
California scientist says his team has discovered potential cure for COVID-19 - maxwell
https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/pandemic-scientist-says-his-team-has-discovered-a-potential-cure-for-covid-19-coronavirus-california/509-4a895be1-80f6-46b0-8812-e2d49d20bebf
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aazaa
This is very far away from a cure. The team does not even appear to have done
animal efficacy studies, never mind the usual animal tox studies:

> We are sending [the antibodies] to the military for confirmation testing and
> to Charles River Laboratories for safety and tox characterization.

The article does a very poor job of conveying just how far away this is from a
cure. More likely than not, it will fall out either due to tox or low efficacy
before it even gets to Phase 1.

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gnicholas
Why would it fail due to tox if it's an adaptation of something that worked on
SARS in 2002?

> _We took a series of five antibodies from around 2002 that were able to
> neutralize SARS_

EDIT: maybe instead of downvoting you could explain your thinking?

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s1artibartfast
There is no indication that the technology they are leveraging was ever tested
in a meaningful way and _drug development is hard_.

Finding an antigen that binds to the virus is the relatively easy part.
Finding one that is safe and manufacture-able is the hard part.

The link below[1] describes this process for a small molecule chemical
compounds and gives a success rate of 5000:1. Distributed Bio is at the very
beginning of this process, and is working with a large molecule, which is
vastly more complex.

The researchers are at step zero of a complex process which can take 12–15
years and cost in excess of $1 billion [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead)
[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/)

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gnicholas
When I saw the timeline of this announcement and thought about the recent (and
somewhat surprising) upswing in the stock market, it made me wonder if there
was a link. I've found that friends/neighbors who work at hedge funds have
been among the most well-informed regarding covid developments. They got out
before the market dropped, and they'll likely get back in before it rises
again (and may help cause its rise, due to their moves).

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moneywoes
Do you think they're getting in?

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lol768
I get an "Access Denied" message.. is the news provider unwilling to take
their visitor's privacy seriously and therefore blocking all EU visitors?

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JPLeRouzic
[https://outline.com/gDC4fg](https://outline.com/gDC4fg)

