America’s Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization Saturday to an experimental antibody treatment (for people already experiencing Covid-19), reports the Washington Post: The drug, made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, is designed to prevent infected people from developing severe illness. Instead of waiting for the body to develop its own protective immune response, the drug imitates the body’s natural defenses. It is…
Tag: eli lilly
Tiny Variants In Genes May Dictate Severity of Coronavirus
Scientists are tracking small differences in DNA to explain why the disease has different effects. An anonymous reader shares a report from The Guardian: Key developments include research which indicates that interferon — a molecular messenger that stimulates immune defenses against invading viruses — may play a vital role in defending the body. Scientists have found that rare mutations in some…
The Race for a Super-Antibody Against the Coronavirus
A network of scientists is chasing the pandemic’s holy grail: an antibody that protects against not just the virus, but also related pathogens that may threaten humans. From a report: Dozens of companies and academic groups are racing to develop antibody therapies. Already Regeneron and the drug company Eli Lilly have requested emergency use authorizations for their products from the Food…
Could Open-Source Medicine Prepare Us For The Next Pandemic?
“A new, Linux-like platform could transform the way medicine is developed — and energize the race against COVID-19,” reports Fast Company, while arguing that the old drug discovery system “was built to benefit shareholders, not patients.” Fast Company’s technology editor harrymcc writes:
Drug development in the U.S. has traditionally been cloistered and profit-motivated, which means that it has sometimes failed to tackle…
Facebook To IRS: Refund Me, I’m Irish!
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Among the techniques featured in a 2012 City Pages story on The 10 Most Corrupt Tax Loopholes was pretending to be Irish. Chris Parker wrote, “Most people associate such exhaustive money-laundering with drug cartels. But it’s now standard practice at firms like Eli Lilly, Google, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Facebook. The only difference is that when drug…