President Biden said he will end the COVID public health emergency on May 11, but more than 500 people are still dying every day. The move would formally overturn the federal response to the virus and change it to one where COVID is treated as an endemic threat to public health, much like the flu, which returns seasonally but can be managed without major disruption to the healthcare system. (MarketWatch)
Google’s ex-CEO Eric Schmidt was tapped for a federal biotech commission that allows members to keep biotech investments. The former Google CEO is in a position to potentially profit if those companies are the beneficiaries of a new wave of federal biotech spending. (CNBC)
Gilead quashed a microcap biotech’s hope of partnering on an oral COVID-19 drug. Gilead told Matinas that it’s focusing on an internal candidate — an oral nucleoside prodrug of remdesivir. (Endpoints News)
Mpox has almost disappeared in the U.S., leaving lessons and mysteries in its wake. It wasn’t always a given that we’d get here. When mpox went global in 2022, doctors had too few doses of a new and unproven vaccine, an untested treatment, a dearth of diagnostic testing and a difficult line to walk in their messaging, which needed to be geared to an at-risk population that has been stigmatized and ignored in public health crises before. (CNN)
The unlikely discovery of a life-changing leukemia drug uncovers the harsh realities of profit and loss. Even in the most experienced hands, the vast majority of candidate drugs fail. So it hardly seems a recipe for success when a serial entrepreneur whose previous business highlights include investments in needlepoint kits and bakeries takes over a struggling biotechnology firm. (Nature)
