Since it targets RNA replication, I wonder if it may have efficacy against other retroviruses.
Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
261–270 of 294 posts
Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
How could Merck stall those studies? Ivermectin is widely available, you don't need to get Merck's permission to use it in a study.
The FDA isn't immune to the same kind of corruption/conflicts of interest that impacts other federal agencies. Scott Gottlieb worked at the FDA at a high level, before leaving for a stint in the private sector which included being a partner in a VC fund which invested in many medical startups. He left that to become the commissioner of the FDA under the previous administration. Gottlieb is currently on the board of P…
> The FDA isn't immune to the same kind of corruption/conflicts of interest that impacts other federal agencies.
Do you think there's only one organization in the world that could possibly study these things?
Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't we already own a portion of what gets created though? If Merck makes a boatload of money off of this, the taxpayers will indeed be taking a cut.
>If Merck makes a boatload of money off of this, the taxpayers will indeed be taking a cut. Merck's effective tax rate was 15% in 2019 and 20% in 2020[0] They make boatloads of money by underpaying their taxes [1]: In 2004 Merck disclosed that it might owe the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) some $2 billion after the agency notified the company that it was disallowing deductions Merck had taken since 1993 relatin…
> Merck's effective tax rate was 15% in 2019 and 20% in 2020
20% is not unreasonable. That's similar to the European OECD nation average of 21.7%.
Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
#264Since it targets RNA replication, I wonder if it may have efficacy against other retroviruses.
SARS-CoV-2 is not a retrovirus. That said, it is likely effective against a wide range of RNA viruses, and its original testing and development was mostly done against influenza[1].
Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was talking about post exposure prophylaxis. This drug does have mutation concerns. If I'm choosing between a taking the drug right now for 2-3 days in lower doses Vs a 50% chance of taking much higher doses for 2 weeks, id take the former.
The moment you have symptoms peak replication is already over for two da,s. It's to late by then.
That's not how PEP works. You'd be taking it after having had a contact, before symptoms.
Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a better option is for the pharmaceutical corporations themselves to reduce both their advertising budget and their shareholder dividends and pour those funds into their own independently financed research institutes (see Bell Labs for the model followed in the past). The best way to encourage them to do this is to eliminate exclusive licensing of inventions financed even in part by the taxpayer, i.e. NIH, NS…
Where is the motivation for Merck to pour funds into a drug they don't get any return on? And if the government is doing this R&D instead of pharma cos, what is their motivation to perform? If you're a government apparatchik making decisions about what drugs to invest into R&D for, what penalty and upside do you get for being wrong/right? Getting fired or getting a promotion? That's hardly motivating at all. Your pro…
I think you completely misunderstand my point. Merck would be inventing new drugs on its own dime with no government input so it would own that IP outright, yes?
This allows universities to concentrate more on the kind of fundamental basic research that underlies all applied research discoveries; this basic research may not produce IP but is utterly foundational for new applied discoveries.
Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
#267Hospitalization from COVID-19
There's a joke in here about the conflation of the data all throughout the pandemic and how there's been a failure to differentiate between with Covid and from Covid . https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/covid-hos...
There’s maybe an amusing counter point from this study. Here they ran a trial with a highly at risk population (due to comorbidities) and reduced hospitalization by 50%. I guess it’s possible the drug is 100% effective and the hospitalization of the remainder were driven by other factors, but even in that case you’d be overestimating hospitalization by just a factor of two. And since none of the people who received the drug died, I guess it’s good indirect evidence that we’re counting covid deaths among the high risk, diagnosed population reasonably well?
Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
#268Disclaimer: I'm not promoting Ivermectin here, don't get me wrong. I just want to cover my bases as this announcement is definitely going to be used by people to support their conspiracy theory. Earlier this year Merck the manufacturer of Ivermectin issued this [0] statement saying that Ivermectin isn't useful for preventing/treating Covid-19 and people shouldn't take it. Some people explained that with the fact that…
How could Merck stall those studies? Ivermectin is widely available, you don't need to get Merck's permission to use it in a study.
If a company wanted to, they could certainly use the online social media polarisation to poison any discussion.
Any discussion of the validity of Ivermectin as a COVID treatment is now "political", in the sense that Team Red thinks that its a gift from god, and Team Blue thinks any consideration of it is anti-science stupidity.
And since there is a strong correlation between Team Blue and the vocal science community, in a sense someone could drive consensus about a drug to make and studies into Ivermectin political instead of evidence-based - because who wants their university peers to think they are Team Red instead of Team Blue.
Even though there are peer reviewed studies that show some correlation between Ivermectin and COVID viral loads - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...
I'm not saying they did, but its not unimaginable to do.
Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
#269Disclaimer: I'm not promoting Ivermectin here, don't get me wrong. I just want to cover my bases as this announcement is definitely going to be used by people to support their conspiracy theory. Earlier this year Merck the manufacturer of Ivermectin issued this [0] statement saying that Ivermectin isn't useful for preventing/treating Covid-19 and people shouldn't take it. Some people explained that with the fact that…
Almost a year ago, nih.gov wrote about a study, 'Ivermectin is an FDA-approved broad-spectrum antiparasitic agent with demonstrated antiviral activity against a number of DNA and RNA viruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).' https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539925/ Over one year ago, Nature said ivermectin has antiviral properties. 'It is highly effective against m…
The literature doesn't just say it has antiviral properties, The Lancet itself has published papers that show that "A concentration dependent antiviral effect of ivermectin in COVID-19 was identified, with significant reductions in SARS-CoV-2 viral load in respiratory secretions among patients"[^1].
The fact that you are being downvoted, even though the science is relatively sound shows how polarised this topic has become.
[^1]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...
Re: Antiviral Molnupiravir Reduces Risk of Hospitalization/Death by ~50 Percent
#270Some interesting points on the nature of our pharmaceutical patent system... (and while the cohort in this study does seem a bit small, the conclusions appear to be fairly valid): > "Molnupiravir was invented at Drug Innovations at Emory (DRIVE), LLC, a not-for-profit biotechnology company wholly owned by Emory University, and is being developed by Merck & Co., Inc. in collaboration with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics." >…
> Clearly, this patent should be assigned to the federal government, not to Merck
Would Merck have done the research if they didn't get to own the patent?