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> But Verge Genomics is able to cure brain diseases 1000x more quickly than big pharma by using algorithms Guffaw. Tech journalism at its finest. The company

by lvs 11y ago

> But Verge Genomics is able to cure brain diseases 1000x more quickly than big pharma by using algorithms Guffaw. Tech journalism at its finest. The company sounds great, but I'm not sure Techcrunch is really doing them a lot of favors by just making stuff up.

blacksmith_tb 11y ago
Right, if they'd said "Verge hopes to be able to cure brain diseases 1000x more quickly" we might cut them some slack. Not to mention that many of these diseases haven't been cured by anyone before, 'big pharma' included, so I don't know how you'd estimate the improvement in time to market...
- ams6110 11y ago
  Considering that the best ALS drugs cost about $1000/month and have results that statistically are barely distinguishable from placebos, there's a long way to go.
bbgm 11y ago
My biggest fear is that the folks at YC actually believe claims like that.
chenja 11y ago
The 1000X number should only be attached to "cheaper", and comes from in vivo and in vitro validation experiments we have done; our drug hit rate was almost 1000X higher than high-throughput screens from the literature, and our total spend to get to our one drug lead was almost that many times cheaper than what we learned that pharma spends. We think we are faster as well (our first proof-of-concept study took about 9 months, which is faster but definitely not 1000X as fast), but I think the most important thing is to find something that actually works to treat patients. That's what we want to prove out with backing from YC.
- dekhn 11y ago
  So you've got one drug lead, and haven't gotten anything to market yet that I can tell- are you leads in Phase I, II, or III trials now? It is highly misleading to use the term cure in this case. You simply have no data to support that your costs are any lower than pharma until you actually show people being cured, and I think Phase II or III is the actual point where you can claim initial cure results, and it's not until the drug has been widely deployed for years without side effects that you can claim it's a treatment or a cure.

by lvs 11y ago

blacksmith_tb 11y ago

Right, if they'd said "Verge hopes to be able to cure brain diseases 1000x more quickly" we might cut them some slack. Not to mention that many of these diseases haven't been cured by anyone before, 'big pharma' included, so I don't know how you'd estimate the improvement in time to market...

ams6110 11y ago
Considering that the best ALS drugs cost about $1000/month and have results that statistically are barely distinguishable from placebos, there's a long way to go.

bbgm 11y ago

My biggest fear is that the folks at YC actually believe claims like that.

chenja 11y ago

The 1000X number should only be attached to "cheaper", and comes from in vivo and in vitro validation experiments we have done; our drug hit rate was almost 1000X higher than high-throughput screens from the literature, and our total spend to get to our one drug lead was almost that many times cheaper than what we learned that pharma spends. We think we are faster as well (our first proof-of-concept study took about 9 months, which is faster but definitely not 1000X as fast), but I think the most important thing is to find something that actually works to treat patients. That's what we want to prove out with backing from YC.

dekhn 11y ago
So you've got one drug lead, and haven't gotten anything to market yet that I can tell- are you leads in Phase I, II, or III trials now? It is highly misleading to use the term cure in this case. You simply have no data to support that your costs are any lower than pharma until you actually show people being cured, and I think Phase II or III is the actual point where you can claim initial cure results, and it's not until the drug has been widely deployed for years without side effects that you can claim it's a treatment or a cure.