Today’s guest on The Long Run is David Lee. David is the CEO of Boston-based Servier Pharmaceuticals. It’s the US subsidiary of France-based Servier Group. Servier, for those unfamiliar, is a rare bird in the pharmaceutical world. It markets both branded drugs and generic drugs. It is a truly global company with 21,000 employees in 148 countries, but it has... Read More
13
Dec
2020
The US is Teeming With SPACs, Why is the UK at Zero?
Biotech startups from the UK traditionally have a financing strategy that leads to one of two places – the NASDAQ or the NYSE. This means learning how to follow a US-centric playbook. About 10 percent of the biotech IPOs on the US markets this year come from companies based outside the US. This is consistent with trends of the past... Read More
11
Dec
2020
The Vaccine Is Coming, and Scientists Need to Keep the Focus on Equity
As we navigate this pandemic, the discourse has often created a fog. Science has been doing what it does – forming hypotheses, testing them, gathering vast amounts of data, and pressure-testing conclusions with unprecedented urgency. The ideas that pass scrutiny are being elevated into recommendations, while others are being discarded. Science isn’t perfect. It is practiced by people, and people... Read More
10
Dec
2020
Pfizer, BioNTech Vaccine Gets FDA Advisory OK. Now Comes More Hard Work
The good news this week was really one of those good news / bad news stories. An expert panel of FDA vaccine advisors looked at Pfizer’s presentation for the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and saw the outstanding results for what they were. The vote was 17-4 (with one abstention) to recommend that the FDA give the go-ahead for an Emergency... Read More
10
Dec
2020
Vaccine Communication: Another Opportunity for Biopharma to Lead
We’ve all seen this movie, right? It feels like we’re in the fake final scene before the jump-scare and the bad guy makes one final push. It’s that point in the 1986 sci-fi film “Aliens” where Bishop gets ripped in half and Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) realizes in horror that the Alien Queen snuck aboard her ship. Normal, whatever that means... Read More
9
Dec
2020
Priority for Next Administration: Tech-Ready Health Leadership
From the moment Joe Biden takes the oath in January, his Administration will confront a brutal onslaught of urgent health challenges. The work starts with the complex distribution of a multi-dose vaccine to a remarkably skeptical public. To do this job, and countless others, there is a desperate need to upgrade the nation’s health data capabilities, which were pressure-tested by COVID-19... Read More
8
Dec
2020
VC Roundup: Microglia Targeting, RNA Processing, and Radiopharmaceutical Startups Raise Cash
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7
Dec
2020
Vaccine Trials: A Band of Brothers and Sisters
On Dec. 2, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article coauthored by many prominent medical scientists, including physicians, who advocated for extending the time in which volunteers in the placebo group enrolled in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 clinical trials should be followed. Essentially, they are arguing that the study volunteers – people who sacrificed for the... Read More
7
Dec
2020
This COVID-19 Long Hauler is Still Trying to Recover
Our daughter celebrated her 14th birthday on Mar. 14. It’s an event none of us will forget. Our family invited a few of her friends to join us for dinner in New York City to celebrate. Scary headlines about the COVID-19 outbreak in New York were everywhere in the days leading up to her birthday. We had to stop and... Read More
3
Dec
2020
AZ’s Muddy Result, Regeneron Cocktail OK’d, and Biogen, Sage Bet Big on Depression
Take two weeks between Frontpoints columns, and a lot of stuff happens. On Monday Nov. 23, AstraZeneca presented a muddy picture from its Phase III clinical trial with a COVID-19 vaccine developed on adenovirus technology with Oxford University. It’s either delivering 90 percent efficacy or 62 percent efficacy, depending on the dose. So it’s either great or good, but we’re... Read More
2
Dec
2020
Genesis Therapeutics, AI Drug Discovery Startup, Captures $52M Series A
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1
Dec
2020
Vaccine Scarcity: Buckle Up for Debate
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are likely to secure Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) from the FDA by Christmas. These are amazing gifts of science. They also arrive with high expectations from a weary public, especially since the clinical trials of these mRNA vaccines indicate near-complete protection from severe disease. These first two vaccines arrive at the most tumultuous time yet... Read More
1
Dec
2020
COVID-19 Drives New Push for CRISPR-Based Home Diagnostics
Though polymerase chain reaction, PCR, is regarded as the gold standard in molecular diagnostics, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken off some of the shine. Under normal circumstances, samples processed in commercial diagnostic labs that run standard PCR machines can take hours to yield results. In a pandemic, with a surge in demand for tests, turnaround times are creeping upward and... Read More