Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Billionaires Harness Money, Technology In Pursuit Of Fountain Of Youth
The Washington Post: Tech Titans’ Latest Project: Defy Death
[Peter Thiel] and the tech titans who founded Google, Facebook, eBay, Napster and Netscape are using their billions to rewrite the nation’s science agenda and transform biomedical research. Their objective is to use the tools of technology — the chips, software programs, algorithms and big data they used in creating an information revolution — to understand and upgrade what they consider to be the most complicated piece of machinery in existence: the human body. The entrepreneurs are driven by a certitude that rebuilding, regenerating and reprogramming patients’ organs, limbs, cells and DNA will enable people to live longer and better. (Cha, 4/4)
The Washington Post: ALS Patients Press FDA For Quick Access To Controversial Biotech Drug
For people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which attacks the body’s motor neurons and renders a person unable to move, swallow or breathe, the search for an effective treatment has been a crushing disappointment. ... Then in the fall, a small California biotech company named Genervon began extolling the benefits of GM604, its new ALS drug. In an early-stage trial with 12 patients, the results were “statistically significant,” “very robust” and “dramatic,” the company said in news releases. ... Genervon took an even bolder step: It applied to the Food and Drug Administration for “accelerated approval.” ... This isn’t the first time desperate patients have launched a social media campaign to try to compel the FDA to act. But in this case, the effort also has laid bare stark divisions within the ALS community, where some advocates, patients and researchers — including one who helped lead the clinical trial — have criticized the company’s tactics. (Nutt and Dennis, 4/3)
Meanwhile, the company that invented aspirin is remaking itself and a British investor is pouring $40 million into a Maryland company pursuing vaccine therapies for operable and inoperable cancers.
The Wall Street Journal: Bayer’s CEO Injects A Dose Of U.S. Risk-Taking
The company that invented aspirin is reinventing itself—again. Bayer AG has long been a household name to Americans who associate its iconic cross logo with the painkiller. Few know the 150-year-old German pharmaceuticals giant’s product line also includes brands from Flintstones chewable vitamins to blood thinner Xarelto. Marijn Dekkers, Bayer’s Dutch-born, U.S.-trained chief executive, is out to change that. Since he took the helm in 2010, Mr. Dekkers has rocked Bayer’s staid culture by demanding that division heads have marketing backgrounds rather than science pedigrees. He presided over the launch of five new blockbuster drugs and has beefed up the group’s over-the-counter drug business with the $14.2 billion acquisition of U.S.-based Merck & Co.’s consumer-care division. (Alessi, 4/3)
The Washington Post: Nearing “The Finish Line” On Cancer Vaccine Trial, Maryland Firm Raises $40 Million
A British investor has injected another $40 million into Northwest Biotherapeutics, fueling the Maryland company’s increasingly promising pursuit of new vaccine therapies targeting both operable and inoperable cancers. ... “This gives us the resources we need to ramp up our programs, and it will help us advance both of our two major product lines,” Linda Powers, chief executive at Northwest Bio, said in an interview. Those two product lines consist of cell-based vaccines that the company, which was founded in 1996, has developed to harness the body’s immune system to attack solid cancer tumors. (Harrison, 4/3)
