Derek Lowe
Science Magazine
Massachusetts, United States
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Past articles by Derek:
Wonderful Progress Against Severe Lupus
Here’s a recent result I’ve been meaning to highlight. Most readers here will have heard of CAR-T therapy, chimeric antigen receptor T-cells. That’s the technique where you take T-cell precursor cells from a patient and modify them to where they’re “tuned up” for a specific antigen that they haven’t been recognizing. This technique has shown some real successes against some types of leukemia,… → Read More
Eisai/Biogen's Lecanemab And Alzheimer's: More Data
Lecanemab, developed by Eisai and Biogen as anti-amyloid antibody therapy for Alzheimer’s, shows strong numbers in its latest trial. But will the drug really make a difference in treatment? → Read More
GSK's Blenrep: Approval Withdrawn (GSK)
Two of my recent post topics (on antibody-drug conjugates and on accelerated approval) have intersected today. → Read More
Reality Catches Up With EQRx
The company has abandoned their compete-on-price strategy, at least for their first two drugs, and I will be surprised if we ever hear about that part again, either. → Read More
The Clinic Speaks Slowly, And Quietly
A lot of people really don't know how to deal with results from drug trials. How trusty are these trials? Click here to read the full fund letter. → Read More
A Positive Amyloid Trial, Finally?
The big news last night was the announcement of a positive readout in Eisai and Biogen's trial of lecanemab, another attempt at an anti-amyloid antibody for Alzheimer's therapy. → Read More
Quantum Computing Comes To The Rescue?
Check out another aspect of the general computational enthusiasm that we're seeing in drug discovery these days. → Read More
The mRNA Vaccine Patent Fight Expands
Moderna (MRNA) announced that they are filing patent infringement suit in the US and in Germany against Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX) over mRNA vaccine intellectual property. Read more. → Read More
KRAS Drugs Fighting Uphill
KRAS is important in signaling cascade in some big cellular proliferation and growth pathways, which are inappropriately set pedal-to-the-metal in these tumor types. Read more. → Read More
More CRISPR In Human Subjects
Verve Therapeutics has started a trial using CRISPR base editing technology to modify the PCSK9 gene in people with a disease called heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH). → Read More
Athira And Alzheimer's
Sadly, it's not really news when a biopharma company has an Alzheimer's clinical trial failure. Objectively, fosgonimeton would appear to be done. → Read More
Catalogues of complexity
The tangled web of fine chemicals supply frequently throws up surprises → Read More
Crispred CAR-T Cells In The Clinic
There's a lot going on in that area, and I wanted to mention some early data from Caribou Biosciences. Click to read more about CRBU stock. → Read More
TIGIT Troubles
One way to look at the immuno-oncology landscape over the last few years has been to think of it as The Quest for Synergy. Read more. → Read More
Paxlovid Update
Let’s catch up with what’s going on with Paxlovid, the Pfizer drug that inhibits the Main Protease (MPro) of the coronavirus. → Read More
Are Pan-Coronavirus Vaccines Possible?
There's a good amount of work going into another generation of coronavirus vaccines that could have broader activity against more coronaviruses. → Read More
Another Crack At Pain
Pain relief has been a notorious rock upon which many drug discovery projects have broken and sank. Click here to know more... → Read More
Aduhelm, Again
The Medicare CMS issued its final decision that they are indeed only going to pay for the drug in the context of a clinical trial. Click here to know more... → Read More
A spanner in the works
Most drugs work by breaking or stopping something, rather than by making something faster or better → Read More
An ALS Protein, Revealed
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a terrible disease. No controversy in saying that - there is no treatment available, and as a motor neuron syndrome its end result is an early death as movement, speaking, swallowing, and finally breathing are inexorably affected. Less than ten per cent of the cases can be clearly traced to genetic background; the rest have no known cause (although genetics… → Read More