Words about science and hiking
Animal cells differ from single-cell organisms in two significant ways: 1) They don’t have the tools to survive outside an animal body 2) They are programmed to die after a certain number of cell divisions. We know that it is possible for animal cells to live as individuals. The ancestor of all animals is believed to Read More …
In its own uniquely perverse way, the stock market turns good news into bad once again. Gilead’s Hepatitis C drugs – Sovaldi and Harvoni – had the most successful drug launches ever. And with good reason – unlike the “breakthrough” cancer drugs you read about, these drugs actually cure a serious and widespread disease. Although Read More …
Business Insider: AI Startup Valued at $2B Probably. After all, most ventures fail. Tech investors, like bidders at an auction, are subject to the Winner’s Curse: those who err on the side of too much optimism are willing to pay more than those who calculate the risk/reward ratio correctly. They win the auction by overpaying. From Read More …
The development of newer and better biosensing technologies will have almost no impact on health care. Why? Because detection of biomolecules is rarely the limiting factor in making a diagnosis or prognosis. What’s missing is not the ability to generate information, but the ability to interpret it. Most single biomarkers fall in the range of Read More …
Emotions as commonly understood and defined require a nervous system, which bacteria plainly don’t have. That definition of emotions makes this an uninteresting question that really is not worth answering. But if we look beyond the machinery of emotions to their purpose (although inferring purpose is always dangerous in biology), we can fashion a definition Read More …
Humans and bacteria are in a constant process of mutual accommodation. The discovery of antibiotics encouraged the conceit that we had reached the end of history with our microbial adversaries. We won, they lost, end of story. It wasn’t quite that neat and simple, was it? We ignored the reality that antibiotics have been around Read More …
Of course they will. The more interesting question is whether they should. Or at least, whether it would be a loss to society if many did not. The assumption implied in this question is that high profits from US sales are needed to finance R&D to bring innovative, life-saving medicines to the rest of the world. But Read More …
Both healthcare and pharmaceuticals are astoundingly unpopular in the US, ranking at the very bottom of all industries. They are not only well below restaurants and computers, but below automotive, real estate, telecom, banking and legal. They are even below oil and gas, a truly nasty industry. The average American apparently likes used-car sales people, bankers and Read More …
Published on Apple News Single-payer status has nothing to do with drug development. And drug innovation is not as important as you think. The US spent $325B on prescription drugs in 2015. Medicare spent $147B of this (45%) and Medicaid spent another $57B (18%). That’s 63% of total prescription drug spending in the US. We already have single-payer. What Read More …
No one is dying of cancer because of FDA foot-dragging. No one. Nearly all experimental cancer drugs have no therapeutic value. A report from BIO, a biotech industry group, finds that only 5% of all new cancer drugs tested 2006–2011 were found to be safe and effective: From Clinical Development Success Rates, 2006–2011 This means, to Read More …