| |   | Meghana here. Happy Monday, and a reminder about STAT Trials Pulse, a new clinical trials intelligence platform built by AI company Applied XL and vetted by STAT’s national biotech team. You can learn more here and start a four-week trial here. | | | Learning clinical trial lessons from the pandemic There are many lessons to learn from the Covid-19 pandemic — including how medical research evolved to rapidly develop treatments and tests for the virus. Now, Sanofi is contributing $6.8 million to a nonprofit called Protas to accelerate an effort to build on what scientists gleaned from the experience of running Covid clinical trials — and to apply that knowledge to test medicines for heart disease, cancer, depression, Alzheimer’s, and other illnesses.
The idea is to ultimately lower the cost of drug trials, and optimize how they run.
“One's got to really think about how one can get better evidence at lower cost in order to get a better impact on public health,” said Sir Martin Landray, the CEO of Protas and a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University. “And that’s the motive.”
Read more. | Why the biotech sector is suffering Biotech stocks are in rough, rough shape. Although Covid has granted the industry more visibility than ever before, the markets have been bruising, with the biotech stock index IBB down 23% over the last year.
Jared Holz, a health care equity strategist with Oppenheimer, spoke recently with the Readout Loud about why biotech is tanking. Part of the problem is that biotech became a go-to sector for investors who backed away from industries that were obviously impacted negatively by the pandemic. Also at issue: biotech funds have “essentially become private equity vehicles.” Read more. | The Exhaustion Epidemic: Examining the Covid-19 Burnout Crisis in Health Care Join STAT on Feb. 7 to discuss the solutions needed to support and retain health care workers experiencing burnout at unprecedented levels. Register here. | A report card for GSK’s outgoing CSO GlaxoSmithKline’s Hal Barron is leaving his post as the pharma giant’s chief scientific officer to become CEO of a new “cellular rejuvenation programming” company, Altos Labs.
Barron, of course, was hired at GSK four years ago to turn around its struggling labs. Looking back, has he achieved what he set out to do? Barron tells STAT’s Matthew Herper he has. GSK has had a success rate over 90% for Phase 3 trials, a huge uptick in postmarket studies, and has achieved approval for three different cancer drugs. But the company’s also faced plenty of ire from investors under his watch — likely because Barron didn’t spot hidden gems lurking in its pipeline. Read more. | FDA green lights expanded remdesivir use The FDA is expanding remdesivir’s authorization, allowing more non-hospitalized — but high-risk — adults and children to be treated with it if they’re ill with mild-to-moderate Covid. But physicians have been prescribing the antiviral off-label for some time now: Data published in NEJM last month showed that three days of remdesivir reduces hospitalizations in people at high risk for severe Covid-19. The uptick in outpatient usage has led to logistical challenges, since the intravenous drug can be tricky to administer in outpatient settings. Some would-be outpatient remdesivir programs shuttered before they ever offered treatments to people with Covid-19: “We’re on a shoestring staff as it is,” one pharmacist told STAT, “with so many people being out and isolated with Covid.” | More reads - Antigen testing has some serious problems. Done right, it could reshape the future of health care. (STAT)
- Racial gap in U.S. Covid booster campaign concerns officials. (Financial Times)
| Thanks for reading! Until tomorrow,  | | | |
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