For your Friday listening, we have a new episode of the I AM BIO Podcast, featuring one of the smartest virus and vaccine experts we know talking about why it’s so important to defeat COVID-19.
We know you’ve heard the name Vir Biotechnology—a BIO member developing antibody-based therapeutics to treat the coronavirus in partnership with companies including Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, GSK, and Samsung.
Vir has a lot of experience in viruses including HIV, hepatitis B, and tuberculosis—and even with the shift to focus on COVID-19, this small but mighty biotech is continuing work on a hepatitis B drug after a promising Phase II clinical trial, reports FiercePharma.
Vir CEO Dr. George Scangos, who is the head of BIO’s Coronavirus Collaboration Initiative, joined BIO President & CEO Jim Greenwood on the latest episode of the I AM BIO Podcast to talk about why this virus is so deadly, why certain populations have higher risk of complications or death, and what we can do to defeat it.
“The coronavirus is much more deadly than the flu virus,” he explained. "If you did not take social distancing measures and you just allowed this highly infectious virus to spread through the population, and you had 100 million people infected, with a 2% death rate that’s 2 million people who will die.”
This is why Vir and dozens of other biotechs are working day and night on treatments and vaccines—which you can read about at www.bio.org/coronavirus.
But he’s hopeful: “We will do something about this. The industry is mobilized, it’s moving incredibly quickly. There will be therapies. There will be vaccines. Eventually, we’ll get this under control.”
Listen at www.bio.org/podcast or wherever you get your podcast fix including Apple, Google, and Spotify.
More Health Care News:
Biopharma Dive: As Ebola drug review starts, Regeneron hopes to chart similar path for coronavirus therapy
“The Food and Drug Administration has agreed to quickly review an experimental therapy for Ebola virus infections developed by Regeneron, setting an approval decision deadline of Oct. 25 for the New York biotech's antibody-based treatment.”
STAT: Early peek at data on Gilead coronavirus drug suggests patients are responding to treatment
“A Chicago hospital treating severe COVID-19 patients with Gilead Sciences’ antiviral medicine remdesivir in a closely watched clinical trial is seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms, with nearly all patients discharged in less than a week.”