
Project Covalence - dmnd
https://blog.samaltman.com/project-covalence
======
simonebrunozzi
Hmm, sounds more like a PR statement rather than the usual (insightful) posts
that Sam writes. Anyway...

> Project Covalence’s platform, powered by TrialSpark, is uniquely optimized
> to support COVID-19 trials, which are ideally run in community settings or
> at the patient’s home to reduce the burden placed on hospitals and health
> systems.

What's a "platform" in this case? I'd love to read simpler words. Is it a...
piece of software to coordinate things? A physical machine? Else?

~~~
memexy
I looked at the site

> Participate in a clinical trial at no cost to you or your health insurance.

Why would health insurance be involved when running medical trials and why
would it cost anything? The pitch doesn't make sense to me. I always assumed
medical trials were free for the participants. No idea who their target
demographic is which makes me suspicious already.

~~~
type0
> Why would health insurance be involved when running medical trials and why
> would it cost anything?

To cover for the possible adverse effects

~~~
gumby
Actually AEs, and especially SAEs, are more often than not handled by the
clinical investigators or trial sponsor, for a variety of reasons.

Insurance policies often don't cover you while you're enrolled in a trial
("you wouldn't have broken your leg if you hadn't been in that cholesterol
drug trial so we don't cover that").

The agency really cares a lot, especially about SAEs, and if someone is hit by
a trolley while in a cholesterol drug study they will want the company to
promptly determine that the drug didn't cause them to stumble, or lose vision,
or be confused about where they were. We used to joke at one company, "but
being hit by a meteor is not an SAE."

~~~
_Microft
SAE = serious adverse event

------
chintan
Great initiative! There needs to be more effort towards streamlining these
trials.

At TrialX [1], we also launched Covid Labs Initiative to _Hack The Pandemic_
[2] by bringing together hackers in Clinical Trials informatics space - Drop
us a note hackcovid@trialx.com if interested.

We are seeing an unprecedented activity on-the-ground at various orgs[3,4,5]
where we power the clinical trials recruitment. There is a huge interest in
patient/volunteer community. Any effort to streamline and accelerate would be
welcome.

1\. [https://trialx.com](https://trialx.com)

2\. [https://trialx.com/covid-labs/](https://trialx.com/covid-labs/)

3\.
[https://www.pennmedicine.org/coronavirus/covid-19-clinical-t...](https://www.pennmedicine.org/coronavirus/covid-19-clinical-
trials)

4\. [https://www.centerwatch.com/covid-19-treatment-
information](https://www.centerwatch.com/covid-19-treatment-information)

5\.
[https://clinicaltrials.med.nyu.edu/clinicaltrials/?keyword=C...](https://clinicaltrials.med.nyu.edu/clinicaltrials/?keyword=COVID-19)

------
dzink
Why set up a separate brand to funnel COVID trial business to TrialSpark? From
their own site, TrialSpark is a VC-backed company which primarily runs trials
for major drug companies to recruit more patients with painful chronic
conditions (like Astma, COPD, Diabetes, inflammatory, skin problems etc, but
not cancer)for drug studies. The highly profitable medical areas are clearly
attractive for Pfizer, but the sales pitch of TrialSpark is to identify high
cluster areas of a disease in small communities, recruit community doctors and
incentivize them to attract patients to drug studies with 1.9x higher than
usual conversion rate.

So why the separate brand?

------
jxramos
I've actually been wondering as covid19 winds down and people's lived
experiences no longer perceive it as the doom and gloom threat it once held
sway with, if given that perception whether the market rewards will continue
to stand and attract massive investments in pursuit of a vaccine where the
rewards may not outweigh the risks.

I would think that would be a pretty strong signal that covid is not as large
a risk if big industries don't think it worthwhile to pursue any longer. Along
those lines of thinking have any of the big pharmaceutical companies given
serious pursuit of a vaccine or is it mainly smaller outfits?

~~~
cinntaile
Most of the big pharma companies are developing a vaccine. [0] The ones that
aren't specifically mentioned by name are probably funding some of the smaller
biotech companies instead.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine)

~~~
jxramos
That is an exceedingly thorough wiki article. What a great testament to
community efforts. Thanks for sharing.

------
DiabloD3
Good luck with that, Sam.

------
hairytrog
It is now clear that Covid-19 is not as dangerous as was thought and hyped by
media and governments worldwide, and that the prescribed shutdown cure has
been and will be much worse than the disease itself. Please see
([https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/](https://swprs.org/a-swiss-
doctor-on-covid-19/)) for a pretty clear summary or follow Aaron Ginn.
Covid-19 vaccine development is nearly useless at this point. That said, we
need countermeasures and resilience to such events in the future.

The expectation is we may be well be in 50% to 100% infection rate if serology
yield is 1/5\. Pretty scary. This means the disease was extremely rapid, and
we would've been absolutely trashed if it had been significantly more lethal.
We need to invest massively on R&D against such potential threats. Covid-19
shows that state control wouldn't have done much to prevent global
devastation, and that state control can itself cause the devastation. We need
technological countermeasures such as one week vaccine development and
deployment or transition to more separate economic spheres with permanent and
complete travel bans and highly controlled trade between countries or
geographic regions.

~~~
shoyer
This is actively dangerous misinformation.

In places where the pandemic is not under control, there have been vast
numbers of excess deaths:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-
missing-deaths.html)

We are still far from the peak in most parts of the world.

New York City has a population about 8 million, with 24,000 [1] excess deaths
and an antibody positive rate of about 20% [2]. Do you really think it would
be acceptable to let another 50,000 people in New York die (0.6% of the
population) to reach herd immunity?

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-11/new-
york-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-11/new-york-city-
had-24-172-excess-deaths-as-outbreak-accelerated) [2]
[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/20/antibody-testing-shows-
coron...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/20/antibody-testing-shows-coronavirus-
is-still-spreading-in-low-income-minority-communities-in-nyc-gov-cuomo-
says.html)

~~~
hairytrog
Lots of downvotes on my comment. A somewhat hilarious denial of what is
plainly visible. Did you people even read the linked summary? The economy was
hijacked for a complete non-threat, driven by increasingly discredited
studies, "experts" speaking in apocalyptic terms, and a media looking for
crisis.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
> The economy was hijacked

So, a conspiracy? I bet hundreds of people met in secret at least once in the
past few months, and decided it would have been really lucrative to stage this
farce. Well played! And nobody will ever know.

Sarcasm or jokes apart... Who, tell me who would have had the power and the
drive to set this up?

~~~
redis_mlc
There have multiple conspiracies with covid-19:

\- coverup at Wuhan Corona Lab in Dec. and disappearance of local doctors

\- coverup of US government funding and oversight of that lab

\- California has had flat hospital stats for 3 months, yet we're still
lockdown because Gavin Newsom wants to be President

