Big Pharma Is Meddling in the Race for a COVID-19 Treatment, Bigly

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

It's shite like this that's the reason that I view BigPharma and its medical acolytes with suspicion and distrust, bordering, on my bad days, on paranoia ....

“I Take That as a Threat”: Big Pharma Is Meddling in the Race for a COVID-19 Treatment
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/big-pharma-meddling-in-race-for-covid-19-treatment?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VF_HivePS_042520&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd6785b24c17c104801c463&cndid=41062334&hasha=5ed7439774137e71683f9f5143c8737f&hashb=d87c6d8af4fd18fd3861f4f413c51aa3dbc6201c&hashc=3687ad773d1a39d958c9b695663e9ba031619e791ed001501ec8512643ec4bc1&esrc=AUTO_MERGE&utm_campaign=VF_HivePS_042520&utm_term=VYF_Hive

The article is longish, but readable and important information to those of us hoping for, 1) New hope for ME/CFS, and ..... 2) Anyone hoping for a vaccine against COVID in the foreseeable future

Because I know that many of us have days when reading anything longer than a short index is monumentally draining, here are a few of the take-aways, and please don't shoot the messenger:

In New Haven, meanwhile, Dr. Joseph Vinetz, an infectious disease doctor at Yale School of Medicine, is seeking to launch a clinical study of the drug camostat mesylate, a generic medication approved in Japan to treat chronic pancreatitis that he hopes can be approved and marketed to treat COVID-19. If the trial succeeds, he said, this could be ”a total game changer.” But the process is proving fraught. Within hours of registering his trial on a National Institutes of Health website on April 20, he received an email from a large U.S. pharmaceutical company. “They are trying to take my project and engulf it for their proprietary [financial] gain,” Vinetz told me. “I take that email as a threat.”​

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The email Vinetz received on April 20, after he registered the trial, threatened to throw a wrench in proceedings. In the email, a copy of which was reviewed by the Hive, a representative for a large pharmaceutical company wrote that the company was itself “exploring the opportunity with BARDA,” the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, “and others to conduct clinical trials testing camostat mesylate in COVID-19,” and noted that it has an “open IND,” essentially a permission slip from the FDA to conduct a clinical trial. The email proposed that Vinetz, who has applied for an IND but has not yet received it, would need access to data the company has received through its IND, and that he’d need a letter of authorization from the company to get it. “We would appreciate gaining a better understanding of your study,” the email continued, proposing a call to discuss the matter.​

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Vinetz said he interpreted the email to mean “you have to go through us.” “They seem to want me to have to work under their authorization,” he said. “I viewed it as a threatening email,” he reiterated. “There is undoubtedly a financial motivation.”​

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As COVID-19 cases mounted, Gilead faced enormous public backlash for its handling of remdesivir, particularly after reports surfaced that it was difficult for critically ill COVID-19 patients to obtain the drug after Gilead halted its compassionate-use access. Later that month, Gilead posted a statement announcing that it “has submitted a request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to rescind the orphan drug designation” and “is waiving all benefits that accompany the designation.”​

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“There was a rapid, vociferous, and powerful public outcry because the implications for possible profiteering were concerning,” Vinetz said of Gilead. Dr. Purvi Parikh, an immunologist and allergist in New York City, noted that “Those are bad optics for the company during a pandemic, to have a monopoly on a lifesaving drug.”​

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A biotech venture capitalist told me that, while they do not have direct evidence that big pharma is meddling in trials of drugs to treat COVID-19, “I have heard from several sources that they are muscling in and sequestering patients and trial sites. Pharmas have a lot of money and political clout to monopolize the infrastructure for clinical trials.” ​

 

[andyguitar]

As COVID-19 cases mounted, Gilead faced enormous public backlash for its handling of remdesivir, particularly after reports surfaced that it was difficult for critically ill COVID-19 patients to obtain the drug after Gilead halted its compassionate-use access.

The clinical trial for remdesivir failed to show any benefit. Not much of a suprise that big pharma are hoping to make big bucks from covid. I'm hoping that an existing drug can be re-purposed. Saves a lot of time in clinical trials and cheaper. If a vaccine is developed in the uk there is always a chance it will be given to the world for free, apart from the production costs, which might be paid for by Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

I'm hoping that an existing drug can be re-purposed. Saves a lot of time in clinical trials and cheaper.

Actually, not so much. An existing drug, using BigPharm's magic wand of BigMoney, would most likely be reclassified as an orphan drug, the pharm company that achieves this will own every other income from it after doing some very basic testing showing that, yes, who'd have thought it, the humble XYZ Drug, originally conceived to treat bee sting allergies, is showing genuine success in trials treating COVID, and it's only a minimal (after all, testing and trialing isnt free, y'know) $585 a dose. Optimal usage: 2-3 doses a day for at least 3 weeks, or $24,570 to $36,855 per treatment course. Let's see, multiply that by the close to 1,000,000 COVID cases in the US alone, and wow, you're talking some pretty real money ..... which is the only kind that puts a smile on BigPharm's investor's faces ....

Ka-CHING ....

As far as using an existing drug without some form of clinical testing to determine its efficacy and safety in treating something it wasn't originally designed to treat, all you have to do is follow the trail of chloroquinolone to see how that's worked out ....

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Not much of a suprise that big pharma are hoping to make big bucks from covid.

I don;t object to anyone who produces a viable treatment for COVID " .... making big bucks ...." off it. What I do object to is their manhandling techniques of squeezing every other trial into their capacious pockets using threats and their crack legal teams to intimidate them, and then co-opting all the testing, test subjects and results that another team, now sidelined and beaten to a pulp, had already done, without any help from BigPharm.

Read the article. It's an eye-opener.

 

[roller]

i thought it was precisely "gilead" (what a name ) making big bucks - by an astoundingly awesome press, based on no much.

perhaps its not the price for the drug that brings in the money, but that the company shares go up - even based on "fake news".

but then we think: "no, why should the press report its good when it isnt... a lot of press...?"