Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

fiercebiotech.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 75 posts

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#21

Post by zionic »

altarius wrote: post #18
NickM wrote: post #8

I've re-read the article a couple of times but I'm having trouble understanding how this works. I understand how an mRNA vaccine can teach the immune system to recognize a virus, but in the case of an autoimmune disorder, the challenge is to teach the immune system to stop attacking something, right? How can an mRNA vaccine cause the immune system to "forget" something that it thinks is harmful?

It reads like the immune isn't forgetting anything, they just "flood" the system with the proteins that the antibodies would normally attack in nerve cells or brain, thus giving the antibodies another target to "keep them busy". It sounds like they are creating large quantities of the "offending" protein via the vaccine mNRA mechanism in normal cells. Normally the antibodies/T-cells would attack the myelin coating of…

Not an expert, but wouldn't the abundance of target proteins cause a dangerously elevated immune response?

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#22

Post by phnofive »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #7

Great news! I wonder how much industry resistance there will be. Treating MS patients is a massive industry. Drug treatments are $100k a year currently, replacing that with a single $20 vaccine would be disruptive in the best way.

Avonex is off patent - still profitable, but drug companies are not entirely insensitive to being displaced by breakthroughs.

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#23

Post by baq »

liquidify wrote: post #12

Headline is a bit funky calling it "Covid-19 vaccine's tech", since this tech has been studied and tested for many other applications. It seems backwards... Covid-19 vaccine is an instance of this technology, the technology is not a derivative of what they did in Covid-19 vaccine.

Casually backwards but the audience can relate better this way.

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#24

Post by pg_bot »

waiseristy wrote: post #16

I haven't yet seen anyone mention this, but will BioNTech's / Modernas mRNA vaccine need to go through phase 1-3 trials when encoding for other proteins? The greatest advancement with mRNA is that you can have a vaccine in under a month. But that doesn't help if for each new mRNA encoding you need 9 months worth of health & safety trials.

Yes, they will have to go through health and safety trials for each additional vaccine developed using this technology. No one gets special treatment when it comes to FDA approval, and this is the way it should be.

You can get fast tracked if you show superior effectiveness, meet an unmet medical need, or get rid of serious side effects of an existing therapy. We should look at ways to speed up this process, (in the grand scheme of things 9 months isn't that long to wait to cure a disease) not eliminate it altogether. If we approved something that actually does harm, it will further undermine efforts to widely vaccinate the public. We already have issues with people trusting vaccines when there is no evidence of negative effects, I can't imagine how hard it would be if we had another thalidomide on our hands.

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#25

Post by ceejayoz »

zionic wrote: post #21
altarius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads like the immune isn't forgetting anything, they just "flood" the system with the proteins that the antibodies would normally attack in nerve cells or brain, thus giving the antibodies another target to "keep them busy". It sounds like they are creating large quantities of the "offending" protein via the vaccine mNRA mechanism in normal cells. Normally the antibodies/T-cells would attack the myelin coating of…

Not an expert, but wouldn't the abundance of target proteins cause a dangerously elevated immune response?

Not an expert, but wouldn't the experts have thought of that too, and wouldn't it likely show up in animal studies?

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#26

Post by jounker »

waiseristy wrote: post #16

I haven't yet seen anyone mention this, but will BioNTech's / Modernas mRNA vaccine need to go through phase 1-3 trials when encoding for other proteins? The greatest advancement with mRNA is that you can have a vaccine in under a month. But that doesn't help if for each new mRNA encoding you need 9 months worth of health & safety trials.

Of course they will. The issue is with the things the mRNA codes for, and not with the mRNA.

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#27

Post by rflrob »

pkaye wrote: post #19
WillPostForFood wrote: post #7

Great news! I wonder how much industry resistance there will be. Treating MS patients is a massive industry. Drug treatments are $100k a year currently, replacing that with a single $20 vaccine would be disruptive in the best way.

Wouldn't insurance companies love a lower cost one time treatment?

I'm sure they would, but bear in mind that the costs are likely going to be much higher for an MS vaccine than for nCov2, due to the economies of scale that the latter has. Insurance companies will still probably love a one-time $20,000 (or whatever number they can justify) treatment compared to ongoing costs.

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#28

Post by stanford_labrat »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #20
BitwiseFool wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't feel too bad, the execution depended on a massive world-changing pandemic where funding flowed freely and normal economics just didn't apply.

They were working on applying mRNA technology to other diseases, including (and in particular) cancer, well before the pandemic. While it is true that they have received significant funding this year, they had a $7.6B market cap on Dec 31, 2019 and were already conducting several clinical studies for mRNA-based medicine [1]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200128054759/https://biontech....

Smaller companies here in the bay area as well, see: Rejuvenation Tech.

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#29

Post by pietjepuk88 »

NickM wrote: post #8

I've re-read the article a couple of times but I'm having trouble understanding how this works. I understand how an mRNA vaccine can teach the immune system to recognize a virus, but in the case of an autoimmune disorder, the challenge is to teach the immune system to stop attacking something, right? How can an mRNA vaccine cause the immune system to "forget" something that it thinks is harmful?

In a sense it sounds a bit like immunotherapy for allergies. That is typically about injecting pathogens into your body (e.g. under your tongue, under your skin, or in your lymph nodes), and then over time teaching your body that these pathogens are harmless.

As far as _why_ that works instead of sending someone into anaphylactic shock... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The immune system is weird and complex, and I guess that's why they want a medical specialist around in case you're one of the unlucky ones. (Only the first time with sublingual tablets as far as I know)

Re: BioNTech CEO applies Covid-19 vaccine's mRNA tech to multiple sclerosis

#30

Post by fairity »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #5
wittyreference wrote: post #2

I came up with the same idea for treating autoimmune disease years ago - in my first year of med school, actually. Back then the platform for doing this elegantly via mRNA didn't really exist, though, and I didn't want to drop out of med school to spend a half-decade or more in grad school proving the concept the clumsy way. I'm really glad that it's finally come to fruition, but I definitely feel a bit of regret tha…

Don't feel too bad, the execution depended on a massive world-changing pandemic where funding flowed freely and normal economics just didn't apply.

IMO, the healthier coping mechanism is to realize that the path you take in life will never be the most optimal. We all make mistakes, and if all we care about is extrinsic achievement, we'll be either steeped in regret (or perhaps, blissfully ignorant). Instead of being outcome dependent, try to value things that are by nature, intrinsic.
Post reply on HN