Scientists Still Shoot For the Moon With Patent-Free Covid Drug 11
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg, written by Naomi Kresge: In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of scientists from all over the world banded together in an open-source effort to develop an antiviral that would be available for all. They could never have anticipated the many roadblocks they would face along the way, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which made refugees out of a group of Kyiv chemists who were doing important work for the project. The group, which called itself Covid Moonshot, hasn't given up on its effort to introduce a more affordable, patent-free treatment for the virus. Their open-source Covid antiviral, now funded by Wellcome, is on track to be ready for human testing within the next year and a half, according to Annette von Delft, a University of Oxford scientist and one of the Moonshot group's leaders. More early discovery work on a range of potential inhibitors for other viruses is also still going on and being funded by a US government grant.
"It's a bit like a proof of concept," von Delft says, for bringing a patent-free experimental drug into the clinic, a model that could be repurposed as a tool to fight neglected tropical diseases or antimicrobial resistance, or prepare for future pandemics. "Can we come up with a strategic model that can help those kinds of compounds with less of a business case along?" Of course, there was definitely a business case for a Covid antiviral, and some of the biggest drugmakers rushed to develop them. In 2022, Pfizer Inc.'s Paxlovid was one of the world's best-selling medicines with $18.9 billion in revenue. Demand has since cratered for the pill, which needs to be given shortly after infection and can't be taken alongside a number of other commonly prescribed medicines. Analysts expect the Paxlovid revenue to plunge just shy of $1 billion this year.
However, there is still a need for a better Covid antiviral, particularly in countries where access to the Pfizer pill is limited, according to von Delft. Covid cases have surged again this holiday season, with the rise of a new variant called JN.1 reminding us that the virus is still changing to evade the immunity we've built up so far. Just before Christmas, UK authorities said about one in every 24 people in England and Scotland had the disease. An accessible antiviral could help people return to work more quickly, and it could also be tested as a potential treatment for long Covid. "We know from experience in viral disease that there will be resistance variants evolving over time," von Delft said. "We'll need more than one."
"It's a bit like a proof of concept," von Delft says, for bringing a patent-free experimental drug into the clinic, a model that could be repurposed as a tool to fight neglected tropical diseases or antimicrobial resistance, or prepare for future pandemics. "Can we come up with a strategic model that can help those kinds of compounds with less of a business case along?" Of course, there was definitely a business case for a Covid antiviral, and some of the biggest drugmakers rushed to develop them. In 2022, Pfizer Inc.'s Paxlovid was one of the world's best-selling medicines with $18.9 billion in revenue. Demand has since cratered for the pill, which needs to be given shortly after infection and can't be taken alongside a number of other commonly prescribed medicines. Analysts expect the Paxlovid revenue to plunge just shy of $1 billion this year.
However, there is still a need for a better Covid antiviral, particularly in countries where access to the Pfizer pill is limited, according to von Delft. Covid cases have surged again this holiday season, with the rise of a new variant called JN.1 reminding us that the virus is still changing to evade the immunity we've built up so far. Just before Christmas, UK authorities said about one in every 24 people in England and Scotland had the disease. An accessible antiviral could help people return to work more quickly, and it could also be tested as a potential treatment for long Covid. "We know from experience in viral disease that there will be resistance variants evolving over time," von Delft said. "We'll need more than one."
Takes too long (Score:3)
Re:Takes too long (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks like covid is here to stay, so having something in a few years is not bad. And while the virus may mutate to resist the drug, there is no evolutionary pressure to do so before the drug is actually used, so it may still be effective even if it takes years before deployment.
It can be obsoleted if a lab beats it with a similar but better drug, but considering that demand is down (see Paxlovid), and it can't be too similar to that patent-free drug if the lab wants it patented, because prior art, it may not be likely.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if a better but patented and expensive drug does come out, the patent-free affordable drug helps us. If it exists, it sets a limit on how crazy expensive the newer drug could be. If you have an inexpensive option that will keep you from dying and get you on your feet in a week, there's only so much you'll be willing to pay for an expensive drug that does the same thing in 5 days.
Feds funded $2.3bn vaccine research (Score:4, Interesting)
“The US federal government invested at least $2.3bn [nih.gov] in research and development of the mRNA covid-19 vaccines”
Re: (Score:3)
> Explain like I'm five
Corruption and sociopathy.
Re: (Score:3)
A populace misguided by the false dichotomy of capitalism vs. communism thinking that 'government sucks' and 'companies are efficient'.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be collectivized. Besides all the natural monopolies in infrastructure essential services such as national security and defense, policing, and firefighting clearly should not be driven by profit. Health care and especially the highly inelastic 'market' of pharmaceuticals fits perfectly with a collectively funded system.
So strange (Score:2)
current variants are mild (Score:1)
why do we need antiviral for the sniffles?
Let's concentrate on actual deadly viruses, there are plenty that make the news
Re: (Score:2)
why do we need antiviral for the sniffles?
Let's concentrate on actual deadly viruses, there are plenty that make the news
Firstly, because the next variant might not be mild.
Secondly, because even the "mild" variants can be severe in some patients. Having a wider repertoire of treatments is a good thing, even though not all drugs are right for all patients in all infections.
Re: (Score:1)
Give me one example of a coronovirus that didn't get milder with time. Almost all coronaviruses are mild for that reason and all indicators are the covid ones are no exception.
People in ill health with one foot in grave and another on metaphorical banana peel can play scarcely tested vaccine lottery, sure.
Reminder proper and normal approval procedure never done for the covid vaccines. Sure, I had shots, booster, and binary booster.... but that was when covid was killing over one percent of those that cau