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3 weeks ago | 
chemistryworld.com | Derek Lowe
Overheard recently in a seminar room near you…
Source: © Wouter Tulp/Ikon Images
Let me start with a few comments about our medicinal chemistry group that probably apply equally to all of the therapeutic areas below. I have been told at various times over the years that computational methods were becoming so powerful that they were going to lead us directly to drugs. Then I was told that making uncountable zillions of near-random compounds was the way forward.
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3 weeks ago | 
science.org | Derek Lowe
The latest addition to the long list of chemicals that I never hope to encounter takes us back to the wonderful world of fluorine chemistry. I'm always struck by how much work has taken place in that field, how long ago some of it was first done, and how many violently hideous compounds have been carefully studied. Here's how the experimental prep of today's fragrant breath of spring starts:The heater was warmed to approximately 700C.
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1 month ago | 
seekingalpha.com | Derek Lowe
SummaryI was looking forward to seeing how Beam Therapeutics would do in their clinical trials of single-base DNA editing therapies, and this morning we have a readout. It was a very small trial: three patients each got 15mg, 30mg, or 60mg of BEAM-302 in a single infusion. Things look good in these early readouts, I have to say. It is of course a small number of patients, but the data make sense, and the numbers clearly seem to be going in the right direction.
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2 months ago | 
science.org | Derek Lowe
Here’s an editorial by Adam Feuerstein at Stat that points out that in all the uproar about the Trump administration’s attacks on the NIH (and the NSF, and NOAA, and other science-based agencies), there’s a conspicuous zone of silence. And that’s the biopharma industry. It’s clear that almost everyone is keeping their heads down in the interest of “keeping lines of communication open” and so on. “Thanks for checking in. Nothing to share on this now,” a PhRMA media representative told STAT.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
seekingalpha.com | Derek Lowe
SummarySage Therapeutics has been working in the area of steroid-derived compounds that affect CNS receptor signaling. A pivotal trial failed to show benefit, and they had several other clinical failures as well. They have a clinical trial readout in Huntington's disease later this fall, and man, that's a tough place to make your stand.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
seekingalpha.com | Derek Lowe
Oct. 30, 2024 2:15 PM ET, SummaryEli Lilly had $11.4 billion in revenue for the quarter (up 20% versus Q3 figures from last year), with a net income of $970 million after expenses. Analysts at the various Wall Street firms expected Lilly to have brought in about $12.2 billion. And if you look at the sales figures for the company's GLP-1 drugs, you see a shortfall there. Lilly's stock took quite a notable hit after these results were released.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
chemistryworld.com | Derek Lowe
As I write this, we have recently concluded the Year of Machine Learning Nobel Prizes. Who knows, perhaps there will be another in 20 years, but this was the first. As someone who has a reputation for being an AI/ML skeptic (which I sometimes think is the default category for anyone who actually reads the press releases all the way to the end), I should say immediately that I think that all of the prizes this year were well-deserved.
That’s because machine learning truly is useful.
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
seekingalpha.com | Derek Lowe
Oct. 24, 2024 12:20 PM ET, SummaryThere's some rumbling going on within Pfizer's investment community, as an activist hedge fund says that the company's performance has not been good enough. Pfizer has been in an anomalous situation the last few years, to be sure, thanks to the pandemic. Then there's always the question of productivity in general. Whether you like Pfizer or not, the company did a great deal to combat the coronavirus.
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Oct 2, 2024 | 
seekingalpha.com | Derek Lowe
Oct. 02, 2024 11:05 AM ETSummaryThe research behind Cassava Sciences’ Alzheimer’s drug candidate, simufilam, and the idea of targeting a brain protein called filamin, is based on a series of papers from a group at CUNY and other associated researchers that have come under a great deal of scrutiny for what appears to be altered data. Now the SEC has fined the company $40 million, with individual fines for two of its former executives. The numbers appear to allegedly have been cooked at every level.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
seekingalpha.com | Derek Lowe
Sep. 26, 2024 12:30 PM ET, SummaryBack in 2019 and early 2020, bluebird bio stock was between $40 and $50 a share, and the latest quote is 48 cents. This despite getting three gene therapies on the market. Two of bluebird bio’s gene therapies, Zentego and Lyfgenia, compete with Casgevy from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, which is approved for basically the same patient populations. The company is cutting staff, especially in R&D, in order to focus on commercial operations.
