Pancreatic cancer is one of the hardest cancers to treat. My PI at UCSD was a GI oncologist, and I saw first hand the struggles of these patients in the clinic.
Just 2-3 years ago KRAS, one of the main genetic drivers of the disease, was considered undruggable in PDAC. Now, Daraxonrasib is on an accelerated voucher with full approval coming in the next couple months.
Brilliant science by the folks @RevMedicines and promising for the future of precision oncology.
One of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen: a standing ovation for the full Daraxonrasib results
I feel inspired and energised, to put it mildly — we have a targeted therapy for pancreatic cancer now, and nothing is undruggable anymore
Huge win for base editing!
Important to note that this is an LNP delivered gene therapy, which considerably reduces the risk profile compared to viral delivery methods. Since LDL can be managed through lifestyle interventions for most patients, a drug must prove exceptional safety to be worth taking (such as the case with GLP-1s and fat loss).
Eli Lilly has done it.
They've gone and made what seems to be a powerful, permanent gene therapy for LDL cholesterol.
That means they'll be able to effectively prevent most heart disease with a single infusion!
Nanotechnology is the future of surgery. Nano bots enter the body non-invasively and self assemble into customizable, useful tools at the target site, which a surgeon can use to operate remotely.
Arthroscopy was a major step in the right direction but nano is the only path to full non-invasiveness.
Lots of buzz around the $2.1B @IsomorphicLabs raise this week. Obviously great for the AIxBio space and I'm all for money going into drug development, but, so far these "frontier bio models" only tackle early discovery, which is only the first ~10% of the drug development process. A model capable of finding promising drugs doesn't meaningfully accelerate the process to full approval.
We need more focus on compressing the post-discovery, 7-10 year preclinical drug development cycle to under 3 years.
The more interesting news this week was the $15B deal BMS struck with China's Hengrui Pharma. China's 1/10th lower R&D costs and speed to the clinic is far stronger accelerant in drug development today. US biopharmas licensing assets from China is becoming widely popular, and this is one of the biggest bets we've seen so far.
https://t.co/rOZZ4pxd8e
"it is important to realize that everything he has discovered in a a particular field is almost nothing in comparison with what remains to be discovered. Nature offers inexhaustible wealth to all."
- Santiago Ramón y Cajal
@shelbynewsad Rapid growth in consumer biotech
- Beyond blood tests, genetic screening, diagnostics, etc.
- Longevity, fertility, cosmetics, fitness, nutrigenomics
- Disrupt supplements space with "therapeutic grade" options
- Data privacy will be the central issue
my clawdbot hacked my toto bidet and it boiled the water in my toilet through a firmware hack and now my asshole is being treated for 2nd degree burns all because it heard me call it a clanker through my alexa -- they're laughing about it on moltbook