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The most important news in healthcare: Friday, June 19th
Good morning. Today we’re covering the latest COVID-19 statement piece and a potentially life-altering gene therapy for patients with hemophilia. And for those of you who rely on your sense of smell to tell the difference between a red and a white wine, keep reading.
If you like it then you should have put a ring on it
The pulse:
The NBA season is slated to restart next month in Walt Disney World, but a championship ring might not be the most valuable piece of basketball jewelry anymore. The league recently announced that it will offer every player an Oura Ring, a smart device that claims to identify COVID-19 infection up to 3 days before symptoms begin.
What’s the Oura Ring?
The Oura Ring is a “smart” ring that is currently marketed as a sleep tracker. The ring also monitors heart rate, temperature, and respiratory rate — all metrics that can be impacted by COVID-19. Oura is now leveraging its algorithm to function as an early diagnostic tool for COVID-19.
How is a ring able to detect symptoms before they start?
Oura believes that by analyzing the relationship between a variety of biometrics – for example, spikes in body temperature combined with increased heart rate variability – the ring may be able to predict the onset of symptoms before the wearer actually experiences them. The ring is synced to a mobile app that allows the wearer to monitor symptoms and even has a “proximity alarm” that will alert its wearer if another person is within 6 feet.
Is this more or less reliable than a mood ring?
Oura claims that its ring can detect COVID-19 before symptom onset with a 90% accuracy rate, but more research is needed to back this up. Oura is currently sponsoring a study out of UCSF to see how well its device is able to track symptoms in 2,000 healthcare workers. In the meantime, the Oura Ring is on sale to the general public for $299.
Bottom line it for me:
With the ability to help people socially distance and enable wearers to monitor their own symptoms, the Oura Ring could be your next summer must-have accessory.
Source: Docwire News.
Gene therapy for hemophilia A reads out promising long term data
The pulse:
This week, BioMarin Pharmaceuticals released promising data on its in-development gene therapy for patients with a rare blood disorder called hemophilia A.
What’s hemophilia A?
Patients with hemophilia A lack a protein called Factor VIII that clots blood and helps stop bleeding. That means that even minor cuts can lead to uncontrolled bleeding. There are between 15,000 - 20,000 patients with hemophilia A in the U.S, and at least half of those patients have a severe form of disease that requires life-long Factor VIII replacement therapy.
What causes hemophilia?
Hemophilia A is an inherited genetic disorder. Where healthy patients have a normal gene that produces Factor VIII, patients with hemophilia have a mutated gene that is not able to produce Factor VIII. The well-defined genetic cause of hemophilia makes it an ideal candidate for gene therapy, which is a way by which scientists use a harmless virus to introduce a copy of a normal gene into the patient’s body.
Okay, so tell me more about BioMarin’s treatment.
If approved, BioMarin’s treatment, called Roctavian, would be the first gene therapy for hemophilia. Roctavian works by using a virus to introduce the normal Factor VIII gene to patients’ cells so that patients will no longer need Factor VIII replacement therapy. It’s been four years since the study started, and in that time, patients treated with Roctavian have experienced 90% fewer bleeding episodes than they did before treatment. Roctavian also appears to be safe, with no serious adverse effects noted.
What’s next for Roctavian?
BioMarin has filed for FDA approval for Roctavian and the decision will be announced by August 21st. If approved, it will be the third gene therapy to reach the market.
Bottom line it for me:
A gene therapy for a rare and devastating blood disorder is safe, effective, and on track for FDA approval.
Rapidfire:
A study published in Nature Medicine has shown that levels of protective antibodies may fall dramatically within 2 to 3 months of COVID-19 infection, and that the drop may be even more precipitous in people who were asymptomatic.
The FDA has cleared the first therapeutic video game to treat children with ADHD. The interactive game aims to retrain neural networks but has previously shown lackluster results in improving attention and executive function.
For those of you with futures as sommeliers, pay attention: new research is starting to decode the incredibly complex way we detect smells. By tricking mice into smelling synthetic scents, researchers in the U.S. and Italy were able to study brain activity involved with interpreting smell.