| | | |   | Hiya, it's Meghana. Today, we get another SPAC deal, we see how Medicare could have saved money with Mark Cuban, and more. | | | Human Longevity going public via SPAC J. Craig Venter is hopping on the SPAC train. His company, Human Longevity Inc., announced it intends to merge with Freedom Acquisition I Corporation, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company. The plan is to ultimately list HLI on the New York Stock Exchange. Human Longevity, launched by the polarizing genomics pioneer in 2013, describes itself as an “AI-enabled personalized health intelligence platform” that combines genomic sequencing with whole body scans and blood tests to detect and mitigate disease as early as possible. The company offers a membership program to those who are willing to pay for it. Some $500 million has been invested in the technology to date. | Using deep learning to find new cancer mutations Only a fraction of the genetic mutations found in cancer cells actually drive tumor growth; the rest are just noise. Researchers have built new AI-based computer models that can scan cancerous genomes to pinpoint these driver mutations. This deep learning approach, published in Nature Biotechnology, is meant to ultimately help identify new drug targets. “There has really been a lack of computational tools that allow us to search for these driver mutations outside of protein-coding regions,” senior author Bonnie Berger, a mathematics professor at MIT, said in a statement. “That’s what we were trying to do here: design a computational method to let us look at not only the 2 percent of the genome that codes for proteins, but 100 percent of it.” The model allowed the researchers to find new mutations that propagate cancer. About two-thirds of patients screened for cancer-causing mutations end up carrying a known driver mutation. This new study claims to expand that pool by another 5% to 10%. | STAT E-Book: Using DNA to reveal the drivers of disease Researchers have finally mapped the once-unmappable regions of the human genome to release the first fully completed version. At the same time, there has been significant progress in using DNA to understand and treat disease. What impact have these advances had? And what direction is the field headed next? Our latest e-book offers a look at what we’ve learned about the genome’s role in disease and drug development, and what’s still to come. Download now. | Mark Cuban is a better deal than Medicare Mark Cuban’s new online pharmacy really is affordable compared to the status quo. A new Annals of Internal Medicine study shows that Medicare could have saved billions of dollars if it bought generic drugs from the Shark Tank billionaire’s new venture. Specifically, the federal agency could have saved up to $3.6 billion in 2020 — or 37% of the $9.6 billion spent on 77 of 89 different prescription medicines. The study suggests that Medicare is overpaying for many generic drugs, a conclusion that was also drawn when government drug spending was compared with pricing at Costco. “The lower prices from a direct-to-consumer model highlight inefficiencies in the existing generic pharmaceutical distribution and reimbursement system,” the authors write. Read more. | Tech transfer innovation in Europe Some European universities are seeking to tighten their grasp on biomedical intellectual property, aiming to ensure that drugs developed with their technology remain accessible and affordable. But it hasn’t been easy, and the ubiquity of tech transfer has become a topic of hot debate — particularly in the Netherlands. The country has published a treatise on “socially responsible licensing,” offering solutions like non-exclusive licenses in some countries, and setting price limits so that monopolies can’t impede access to necessary medications. And groups like Universities Allied for Essential Medicines now call for academia to ensure that their research agreements with biopharma companies include language that prevents astronomical pricing. Read more. | More reads - European Commission investigates Vifor for ‘disparaging’ its only rival in iron deficiency market. STAT
- Pfizer to buy 8.1 percent stake in French vaccines company Valneva. Reuters
| Thanks for reading! Until tomorrow,  | | | |
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