4 ms·

California scientist says his team has discovered potential cure for COVID-19

14 points by maxwell 7y ago

gnicholas 7y ago
When I saw the timeline of this announcement and thought about the recent (and somewhat surprising) upswing in the stock market, it made me wonder if there was a link. I've found that friends/neighbors who work at hedge funds have been among the most well-informed regarding covid developments. They got out before the market dropped, and they'll likely get back in before it rises again (and may help cause its rise, due to their moves).
- supercanuck 7y ago
  The more I think about this too, its like this could be months or years away, but with the way things get communicated today, the market could pump just based on the appearance that a vaccine is "close". We could get endless barrages of close vaccines and that would be enough to keep the market moving upwards.
- foobarbazetc 7y ago
  The market “moves” on Trump’s meaningless words so no, it has nothing to do with this “announcement”. There is no cure. There’s not going to be a cure. Something that can decrease bad outcomes? Maybe. A cure? No.
- moneywoes 7y ago
  Do you think they're getting in?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
aazaa 7y ago
This is very far away from a cure. The team does not even appear to have done animal efficacy studies, never mind the usual animal tox studies: > We are sending [the antibodies] to the military for confirmation testing and to Charles River Laboratories for safety and tox characterization. The article does a very poor job of conveying just how far away this is from a cure. More likely than not, it will fall out either due to tox or low efficacy before it even gets to Phase 1.
- gnicholas 7y ago
  Why would it fail due to tox if it's an adaptation of something that worked on SARS in 2002? > We took a series of five antibodies from around 2002 that were able to neutralize SARS EDIT: maybe instead of downvoting you could explain your thinking?
  - s1artibartfast 7y ago
    There is no indication that the technology they are leveraging was ever tested in a meaningful way and drug development is hard. Finding an antigen that binds to the virus is the relatively easy part. Finding one that is safe and manufacture-able is the hard part. The link below[1] describes this process for a small molecule chemical compounds and gives a success rate of 5000:1. Distributed Bio is at the very beginning of this process, and is working with a large molecule, which is vastly more complex. The researchers are at step zero of a complex process which can take 12–15 years and cost in excess of $1 billion [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/
lol768 7y ago
I get an "Access Denied" message.. is the news provider unwilling to take their visitor's privacy seriously and therefore blocking all EU visitors?
- JPLeRouzic 7y ago
  https://outline.com/gDC4fg https://outline.com/gDC4fg
foobarbazetc 7y ago
lol.

14 points by maxwell 7y ago

When I saw the timeline of this announcement and thought about the recent (and somewhat surprising) upswing in the stock market, it made me wonder if there was a link. I've found that friends/neighbors who work at hedge funds have been among the most well-informed regarding covid developments. They got out before the market dropped, and they'll likely get back in before it rises again (and may help cause its rise, due to their moves).

supercanuck 7y ago
The more I think about this too, its like this could be months or years away, but with the way things get communicated today, the market could pump just based on the appearance that a vaccine is "close". We could get endless barrages of close vaccines and that would be enough to keep the market moving upwards.
foobarbazetc 7y ago
The market “moves” on Trump’s meaningless words so no, it has nothing to do with this “announcement”. There is no cure. There’s not going to be a cure. Something that can decrease bad outcomes? Maybe. A cure? No.
moneywoes 7y ago
Do you think they're getting in?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

aazaa 7y ago

This is very far away from a cure. The team does not even appear to have done animal efficacy studies, never mind the usual animal tox studies: > We are sending [the antibodies] to the military for confirmation testing and to Charles River Laboratories for safety and tox characterization. The article does a very poor job of conveying just how far away this is from a cure. More likely than not, it will fall out either due to tox or low efficacy before it even gets to Phase 1.

gnicholas 7y ago
Why would it fail due to tox if it's an adaptation of something that worked on SARS in 2002? > We took a series of five antibodies from around 2002 that were able to neutralize SARS EDIT: maybe instead of downvoting you could explain your thinking?
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  There is no indication that the technology they are leveraging was ever tested in a meaningful way and drug development is hard. Finding an antigen that binds to the virus is the relatively easy part. Finding one that is safe and manufacture-able is the hard part. The link below[1] describes this process for a small molecule chemical compounds and gives a success rate of 5000:1. Distributed Bio is at the very beginning of this process, and is working with a large molecule, which is vastly more complex. The researchers are at step zero of a complex process which can take 12–15 years and cost in excess of $1 billion [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/

lol768 7y ago

I get an "Access Denied" message.. is the news provider unwilling to take their visitor's privacy seriously and therefore blocking all EU visitors?

JPLeRouzic 7y ago
https://outline.com/gDC4fg https://outline.com/gDC4fg

foobarbazetc 7y ago

lol.