The Covid R&D Alliance

https://www.covidrdalliance.com

We touched on the covid R&D alliance yesterday when we were discussing the swamp that is AbbVie. When I got to digging into the covid alliance, it needed a post of its own.  So recapping from yesterday: 

The COVID R&D Alliance brings together the world’s most experienced and accomplished leaders in therapeutic drug research and development, and the resources of their organizations to identify, study, and accelerate the most promising candidates across a broad spectrum of therapies and vaccines. Unconstrained by “how things have been done in the past,” companies with expedited programs already underway are finding synergies and advancing candidates faster than a single company, government, or NGO can alone. Over time, COVID R&D Alliance efforts will expand to identify and test early-stage candidates and antivirals. We are united in our goal: identify medicines, medicine combinations, and vaccines to prevent COVID-19’s deadly symptoms or stop them in their tracks. There is no time to wait.

So who all is in this R&D alliance?!?!  Far more than even I realized. 

Pfizer and Moderna and J&J and Astra Zeneca no shocker.  Takeda and AbbVie should be no shocker after reading the last 2 days substack posts.  We will learn more about these other pharma companies in the coming days, but I wanted a post that put all of them together that you can reference back to.  But it goes EVEN DEEPER.  When asked “what other groups are working on solutions and are you partnered with them” their reply was this:  

“Our efforts are complementary other accelerators, NGOs, and GOVERNMENT initiatives.  We communicate and share information and efforts to avoid duplication as the WORLD RACES to find therapies for covid 19.  Here is the best part.  “The Covid R&D Alliance members (the pharmacy companies in the photo above) also coordinate with the NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH, THE BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION, AND THE US AND EUROPEAN TRADE GROUPS AND REGULATORS.  

Wanna barf yet?  This might induce the vomiting:  “Our work is focused on finding treatments through shared expertise, data, and evaluation of drug candidates.  A WIN FOR ONE IS A WIN FOR ALL.  THE WORLD IS COUNTING ON US. 

The “goals” of the Covid Alliance are:

In our race against COVID-19, time is our enemy. Every achievement—no matter how small—brings us a step closer to helping critically ill patients and protecting public health and communities. (Barf)

Their mission is to “stop the deadly symptoms” and spread of covid 19 by identifying and accelerating therapies, vaccines, and learnings faster than any organization alone could do.  

How are they tackling covid?  By using immunomodulators, novel antibodies, and antivirals.  Adaptive trials that SHORTEN THE TIME to test treatments and oh hey they can allow therapies to be added or removed DURING the trial!  WTF no.  Sharing information in real time and a centralized clinical trial data bank to track trials, designs, recruitment, therapeutic approaches, and drug safety cnsiderations.  

Here is a great little linky to the Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative, made up of AbbVie, Takeda, and AmGen.  https://www.covidrdalliance.com/pdf/ISPY_PressRelease_August_3_Final.pdf

SAN FRANCISCO, CA August 3, 2020 – Today, members of the COVID R&D Alliance AbbVie, Inc. (NYSE: ABBV), Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN), and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (NYSE: TAK) announced the first patients enrolled in the I-SPY COVID Trial (Investigation of Serial Studies to Predict Your COVID Therapeutic Response with Biomarker Integration and Adaptive Learning) clinical trial. The I-SPY COVID Trial will evaluate the efficacy of cenicriviroc, a chemokine (CCR2 and CCR5) dual-receptor antagonist, Otezla® (apremilast), a PDE4 inhibitor, and Firazyr® (icatibant injection), a bradykinin B2 receptor antagonist in severely ill, hospitalized COVID-19 patients who require high-flow oxygen.

The I-SPY COVID Trial utilizes Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative's adaptive platform trial design, which is intended to increase trial efficiency by minimizing the number of participants and time required to evaluate potential treatments.

"Collaborative research efforts leveraging adaptive platform trials enable faster and more complete learning about what works for patients, and they are especially critical for addressing urgent public health threats like COVID-19,” said Dr. Mark McClellan, director of the Robert J. Margolis, Center for Health Policy at Duke University and former commissioner of the U.S. FDA and administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "Platform trials bring down the cost and increase the ease of executing well-powered, high quality studies, especially when multiple, potential therapies need to be evaluated quickly. The I-SPY COVID Trial is expanding a timely and effective platform trial strategy to evaluate promising treatments while maintaining an appropriate level of safety and statistical rigor necessary for regulatory evaluation.”

The study is a collaboration between members of the COVID R&D Alliance, Quantum Leap, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). AbbVie, Amgen, and Takeda are members of the COVID R&D Alliance (COVID R&D), a group of more than 20 of the world’s leading

biopharmaceutical and life science companies working to speed the development of potential therapies, novel antibodies, and anti-viral therapies for COVID-19 and its related symptom

I can’t get over the fact they call it the I-SPY covid trial.  I spy with my little eye a whole stinking pile of corruption and horseshit. 

This is why I chose to “showcase” Takeda and AbbVie first.  Onto the next pharma dark hole tomorrow.