Science making the impossible, possible!! Albert Bourla – grand keynote at #TiEcon2022

I am eagerly looking forward to the opportunity to hear Dr. Albert Bourla give a grand keynote on Day 2 at #TiEcon2022 in May at Santa Clara, CA.

As Chairman and CEO, since 2019, Dr. Bourla has led Pfizer through one of its greatest challenges when the world was looking to scientists and pharmaceutical companies for answers to the sudden calamity represented by covid.  In a rare mode of cooperation and unprecedented speed, scientists began furiously working for a vaccine. However, their work was also proceeding against a backdrop of political drama that was unfolding in the USA. 

Very likely scientists and leaders of pharmaceutical companies had no interest in maneuvering the political minefield and yet it became unavoidable when Mr. Trump predicted a breakthrough vaccine  before Election Day. News of Pfizer’s success however, only arrived right AFTER the election was called for Joseph Biden. The story of Pfizer and its research partner, the German firm BioNTech, both of who declined the money from the federal effort, “Operation Warp Speed” and Moderna who accepted the money from the Government that was led by science denying President Mr. Trump, unfolded against the backdrop of politics, science, and incredible high stakes for humankind. The resulting accomplishments by these companies and others are as fascinating as they are impressive. Bourla was awarded the 2022 Genesis Prize for his leadership in the development of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid 19 vaccine.

During his 25+ years at Pfizer, Bourla has emphasized his commitment to help ensure equitable healthcare access to medicines and patients. However, Bourla also opposes government interference in pharmaceutical pricing, which he has argued would hamper spending on development of new drugs.  As per a recent RAND Corporation report, US prescription drug prices are higher than in most other countries. The Biden Administration released a plan to decrease prescription drug costs covered by the Medicare program, and later dropped the initiatives, after objections from some key Democrats. Bourla has observed that drug prices are in fact going down and more importantly, drug prices are only a small portion of the overall US healthcare spending.

It will be fascinating to hear Mr. Bourla speak on these and other health and healthcare related issues at TieCon2022. During covid challenges, when many prayed as never before for the lives of their loved ones, world also realized that besides the divine, our next best hope for better life rests in the hands of #science.

Register ASAP for the #TiEcon2022 conference at @TiEcon www.tiecon.org to access early bird incentives.

Covid updates – July, 2020

Here are some covid updates from last couple of weeks. I have gathered info from zoom sessions. For more details, accurate sources, and veracity, please research further.

• CA expecting 19000+ deaths by Nov. 1
• US covid deaths top 150,000
• More than 6,300 covid cases in the US, are linked to colleges
• After some decline in people dying, now daily death counts are rising in 21 states
• 47% (that is, almost half the population) of US adults have some underlying condition that slightly increases the chance of severe covid illness
• Blood glucose level of 7 or higher leads to 33% chance of dying 60% chance of contraction
• Spain had 2,255 more cases in last 24 or so hours.  Britain imposed quarantine on travelers from Spain
• WHO warns of new EBOLA outbreak in Congo
• China reports biggest virus spike since end of Wuhan outbreak
• India has the fastest growing coronavirus cases in the world
• 23% of Delhi residents seem to have antibodies 
• North Korea is reporting their first covid case
• Plastic visors in place of masks are NOT effective
• Israel & Japan experience huge spikes in covid cases
• Chinese study found that people with type 2 diabetes had shorter telomere length
• Study found that aerosoles in covid patients’ rooms, had live virus floating around even after 5-6 days
• Research found no transmission of covid from infected moms to newborn babies, even after 2 weeks of breast feeding with proper cleaning protocols
• In another study, pregnant women who had virus, their placenta also had virus
• Study says mosquitoes cannot pass on covid from infected patients to non infected patients
• From 3334 patients with covid in NY hospitalized, 16% had DVT, stroke or heart attacks
• Presence of virus in the gut likely means that virus takes longer to leave the system and would lead to higher risk of liver injury
• Spain study found that about 5% of those who contracted covid  in large cities had antibodies while only 3% of those of contracted covid near the coast, had antibodies
• In one study, over 50% of people who contracted covid show some heart damage
• 85 babies under age 1 tested positive in one county in Texas
• Overwhelming fatigue, palpitations, muscle aches are symptoms that linger for 4-6 weeks after recovery from covid

On potential vaccines & treatments & safety products

• There are 42 potential vaccines — Most in phase 1, 14 of them are in phase 2 and 4 are in phase 3 
• Oxford/ AZ vaccine results look good in phase 1 / 2
• China’s Sinopharm is in phase 3 trial for covid vaccine
• Cage Bio developed sanitizers that offers protection for up to 4 hours
• Steroid treatment slightly reduces the need for mechanical ventilation 
• A client has very exciting and fascinating prevention strategy. If interested in investing then let me know & I’ll put you both in contact.
• Boehringer Ingelheim identified 28 new antibodies to fight the virus

Changing Healthcare Landscape in the post-Covid world

In the post Covid world, one thing that is certain to change is health care and health technologies that impact the quality of care. There is already an enormous impact of digital technologies with remote monitoring, remote diagnosis, and telehealth platforms, and artificial intelligence powered apps and devices. Related to that is an explosion and access that providers have in the number of data points. 

In the immediate covid world, there is an urgency of some of these new technologies in contact tracing and monitoring the spread of the pandemic. There is also a necessity for protective gear that while protecting providers can make care more personalized and is easy to use. Providers are also trying to balance providing care for other health issues while dealing with continuing covid cases.

So what might be possible attributes that will make new technologies and devices stand out?

For any tools that impact healthcare, accuracy, reliability, and safety are of prime importance. Also delivery of care is rapidly transforming and all devices need to seamlessly integrate into rapidly changing clinical flow. All devices that work with healthcare data must also be extremely secure. 

At Road to #TiEcon2020 @TiEcon @tiesv on June 24th, domain experts will discuss new technologies and how it is all poised to make an impact in the changing arena of healthcare.  Domain experts speaking at this event include, Dr. John Whyte @WebMD, Aashima Gupta @GoogleCloud, Dr. Suraj Kapa @MayoClinic, Ramesh Raskar @MediaLab, Dr. Meera Kanhouwa @Deloitte.

If you need more information than post your question with your email. Register for the event with the link here:
https://www.tiecon.org/?campaign=Referral&source=DaNa

 

Coronavirus: Treatments and Vaccines

Recently a science teacher said that treatment for covid with remdesivir or hydroxychloroquine is better than a vaccine. I said, treatment like that is good but a vaccine is better. She said, “no. since many people get adverse reactions from vaccines, a treatment is better”. So I decided to write this blog post. First, let us consider what are drug treatments and how they are different from vaccines.

Drug treatments: Currently over 70 companies are working on various drug treatments for novel coronavirus. Although this virus is novel, not all drugs being considered are entirely novel. For instance, like the previously considered malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, Gilead’s drug, Remdesivir, that is in the news, is not a novel drug. Remdesivir is a broad spectrum antiviral drug that has been found to successfully prevent MERS coronavirus in rhesus monkeys. Besides antiviral drugs, there are other anti-inflammatory drugs. Scientists believe that in the end, what might work may be a sort of a cocktail or some combination of antiviral and anti-inflammatory drugs.

Drug treatments do not prevent Covid-19. These drugs are offered to patients who are already suffering from coronavirus. On the other hand, vaccines prevent people from contracting the disease in the first place.  

Drug treatments are not cures. 1) there isn’t a 100% response rate among people treated with remdesivir or any other treatment. So despite many drugs showing promise, there are a few people who will respond to a drug; many still die. 2) many who suffer from the disease but go on to recover, they still utilize huge amounts of hospital resources during their illness phase. 3) during the illness phase, these sick people also spread the virus with the possibility of making others (including healthcare professionals) sick. 4) even people who may recover with the help of these drugs from covid, may have suffered substantial damage to their lungs and that may reduce their lifespan or affect them in other ways.

Vaccines:  Vaccines prevent people from getting sick. So when people don’t get sick, they don’t spread the virus, don’t utilize healthcare resources, don’t infect healthcare professionals or others in the community, and don’t get any kind of long lasting damage to their lungs. Clearly, vaccine is a far superior way to deal with coronavirus.

Why are vaccines taking much longer than drugs for covid?

As I mentioned above, many of the drugs considered currently for treatment of covid are already in existence for some other illnesses or diseases. So there are existing drugs considered for either preventing covid deaths or preventing people from becoming sicker and helping them recover faster and ending hospital stays earlier.

Vaccines on the other hand, have to be developed. There are considerable challenges at each stage of vaccine research, development and manufacturing. First of all, pharmaceutical companies have decreased vaccine research and development in the last several years, because vaccine development and manufacturing is expensive, time consuming and offers smaller payback in terms of revenues. For each new virus and for all mutations, the vaccine has to be developed and then when the virus is not active then the vaccine is not useful. Clinical studies take place during the research and development phase. Only if the studies show the vaccine to be safe and effective then the vaccine proceeds to the next phase where it has to be manufactured in large quantities required.

During a pandemic like this one, not only do we need a vaccine quickly but the world will also need  hundreds of millions of doses for the entire world population.  Fortunately, pharma companies, scientists from all over the world, billionaires like Bill Gates and Governments and countries have stepped up to tackle this challenge, with an unprecedented spirit of collaboration.  There are measured expectations for an effective vaccine to be available within 12 to 18 months. That is an unprecedented and highly aggressive timeline. Bill Gates has offered to support manufacturing of top 7 candidates during the research and development phase. That means, even without the proof of effectiveness of any of them, he will foot the bill for manufacturing all of them, in the hope that at least a couple of them will prove to be safe and effective and the world will get required doses speedily. Meanwhile, countries like India are getting ready for manufacturing of vaccines. India has proven capability and expertise to ramp up production of vaccines, while keeping costs down. Regulatory hurdles are likely to be less severe as US FDA and other regulatory bodies have promised EUA (emergency use authorization) for drugs and vaccines that may help contain covid.

If drugs like Remdesivir work then that will help some people recover and recover faster; so let us hope that any one of these drugs alone or in combination with other drugs will reduce mortality, shorten hospital stays, and help reduce spread of covid. But ultimately we need a vaccine for covid-19 and the way in which entire world is coming together, gives much hope for availability of a speedy vaccine.