24
Nov
2020
Getting Married in 2020. One of Many Difficult Family Decisions
So there it was, hanging in the closet. My carefully chosen bridal gown, with its lace in a delicate shade of ivory. Beside it was my bridal veil, featherlight, translucent, and freshly purchased just the day before the wedding. When Anna, my girlfriend, gingerly pinned it on my head, I heard the words of my mother sounding in my head.... Read More
23
Nov
2020
Medicines Based on Unusual Genetic Traits: Andrew Farnum on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Andrew Farnum. Andrew is the CEO of Seattle-based Variant Bio. Variant Bio is a startup seeking to discover new drugs, by finding gene variants in rare ethnic groups. It’s especially interested in what can be learned by sequencing exceptional groups of people in countries where there hasn’t been much sequencing. This is a... Read More
23
Nov
2020
A New Model for Vaccine Communications Grounded in Science and Empathy
With COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths surging, the impressive vaccine results from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and now AstraZeneca arrive just in time to provide some needed hope. But for these vaccines to bring the pandemic to an end, enough people need to be willing to take them. That’s not a given. Various polls have told a story this year about a rising tide... Read More
20
Nov
2020
Why the Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Studies Aren’t Limited to Severe Disease
[Editor’s Note: a version of this article was first published on Nov. 13 on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. —LT ] The COVID-19 Operation Warp Speed (OWS) trials have taken some criticism in the medical press, and lay press, for evaluating what some consider to be “trivial” characteristics of mild COVID-19 disease. Some are arguing that it would... Read More
20
Nov
2020
Moderna, Pfizer Nail COVID-19 Vaccines. Now Comes the Hard Part
It wasn’t the dominant headline it should have been, and few are in the mood to celebrate with the pandemic out of control, but this was a week to celebrate a monumental scientific victory that provides hope for 2021. Moderna dazzled everyone on Monday by reporting its mRNA vaccine candidate for COVID-19, developed in partnership with the National Institute for... Read More
18
Nov
2020
The mRNA Vaccine News is Good. But Let’s Keep Masks for Now
[Editor’s Note: a version of this article was first published on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. —LT ] Clinical trials are usually designed to answer one or two specific questions. For the pivotal COVID-19 trials evaluating messenger RNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, researchers are looking at whether these vaccines prevent a person from getting sick, keep them... Read More
12
Nov
2020
Pfizer, BioNTech’s Watershed Moment, Lilly Antibody Gets EUA, & The Rebuilding Begins
First thing Monday, we all woke up to the brightest ray of light in this dark year. Pfizer and Germany-based BioNTech reported that their vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19. The report was via press release, not peer-reviewed journal, but this was still a moment to celebrate. The interim analysis wasn’t based... Read More
11
Nov
2020
Creating the Future of Microbiome-Based Therapies: Simba Gill on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Simba Gill. Simba is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Evelo Biosciences. Evelo is part of a new generation of biotech companies seeking to make medicines based on new understanding of the microbiome. The science here is fascinating. Evelo’s drug candidates are biologics designed to be taken orally, to act directly in the gut,... Read More
11
Nov
2020
So You Have a Cool Platform. The Next Decision Will Make or Break Your Company
Please subscribe and tell your friends why it’s worthwhile. Quality journalism costs money. When you subscribe to Timmerman Report at $169 per year, you reward quality independent biotech reporting, and encourage more. Subscribe Now Sign in to your account.
10
Nov
2020
Biotech Companies Acting on Promises to Increase Racial Diversity
First came the pandemic. Then the economic slump. Then the push for racial justice. Taken together, you have three major challenges for business leaders to tackle all at once. Because the pandemic has illuminated many racial inequalities, these issues have become intertwined. In the biopharma sector, many company leaders stepped up. Decisive moves were made to reorganize working patterns to... Read More
5
Nov
2020
Reflections from a Wisconsin Boy
My first real journalism job flashed to mind this week. It was 1998-1999. I was a kid reporter fresh out of the University of Wisconsin. My job was to cover Dane County government for The Capital Times, the progressive newspaper in Madison. Dane County had about 400,000 people. Half lived in the beating liberal heart of the City of Madison... Read More
4
Nov
2020
Why Learning From Electronic Health Records Is So Appealing – And So Hard
The application of technology to medicine offers the promise of better, more intelligent care; yet success has proved elusive. To better understand this, we will consider, first the broad ambition of the “learning health system,” understand the general challenges presented by electronic health records (EHRs), and then finally, consider the complexity of a topical use case: a consortia’s effort to... Read More
4
Nov
2020
Targeted Protein Degraders Pull in Millions of Dollars in the Wake of New Hope
Please subscribe and tell your friends why it’s worthwhile. Quality journalism costs money. When you subscribe to Timmerman Report at $169 per year, you reward quality independent biotech reporting, and encourage more. Subscribe Now Sign in to your account.
1
Nov
2020
Rebuffed as Overlords, AI Experts Return in Peace, Seeking Partnership with Clinicians
Why not healthcare? That’s the core question at the heart of efforts to apply emerging digital and data technologies to healthcare and life science. As Suchi Saria, an entrepreneur and a computer scientist at John Hopkins, where she directs the Machine Learning and Healthcare Lab, puts it, in the 2000s, these technologies transformed sectors, such as banking, in a fashion... Read More
29
Oct
2020
J&J, AZ Back in the Saddle, Regeneron Moves the Ball Downfield, and a Flurry of Deals
America, my old conservative friend from a Mountain West state told me on the phone in April, can’t handle the pandemic. We’re soft, he said. Like the characters in the 2008 Pixar film “Wall-E,” he said, we’re sucking on our Slurpees and so drunk on cheap 24/7 entertainment that we can’t even stand on our own two feet anymore. ... Read More
29
Oct
2020
What Happened in Switzerland?
Back in March — during the first wave — I reflected on the COVID-19 situation in Switzerland. This small country, at that time, was managing its outbreak and quickly getting it under control. This was just as the federal government had begun coordinating a response, which had previously been left to local authorities. As I mentioned back then, while Switzerland... Read More
28
Oct
2020
The Battle for the Soul of Biopharma: Peter Kolchinsky on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Peter Kolchinsky. Peter is the managing partner at RA Capital Management. The Boston-based firm invests in public and private life sciences companies with a total of $6.8 billion under management. Peter is a virologist by training at Harvard University. It’s obviously a valuable set of skills to have in a year like this.... Read More
27
Oct
2020
How Many COVID-19 Deaths Could Have Been Avoided? More Than 150,000
For a numbers person like myself, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is supremely frustrating. Even after 8 months, there are so many numbers that we still do not know. Even though there are thousands of researchers trying to fill in the gaps in our knowledge, the gaps persist. As the officially recorded US death toll from SARS-CoV2 approached 200,000 last month (it’s... Read More
26
Oct
2020
Machine Learning for Drug Discovery: Daphne Koller on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Daphne Koller. Daphne is the CEO of South San Francisco-based insitro. The company is seeking to develop a new platform for drug discovery that leans on a combination of wet labs and machine learning algorithms to spot new biological targets for drug discovery. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have been stirring imaginations in... Read More
22
Oct
2020
Remdesivir’s FDA Approval, Moderna Fully Enrolls & FDA Wrestles With Trust
Catch up on the main events of the week in biotech with Frontpoints. The FDA issued a surprising approval – not another watered-down Emergency Use Authorization – to Gilead Sciences for remdesivir (Veklury) its antiviral against COVID-19. The antiviral, designed to stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus from copying itself, is now the first treatment fully approved by the FDA against this... Read More