Bonjour
The most important news in healthcare: Friday, May 15
Good morning. Today we’re covering two stories that address equity in medicine: a French company creates an uproar when it prioritizes the U.S. for vaccine launch, and a Parkinson’s patient takes his treatment into his own hands.
Made in France, sold in the U.S.?
The pulse:
The CEO of a French pharmaceutical company, Sanofi, kicked off an international controversy when he said that the U.S. government has first dibs to Sanofi’s in-development coronavirus vaccine. After the President of France responded with displeasure, the CEO has been forced to backpedal.
Why would the U.S. get a French vaccine first?
Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson caused an uproar amongst French politicians when he said that the U.S. government “had the right to the largest pre-order [of a Covid-19 vaccine] because it’s invested in taking the risk.” The “investment” he’s referring to is partial funding of vaccine research by the American government.
French President Emmanuel Macron quickly responded that any Covid-19 vaccine must be treated as a “public good for the world, and not subject to the laws of the market.” His displeasure is understandable; one estimate claims that Sanofi receives over $150 million in research credits from the French government per year.
Sanofi’s CEO has publicly apologized and promised equal access to the vaccine for everyone.
What does this tell us about the Covid-19 vaccine race?
Drug making is not a cheap business: researching a vaccine costs somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion. U.S. government support for development means U.S. taxpayers are helping foot the bill -- but French taxpayers are too, through tax credits to the company. It’s understandable that Sanofi wants to reach the large U.S. market first. However, this creates a challenge for France and for the many countries that have no economic stake in the vaccine but need it as badly as the wealthier nations.
Bottom line it for me.
Producing a vaccine is just the first step: scaling up and ensuring equitable access may present a tremendous and uncomfortably political challenge.
Source: Stat News.
Doctor pays $2 M to fund the development of his Parkinson’s disease treatment
The pulse
In 2018, a patient with Parkinson’s disease paid $2 million to help develop and ultimately receive a first-of-its kind brain cell transplant. Now, two years after the surgery, the patient’s doctors have said his disease has stabilized and that he’s had no side effects.
What is Parkinson’s disease?
Parkinson’s disease causes the destruction of cells in the brain that produce dopamine. Without these cells, Parkinson’s patients develop severe movement issues, like hand tremors, stiffness, and difficulty walking. Parkinson’s affects about 1 million Americans, with 60,000 new diagnoses per year.
What’s the standard Parkinson’s treatment?
Standard Parkinson’s treatment includes drugs that can help raise levels of dopamine in the brain and thereby reduce motor symptoms. The issue is that these drugs can have bad side effects and often start to lose their effect after a few years.
When standard therapy failed for George Lopez, a wealthy physician who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He contacted stem cell researchers at McLean Hospital with an offer – he wanted to spend $2 million to accelerate the funding of an experimental stem cell therapy. He would later be the therapy’s first patient.
How do stem cells fit in here?
Stem cells are the Transformers of the cell world - scientists can “program” them to become almost any kind of cell in the body. For Lopez’s therapy, scientists took stem cells and reprogrammed them to become dopamine-producing brain cells, which were then injected into Lopez’s brain. The idea was to replace the cells that were destroyed by his Parkinson’s and hopefully restore some normal function.
Did the stem cell treatment work?
According to Lopez, there’s been a huge leap in his quality of life without any side effects. Immediately after the surgery, Lopez reported an improvement in his gait and was even able to return to activities like swimming and biking. Some experts, however, are skeptical of how dramatic and immediate his improvement was, and think much of the reported benefit could be a placebo effect. Nevertheless, as Lopez had been rapidly deteriorating before the surgery, it seems as if his symptoms have at least been stabilized.
Bottom line it for me:
Scientists have treated a Parkinson’s patient with a new stem cell therapy that raises dopamine levels in the brain. The research was expensive, and funded by the patient himself, raising questions as to the affordability of future therapies for less wealthy patients.
Rapidfire
Wuhan has announced a plan to test all 11 million of its residents in less than two weeks. The government is calling this the “10-day-battle.” A lot of work will be necessary to make this possible: the city’s current testing capacity is 100,000 people per day.
23andMe is conducting a large-scale genomic study of hospitalized Covid-19 patients to help determine if genetic differences can help explain why some patients exposed to Covid-19 are asymptomatic while others are left suffering for months.
Omnicare, a long-term pharmacy affiliated with CVS, has agreed to pay a $15 million penalty for failing to properly monitor opioid distribution.