2
Jun
2020
Digital Natives and Skilled Operators: Weaving Data Science Into Pharma R&D
An abiding challenge at the intersection of technology and pharma R&D is the need to bring together two historically disparate cultures. Tech companies tend to be led by engineers. Pharma R&D is generally run by chemists and biologists in the early stages, and by physicians further on in development. Each of these domains has its own distinct language, culture and... Read More
2
Jun
2020
Puretech Focuses on the Long-Term Lung Complications in COVID-19 Survivors
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31
May
2020
Biopharma Can Dig Deep and Fight Hard Against Injustice. Here’s How
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31
May
2020
Adtech Data For Health: Time To Get Past The ‘Ick’ Factor
If you were responsible for the health of a large population, and could access just one of the following types of data, what would you choose (assuming all were acquired legally and responsibly)? (a) Genetics and other –omics data; (b) EHR data; (c) Consumer/adtech data. For at least the last 20 years, we’ve been obsessively focused on the first two... Read More
28
May
2020
The Infodemic Summer
The US death toll from COVID-19 exceeded 100,000 this week. Another 40 million people are unemployed. We’ve been on this terrible trajectory for what seems like forever, with 20,000 new cases a day and 1,500 or so deaths every day. The New York Times lists 18 states where new cases are increasing and 19 states where cases are decreasing. Memorial... Read More
27
May
2020
The Recovery: A Long Road Ahead for Patients, Healthcare Workers, and Hospitals
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26
May
2020
Finding a Path in Biotech Venture Capital: Nina Kjellson on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Nina Kjellson. Nina is a general partner with Canaan Partners on the West Coast. Her investing style leans toward high science, which you can see in portfolio companies like PACT Pharma, a company developing neoantigen targeted T cell therapies for cancer, Tizona Therapeutics, a targeted antibody developer for cancer, and Vineti, a software... Read More
26
May
2020
Miscommunications, Misapplied Policy & Misunderstood Liberty: Why the US Pandemic Response is in Trouble
On April 17 — seemingly a long time ago — I wrote about what steps would have to be taken in order to (cautiously) “reopen” US states from their various lock-downs and stay-at-home advisories. The piece tried to focus on the “how”, versus the “when”. By the early days of May, most states had begun re-opening, and now all 50... Read More
21
May
2020
A Glimmer of Hope, and a Premature Celebration
We all woke up Monday morning and saw an encouraging headline. Then things started to go downhill. To recap, Moderna, the Cambridge, Mass.-based messenger RNA therapeutics and vaccines company, provided a snapshot of preliminary data from its Phase I trial of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, being tested in collaboration with Tony Fauci’s crew at the National Institute of Allergy and... Read More
21
May
2020
Creating Leaner and Meaner Clinical Trials for the Long Run
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21
May
2020
Day One, Taking a Page from Rare Disease Playbook, Raises $60M for Kids With Cancer
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20
May
2020
Pharma’s Digital Champions Should Focus On Solving One Problem Well
Come for the tech, stay for the culture. That seems to be the hope of most digital champions inside large pharma companies. These executives hope to instill in their organizations not only important new capabilities, but also a “Silicon Valley” mindset, an innovative spirit characteristically associated with tech entrepreneurs. The reality, of course, is more complicated; pharma executives – and... Read More
19
May
2020
Getting the COVID-19 Numbers Wrong
When I was in college, everyone wanted to major in psychology. I signed up, but switched out after only a few weeks. Why? Well, the more I read, the less I seemed to know. Psychology, after all, is an inexact science. I sought refuge in the exact worlds of computer science and mathematics. Those courses led me to build a... Read More
19
May
2020
COVID Doctors Navigate Tension Between Individual Autonomy and Systematized Care
I was recently speaking with a friend of mine, a pulmonologist at a large academic medical center in the Midwest, about his COVID-19 experience. I was especially interested, in the context of iterative experimentation, to learn how his hospital was working on improving the care of COVID-19 patients, especially those in the ICU, which he oversees. It’s real problem, he... Read More
19
May
2020
Stepping Up One’s Game, Pandemic Style
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18
May
2020
Biopharma Gets Serious, In a Hurry, About Virtual Clinical Trials
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14
May
2020
Meet My Friend Who Supported Trump in 2016
[This week, I’m re-publishing this column written Nov. 9, 2016. It’s probably more important to read now.—Luke] I’ve been dreading this moment since June. That’s when I started telling people: Trump was going to win. I could feel it in my bones, because of where I’m from. We’ve heard enough by now that the elites have let us down. The... Read More
13
May
2020
Coronavirus Vaccine Strategy: Larry Corey on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Larry Corey. Larry is one of the nation’s best-known virologists and vaccine developers. Much of his research over the years has been on HIV, herpes simplex viruses, and viruses associated with cancer. He’s the founding director and principal investigator of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network – a collaborative group to study vaccine candidates... Read More
13
May
2020
If Trikafta Isn’t Good Enough for ICER, What Drug Is?
Last week ICER released a report concluding that Vertex’s groundbreaking triple-combination cystic fibrosis (CF) drug, Trikafta, is too expensive for the value it provides to patients. By all scientific and clinical standards—including ICER’s own—Trikafta, a novel combination of a CFTR potentiator and two correctors, is a transformative drug. It compensates for a mutation present in 90% of all CF patients, turning a disease... Read More
11
May
2020
Science in Plain English for the Pandemic
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