Biotech already cured a virus with the letter “C” – do you know which one?

If you’re just waking up, BIO’s Phyllis Arthur joined WJLA, Washington DC’s ABC affiliate, to discuss the industry’s response to COVID-19. Watch the segment here.

In other news, we’re recognizing Hepatitis Awareness Month and the biotech industry’s work on another “C”-named disease, as well as a llama (!!) who might help us beat COVID-19, in 650 words, around 3 minutes, 15 seconds.

Biotech already cured a virus with the letter “C” – do you know which one?

While it’s all hands on deck in the COVID-19 battle, we want to continue to raise awareness about the other diseases that continue to affect millions of Americans. So, today, we want to recognize Hepatitis Awareness Month and the biotech industry’s good work to combat—and yes, even cure—this virus, too.

Millions of Americans of all walks of life are living with viral hepatitis—which can cause chronic pain and discomfort as well as serious complications like cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver failure.

But thanks to biotech innovations, many cases of hepatitis are treatable and even preventable. There are safe, effective vaccines for hepatitis A and B and treatments for hepatitis C, as the CDC explains.

In fact, next-generation hepatitis C drugs have cure rates of 90% and higher—including Gilead’s Sovaldi, which has kept many patients from progressing to liver failure, and Harvoni, which likewise reduces the risk of liver cancer and transplants.

Why it matters right now: While we’re still learning more about the coronavirus and how it affects us, we do know that people with underlying medical conditions are at greater risk of the most serious COVID-19 complications. This is why, as we continue our R&D on COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics as quickly as possible, it’s equally important that the industry is able to continue to invest in cures for other diseases, too, now and in the future.

Andrew Adds: Hepatitis Awareness Month is an important reminder that researchers and scientists can beat the world’s most deadly and debilitating diseases—like they did with hepatitis C. If anyone can solve the COVID-19 crisis, it’s America’s resilient biotech industry, which continues to discover innovations that are beyond our imagination. – Andrew Segerman, BIO's Director of Health Communications

Learn more about Hepatitis Awareness Month.

More Health Care News:

CNBC: Moderna’s experimental coronavirus vaccine gets FDA’s ‘fast track’ status
“A vaccine or treatment that gets the ‘fast track’ designation is eligible for the agency’s ‘priority review’ status, under which the FDA aims to take a decision on approving the drug within six months.”

Regulatory Focus: FDA issues two guidances to accelerate COVID-19 treatments
“The first of the two guidances focuses on walking drugmakers through the pre-IND process to provide them with feedback and help them get their products into clinical trials in a quick and efficient manner…In the second guidance, FDA provides recommendations for clinical trial design for Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials intended to establish safety and efficacy for therapeutic or prophylactic drugs and biologics for COVID-19.”

STAT: Deluge of genome editing therapies end research drought for sickle cell disease
The “intense activity” on sickle cell disease is a “dramatic turnaround.”

Why Winter might help end the coronavirus

Here’s a cool story you might have missed: a llama—yes, a llama—named Winter could help us defeat the coronavirus.

The news: Researchers in the United States and Belgium found that antibodies from a four-year-old llama named Winter are able to “neutralize” COVID-19 (as well as SARS and MERS), according to research published in Cell.

What it means: “The researchers are hopeful the antibody can eventually be used as a prophylactic treatment, by injecting someone who is not yet infected to protect them from the virus, such as a health care worker. While the treatment’s protection would be immediate, its effects wouldn’t be permanent, lasting only a month or two without additional injections,” explained The New York Times.

Why it matters: In addition to helping us combat the immediate threat of the coronavirus, researchers have found “promising therapies” for HIV and influenza using llama antibodies, too—yet another reason why we need One Health policies to support research into the links between animals, human health, and the environment.

BIO Beltway Report