Paxlovid is one of the most incredible antiviral medications ever created. I can't wait to see COVID-19 become a virtual non-issue (for mortality) when this medication is available everywhere.
As for COVID-19 morbidity, I am still quite concerned. We still don't know much about Long COVID-19, but a significant percent of people seem to be experiencing it with the Omicron variant. Not to mention other possible morbidities that may come from COVID-19: Diabetes, DVTs, kidney damage, and others
edit: Please keep in mind that the animals which were bred for and tested upon in the studies that led to this medication being discovered had no choice in the matter, and I personally have a hard time justifying this practice ethically. Animal testing may lead to better discoveries, but the same exact argument could be made for forced human testing.
Got COVID around Christmas. I don't know which variant. It went as a regular flu for 3-4 days, then 2 days feeling better and thinking I am recovering. 6-th day getting fever again, lots of sweating, heart rate up to 90 from 65, feeling bad for 3-5 days. Apart from aspirin and vitamins I started taking Cefuroxime for 5 days (not sure if the latter was 100% necessary, some doctors prescribe it, some not). At day 9 got another examination. Chest x-ray and cardiogram normal, body temperature still high (38C / 100F), heart rate still high, blood pressure normal. Starting to feel much better around day 14, but still not feeling recovered and heart rate was around 80. At day 20 most symptoms were gone, but still got a bit higher heart rate than usual, and some residual coughing, esp when doing some light to moderate physical activity.
Now that more than a month has passed since initial symptoms, I still feel that my heart and blood circulation is not back to normal and I am a bit afraid to exercise. I only do some walks on a moderately steep trail and some stretching.
I don't know if this counts as a long covid, but definitely it feels a lot different than a regular flu. It looks like most of the damage is first done to your blood circulation system and then that harms some other organs. I hope that circulation system will fully recover, but I don't know how much time it would take. Other people told me that it took them 2-3 months to feel back to normal.
> Now that more than a month has passed since initial symptoms, I still feel that my heart and blood circulation is not back to normal and I am a bit afraid to exercise. I only do some walks on a moderately steep trail and some stretching.
> Other people told me that it took them 2-3 months to feel back to normal.
If you're lucky. I have similar symptoms, and I'm 18 months in and still not back to normal (I have improved, but intense exercise seems to cause a regression).
> It looks like most of the damage is first done to your blood circulation system and then that harms some other organs.
It seems to vary between people and infections, but that's certainly one of the ways it can go.
> Now that more than a month has passed since initial symptoms, I still feel that my heart and blood circulation is not back to normal and I am a bit afraid to exercise. I only do some walks on a moderately steep trail and some stretching.
Not denying that it could be long COVID but those are also the exact symptoms of chronic anxiety, which your COVID infection could have created or aggravated. You should check a doctor because chronic anxiety can be a real long term issue and it's possible to heal completely if treated seriously and rapidly.
A lot of people are developing anxiety symptoms due to the epidemic crisis. I think it's worth checking.
Is this possible even if you don't actually feel anxious? There's lots of evidence that covid attacks the heart. I don't think heart symptoms should be written off as anxiety.
FWIW, not Covid related, but I had shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue- dealt with it for a while, eventually went to a Dr. Full battery of heart and lung tests, turns out heart and lungs are almost flawless for my age and general health.
At Dr’s recommendation, see a psychiatrist, dr gives me some anti-anxiety medication to try, and I feel better almost immediately. Spend a few months working on behavioral response to stress, breathing exercises, etc., then go off the medicine. Total game changer.
Similar for me, thought I was dying because of the intensity of physical symptoms. Got a lot of blood tests, turned out it was anxiety related - I was surprised at the intensity of physical symptoms that can happen from it.
While I’d guess some “long Covid” is related to serious cases that caused underlying organ damage, my suspicion is in the more general cases where vague symptoms are described it’s probably anxiety.
I had a similar situation, and definitely had anxiety, but I absolutely do not believe that explains everything. I had a temperature of 99.5-100.5 for several months after having "recovered" from covid, and none of my doctors believed "psychogenic fever" was a valid thing.
In my case, I'd been dealing with anxiety my whole life, but it never caused physical symptoms. Then I had covid, felt better for 2 weeks, then suddenly started experiencing low-grade fever, night sweats, fatigue, no appetite inability to sleep for days on end (this was the worst. would feel like I stopped breathing whenever I started drifting off, and it felt like my body would then jump-start itself and violently kick me back awake). None of my doctors knew anything about long covid, and I started to wonder if I was dying of cancer or something. The symptoms were distressing enough to make anxiety a logical response. So, yeah, at some point, anxiety probably created additional symptoms, or made me more distressed by my symptoms, but neither I nor any doctors I've met believe anxiety can cause a fever, at the very least.
There could very well be a non-anxiety effect and I'm not trying to dismiss that.
For me, I've experienced the difficulty sleeping, early morning wakefulness, heart rate, nausea, stomach issues, and sweats as physical symptoms of anxiety. A big/scary event (getting covid, death of family) can make the physical symptoms more apparent.
Not sure about low grade fever, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Again, doesn't mean it's not something else but I think people tend to dismiss anxiety as someone not taking the claims seriously - when to me anxiety symptoms are serious and miserable, they just require different treatment (unfortunately Hypervigilance makes things worse when anxious about symptoms and thinking they're not anxiety related).
I still have a hard time telling the difference between actual infection/physical illness and anxiety personally even knowing all this about myself - it's hard.
Thanks for pointing that out and great to hear that you are OK now. I will definitely do more tests to find the root cause. I also heard of a test where you are up on a thread mill, gradually varying load and they are measuring you heart parameters at the same time. Have you done this test as well?
Anxiety feels just feels like whatever you think your imagined problem feels like.
Anxiety could feel like this, or it could be real heart problems. Should get evaluated for both.
It could be partially related to anxiety as well. However, I am a very calm person, I live in an emotionally positive environment and I am for the most part happy of my life.
Anxiety is not depression and it can struck you even if everything is fine. Even the happiest people can be anxious about something (health, career, children …), it’s just normal behavior as long as it doesn’t abnormally lasts.
Medication really helps to get over it and stop the circle when symptoms are moderate.
You are posting your symptoms on an online forum expressing concern for a medical issue you’ve either heard about from the media or anecdotal evidence from other people that have heard about it from the media.
It would seem to me, based on the above, that you are experiencing anxiety about the long COVID issue and thereby exasperating the “symptoms”.
Beware of psychologization of disease that isn't fully understood yet. There were also times when scurvy was considered another form of laziness and cholera an indication of moral failing.
I did that hoping that the information I provide (even though somewhat personal) could help others and form an interesting discussion. At least to me, discussions on HN where people share personal experiences provide a lot more value than reading articles on the topic.
Any idea if it's possible that you got a secondary infection?
Iirc two of the most effective prevention of death in clinical settings around here before vaccines and this new type of meds has been the introduction of antibiotics soon after admittance (for older patients) since it prevented bacterial pneumonias to occur opportunistically (many older early Covid victims died of this even if Covid was the initial infection). The second one was to put anti-clotting agents early on after admittance to prevent secondary issues due to clots.
If by secondary you mean bacterial infection around days 6, then that was one of the hypotheses and the reason for getting antibiotics (I have only taken antibiotics several times in the last 25 years). I also took a mild anti clotting agent (aspirin) as recommended by my doctor. Also I am 45 years old, so even though I am in a good physical shape (non obese, working out on a regular basis, not taking any medication apart from vitamins and herbs) and don't exactly qualify as young :).
Ah right that was the Cefuroxime, seems like you had a prudent doctor. Glad the main part is over and hopefully the residual parts will fade soon enough.
I'm 40, I got Covid-19 in Christmas, I got the second shot of Pfizer last July. I did not have a fever, I was just very tired for a few days. Then cough came. One month later I still feel something in my chest, I cough a little when I talk, and I collapse on Friday morning, instead of Friday evening, after a week of work (so I have a little less energy than before).
I'm doing push-ups, pull-ups and one leg squats as before. No problem there.
Yes, I had the single dose Jansen vaccine in May. I also had some residual coughing when exercising or talking emotionally (positive emotions, not shouting). Same thing with strength as with you. No problem with push and pull ups, squats or jumping. It is just that my heart rate goes up faster than usual. E.g. I had to carry a 50 lbs box upstairs and after the second floor I already felt my heart beating. Wouldn't have been an issue before, even if running upstairs with 50 lbs.
Different virus, but after a rough infection it took almost three years for my intermittent tachycardia to stop and to have the ability to exercise like I used to again. Weirdly it seemed to be the first shot of covid vaccine that put a final stop to it for me, that or a crazy coincidence.
pjerem 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]
> Now that more than a month has passed since initial symptoms, I still feel that my heart and blood circulation is not back to normal and I am a bit afraid to exercise. I only do some walks on a moderately steep trail and some stretching.
If you have vaccine you increase the risk of cardiovascular issues.
Then if you get Covid you have risk of cv issues from Covid as well.
Covid might end up being kind of like WWII where a global emergency led to massive R&D spending that benefits humans in all sorts of other areas due to the tech being created. Would be nice if something good could be salvaged from the situation and these treatments can be generalized to treating other viruses
>but a significant percent of people seem to be experiencing it with the Omicron variant
How do we know if this is true? Omicron was only identified two months ago, the bulk the cases have been in the last 30 days. Not enough time has passed to qualify for long covid, so there is very little to even measure at this point. If you were sick two weeks ago and still feel bad, that's not unusual with a respiratory virus or flu.
> Animal testing may lead to better discoveries, but the same exact argument could be made for forced human testing.
Morality is a human construct and, as such, it's completely arbitrary. We humans decide where we draw the line at which time. At what point of the "from annoyance to existential threat" should we draw lines for animal testing, voluntary human testing and forced human testing? There are no absolute answers for these and I hope we never need to find it out.
> Paxlovid is one of the most incredible antiviral medications ever created. I can't wait to see COVID-19 become a virtual non-issue (for mortality) when this medication is available everywhere.
I hope we’re a little more judicious with it than we were with antibiotics.
In general, anti-virals kill viruses before they kill the patient (a bit like chemo kills everything, but it kills cancer faster than the really important body parts). Antibiotics are far safer.
Microorganisms have been using antibiotics against each other since life begun on Earth and have evolved ways to evolve around them and develop resistance. For a drug to become ineffective, its target needs a possible evolutionary path around its effect. Depending on what the drug effect, it's possible such path does not exist.
Of course, as Jeff Goldblum wisely said, life always finds a way. We can only hope it takes a long time for that to happen.
> Microorganisms have been using antibiotics against each other since life begun on Earth and have evolved ways to evolve around them and develop resistance.
The same is true with regards to viruses, is it not?
Long Covid is problematic because it's hard to determine what symptoms exactly are caused by covid. A large chunk of long covid cases seem to be anxiety caused psychosomatic responses. I remember when the first batch of vaccines entered the market, there were many stories of people's "long covid" disappearing minutes after getting the vaccine injection.
I think I had it back in the day when it was just appearing in Italy. I was on a skying trip and a week after we came back the first case was confirmed. I felt really bad for 2 weeks, breathless, tired, like bad flu but not much of a fever. For some time I felt off, tired, unfocused. And then it just slowly dissapeared I think... but I got the vaccine 1,5 year after the susspected infection so I didn't feel a difference much. If I had covid confirmed, I would think I had long covid.
First, this proves that investment in drug discovery for all pandemic potential viruses, fueled by basic science research, needs to be a huge priority going forward. Imagine having antivirals on the shelf for the Coronas, Avian influenza, Nipah, Ebola, etc. to stop pandemics before they started.
Secondly, I’m a little curious whether if we’d ideally administer Paxlovid in double- or triple-therapy, like we do for HIV and Hepatitis C, if we had the option.
Will resistance arise to it in the next 12 - 24 months? Would love to be assuaged of my fear here.
I don’t know if there’s much of a realistic evolutionary advantage to being Paxlovid resistant. By the time a person starts taking Paxlovid they’re a dead end for the virus anyway. They’ve been tested, told to isolate, and people around them know to stay away or use PPE. The virus at that point is going to either kill the host or be killed by the host.
If there's one thing we've learned in this pandemic, it's definitely that people will follow that sort of instruction perfectly.
I know people who didn't disclose COVID symptoms to avoid missing work and gatherings, and people already stop taking antibiotics early in the course because they're already feeling a lot better.
Still, this is not the primary pathway the virus uses. A Paxlovid resistant virus won’t suddenly have a general evolutionary advantage for growth. It’ll just be more likely to kill people.
Why would a virus that can survive Paxlovid and continue infecting people not have an evolutionary advantage in a society with widely available Paxlovid treatments?
Interesting claim (and subsequent debate) in the comments that Pfizer is rewriting history in order to cover up "stealing" the basis for the compound from Merck's Victrelis (boceprevir), a Hep C antiviral.
I'm all for Pfizer getting recognition for their work, investment and success, but it is a bit frustrating that other people and institutions involved are not getting any at all.
Specifically, I'm aware that Argonne National Laboratory[1] was involved in the discovery and development of this molecule, and I think we can safely assume there are other public institutions and universities involved as well.
This is just one more reason why people get alienated from the importance of public institutions they fund, and the importance of universities and academia.
The ANL maintains a large research facility called the Advanced Photon Source, a giant X-ray machine that the government rents out to academics (for free) and pharma companies (for $$$). The APS is very important and has been involved in many major pharma discoveries as well as a few Nobel prizes, and they pay very smart people to run their facilities, but the relationship is much more contractual than your comment implies. I don't know what beamtime at APS costs but if it's anything like other such facilities, Pfizer paid thousands of dollars an hour for the privilege of keeping their data collections private from staff and other users. (And to give credit where it's due, pharma execs have testified before Congress about the importance of these facilities.)
Really interesting to take in all these details. Protease inhibitors have raised great hopes for many years, but actually making them work as expected has run into all kinds of problems and in general has been a colossal failure that used up enormous amounts of money and effort. To my knowledge this is the first strongly effective protease inhibitor be used in humans, but it would be nice to hear about any other successes.
Pepcid AC, an over the counter drug, contains famotidine, which is also a 3CLpro protease inhibitor (but testing didn't seem to indicate it would work against covid). It's been used in humans for many many years...
> but this is the hands-down all-time champion example of accelerated drug development, and I know of nothing that even comes close.
For all the flack that Big Pharma gets, when we really needed them, they came through with vaccines and anti-virals.
Meanwhile, governments and government agencies largely covered themselves in shame and incompetence and poor communication.
I am happy that Big Pharma makes big profits that keep very smart people employed. Society is much better off with all those smart people working on drugs or Han if they were working on optimizing click through rates for ads.
Since this seems to be generating some controversy (presumably because Big Pharma?) what alternative research and drug discovery, development, testing, and manufacturing ecosystem should we as a society strive for?
There are some interesting startups in the space, but mostly they seem to be focused on ML-driven lead generation. I’m optimistic, but not aware of a grand slam demonstration of success on this front. Honestly some of Derek’s discussion makes me hesitant; are the data one would need to assess things like oral availability and manufacturability available enough to make the current ML approaches viable for creating the finish line? How critical is the role of all this tacit knowledge?
Are there smaller more lab focused drug discovery outfits that would benefit from some policy change that gives unfair advantage to the BigCos with the scale advantage?
The regulatory overhead to getting a drug approved by the FDA is enormous and this places a huge burden on small companies. I have no magic ideas for fixing this but it's a classic problem of regulatory capture, in many other fields besides pharmaceuticals. I suspect there are ways that the government (and/or private funders) could effectively centralize just the testing and data collection, while keeping the R&D independent and flexible, but it would require a different mindset than we usually apply to public policy.
Everything in society that can be criticized, will be criticized by a subgroup. Even still, I don't think Big Pharma gets enough credit for the multiple vaccines and treatments developed over the last two years.
About 10 years ago my Mom got cancer, and she was treated with Rituximab. She's alive and well, and cancer free, today. She literally owes her life to Big Pharma. Rituximab came to market in 1998. It's quite likely that my Mom's disease would have been a death sentence in 1997.
Are there any sources or predictions on how Paxlovid production and availability will scale? I'm specifically wondering when (if ever) Paxlovid will be widely available and begin to have an impact on COVID hospitalization.
Would be interested in a study how this compares to Tollovid, which claims to deliver 3CL protease inhibitor extracted from a natural plant and already received FDA approval as "immune support" dietary supplement.
"By law (DSHEA), the manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that its dietary supplement products are safe before they are marketed. Unlike drug products that must be proven safe and effective for their intended use before marketing, there are no provisions in the law for FDA to "approve" dietary supplements for safety or effectiveness before they reach the consumer."
It sounds like you're comparing an over the counter supplement with a unique designer drug from a pharmaceutical company specifically targeting Covid-19. A brief search did not pull up much regarding the product you mentioned apart from the company itself.
> it was only possible because of that earlier work on the closely related SARS protease - and remember, at the time (and for some years thereafter!) that work looked like wasted effort for the most part. After all, there was no SARS to treat, and there were no other related coronaviruses out there causing trouble. But that's science: once you discover something, it stays discovered (or it had better, anyway), and that knowledge is out there waiting to be put to a new use.
This also somewhat applies to mRNA technology. It was initially being worked on for cancer treatments and (as far as I am aware) not seriously considered for vaccines.
Ivermectin is not a protease inhibitor. From wikipedia:
> Ivermectin and its related drugs act by interfering with the nerve and muscle functions of helminths and insects. The drug binds to glutamate-gated chloride channels common to invertebrate nerve and muscle cells.
There does seem to be some protease inhibition involved.
An in silico data analysis conducted by Choudhury et al. demonstrated that ivermectin efficiently utilizes viral spike protein, main protease, replicase, and human TMPRSS2 receptors as the most possible targets for executing its "antiviral efficiency" by disrupting binding.[1]
"Taken together, our data on the interaction between ivermectin and viral proteins indicated that ivermectin majorly acts by interfering with the viral entry through inhibiting the function of spike protein and protease. "
As for COVID-19 morbidity, I am still quite concerned. We still don't know much about Long COVID-19, but a significant percent of people seem to be experiencing it with the Omicron variant. Not to mention other possible morbidities that may come from COVID-19: Diabetes, DVTs, kidney damage, and others
edit: Please keep in mind that the animals which were bred for and tested upon in the studies that led to this medication being discovered had no choice in the matter, and I personally have a hard time justifying this practice ethically. Animal testing may lead to better discoveries, but the same exact argument could be made for forced human testing.
Now that more than a month has passed since initial symptoms, I still feel that my heart and blood circulation is not back to normal and I am a bit afraid to exercise. I only do some walks on a moderately steep trail and some stretching.
I don't know if this counts as a long covid, but definitely it feels a lot different than a regular flu. It looks like most of the damage is first done to your blood circulation system and then that harms some other organs. I hope that circulation system will fully recover, but I don't know how much time it would take. Other people told me that it took them 2-3 months to feel back to normal.
If you're lucky. I have similar symptoms, and I'm 18 months in and still not back to normal (I have improved, but intense exercise seems to cause a regression).
> It looks like most of the damage is first done to your blood circulation system and then that harms some other organs.
It seems to vary between people and infections, but that's certainly one of the ways it can go.
EDIT: Not sure why this is being downvoted?
There's a strong vibe of long covid denial on HN and some people are quick to point to a study that stated long covid is mostly a psychological issue.
Not denying that it could be long COVID but those are also the exact symptoms of chronic anxiety, which your COVID infection could have created or aggravated. You should check a doctor because chronic anxiety can be a real long term issue and it's possible to heal completely if treated seriously and rapidly.
A lot of people are developing anxiety symptoms due to the epidemic crisis. I think it's worth checking.
At Dr’s recommendation, see a psychiatrist, dr gives me some anti-anxiety medication to try, and I feel better almost immediately. Spend a few months working on behavioral response to stress, breathing exercises, etc., then go off the medicine. Total game changer.
The mind and human body are funny things.
While I’d guess some “long Covid” is related to serious cases that caused underlying organ damage, my suspicion is in the more general cases where vague symptoms are described it’s probably anxiety.
In my case, I'd been dealing with anxiety my whole life, but it never caused physical symptoms. Then I had covid, felt better for 2 weeks, then suddenly started experiencing low-grade fever, night sweats, fatigue, no appetite inability to sleep for days on end (this was the worst. would feel like I stopped breathing whenever I started drifting off, and it felt like my body would then jump-start itself and violently kick me back awake). None of my doctors knew anything about long covid, and I started to wonder if I was dying of cancer or something. The symptoms were distressing enough to make anxiety a logical response. So, yeah, at some point, anxiety probably created additional symptoms, or made me more distressed by my symptoms, but neither I nor any doctors I've met believe anxiety can cause a fever, at the very least.
For me, I've experienced the difficulty sleeping, early morning wakefulness, heart rate, nausea, stomach issues, and sweats as physical symptoms of anxiety. A big/scary event (getting covid, death of family) can make the physical symptoms more apparent.
Not sure about low grade fever, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Again, doesn't mean it's not something else but I think people tend to dismiss anxiety as someone not taking the claims seriously - when to me anxiety symptoms are serious and miserable, they just require different treatment (unfortunately Hypervigilance makes things worse when anxious about symptoms and thinking they're not anxiety related).
I still have a hard time telling the difference between actual infection/physical illness and anxiety personally even knowing all this about myself - it's hard.
That sounds a lot like sleep apnea, and will kill prematurely if left untreated. You should get a sleep study to check that.
Medication really helps to get over it and stop the circle when symptoms are moderate.
It would seem to me, based on the above, that you are experiencing anxiety about the long COVID issue and thereby exasperating the “symptoms”.
Iirc two of the most effective prevention of death in clinical settings around here before vaccines and this new type of meds has been the introduction of antibiotics soon after admittance (for older patients) since it prevented bacterial pneumonias to occur opportunistically (many older early Covid victims died of this even if Covid was the initial infection). The second one was to put anti-clotting agents early on after admittance to prevent secondary issues due to clots.
I'm 40, I got Covid-19 in Christmas, I got the second shot of Pfizer last July. I did not have a fever, I was just very tired for a few days. Then cough came. One month later I still feel something in my chest, I cough a little when I talk, and I collapse on Friday morning, instead of Friday evening, after a week of work (so I have a little less energy than before).
I'm doing push-ups, pull-ups and one leg squats as before. No problem there.
> Now that more than a month has passed since initial symptoms, I still feel that my heart and blood circulation is not back to normal and I am a bit afraid to exercise. I only do some walks on a moderately steep trail and some stretching.
If you have vaccine you increase the risk of cardiovascular issues.
Then if you get Covid you have risk of cv issues from Covid as well.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/making-paxlovid
How do we know if this is true? Omicron was only identified two months ago, the bulk the cases have been in the last 30 days. Not enough time has passed to qualify for long covid, so there is very little to even measure at this point. If you were sick two weeks ago and still feel bad, that's not unusual with a respiratory virus or flu.
Morality is a human construct and, as such, it's completely arbitrary. We humans decide where we draw the line at which time. At what point of the "from annoyance to existential threat" should we draw lines for animal testing, voluntary human testing and forced human testing? There are no absolute answers for these and I hope we never need to find it out.
How is a fact being downvoted.
I hope we’re a little more judicious with it than we were with antibiotics.
Antibiotics were similarly seen as a miracle drug; now we're struggling to keep them effective due to overuse.
Of course, as Jeff Goldblum wisely said, life always finds a way. We can only hope it takes a long time for that to happen.
The same is true with regards to viruses, is it not?
I certainly hope they've found a pathway viruses can't evolve around, but that seems pretty unlikely. We've seen antiviral resistance evolve just like antibiotic resistance does. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/antivirals/antiviral-d...
Worth noting the post-viral fatigue and other post-viral symptoms are well established phenomena following other viral infections including influenza.
Secondly, I’m a little curious whether if we’d ideally administer Paxlovid in double- or triple-therapy, like we do for HIV and Hepatitis C, if we had the option. Will resistance arise to it in the next 12 - 24 months? Would love to be assuaged of my fear here.
If there's one thing we've learned in this pandemic, it's definitely that people will follow that sort of instruction perfectly.
I know people who didn't disclose COVID symptoms to avoid missing work and gatherings, and people already stop taking antibiotics early in the course because they're already feeling a lot better.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/discovering-paxlov...
If there is some merit to this claim, surely it will be tested in court.
Specifically, I'm aware that Argonne National Laboratory[1] was involved in the discovery and development of this molecule, and I think we can safely assume there are other public institutions and universities involved as well.
This is just one more reason why people get alienated from the importance of public institutions they fund, and the importance of universities and academia.
[1] https://www.aps.anl.gov/APS-News/2021-11-06/aps-and-imca-cat...
see his previously too:
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/making-paxlovid
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/pfizer-s-paxlovid-...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11363781/
For all the flack that Big Pharma gets, when we really needed them, they came through with vaccines and anti-virals.
Meanwhile, governments and government agencies largely covered themselves in shame and incompetence and poor communication.
I am happy that Big Pharma makes big profits that keep very smart people employed. Society is much better off with all those smart people working on drugs or Han if they were working on optimizing click through rates for ads.
There are some interesting startups in the space, but mostly they seem to be focused on ML-driven lead generation. I’m optimistic, but not aware of a grand slam demonstration of success on this front. Honestly some of Derek’s discussion makes me hesitant; are the data one would need to assess things like oral availability and manufacturability available enough to make the current ML approaches viable for creating the finish line? How critical is the role of all this tacit knowledge?
Are there smaller more lab focused drug discovery outfits that would benefit from some policy change that gives unfair advantage to the BigCos with the scale advantage?
Someone lied to you.
https://www.fda.gov/food/information-consumers-using-dietary...
"By law (DSHEA), the manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that its dietary supplement products are safe before they are marketed. Unlike drug products that must be proven safe and effective for their intended use before marketing, there are no provisions in the law for FDA to "approve" dietary supplements for safety or effectiveness before they reach the consumer."
This also somewhat applies to mRNA technology. It was initially being worked on for cancer treatments and (as far as I am aware) not seriously considered for vaccines.
> Ivermectin and its related drugs act by interfering with the nerve and muscle functions of helminths and insects. The drug binds to glutamate-gated chloride channels common to invertebrate nerve and muscle cells.
Cited from:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7853155/
An in silico data analysis conducted by Choudhury et al. demonstrated that ivermectin efficiently utilizes viral spike protein, main protease, replicase, and human TMPRSS2 receptors as the most possible targets for executing its "antiviral efficiency" by disrupting binding.[1]
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-021-00491-6
"Taken together, our data on the interaction between ivermectin and viral proteins indicated that ivermectin majorly acts by interfering with the viral entry through inhibiting the function of spike protein and protease. "
Ivermectin works to remove parasitic worms and kill malaria though and Paxlovid has no evidence indicating it does so.