wiggles_md

Why does Freeman Dyson earn a black bar, and Katherine Johnson not?

The Toyota Way. Totally transformed manufacturing.

> With that background, the morality of "smuggling" these cells is a bit of a gray area.

The grey area here is from lack of foundational knowledge surrounding these cells, and your assumptions aren’t useful (nor are they likely, I suspect, to hold). For example, we have no idea if these cells were originally provided to the lab under an MTA, nor any restrictions placed by the funding source.

> Keeping them is just like me keeping my notebooks when I move, even if I haven't finished solving the equations therein.

This is not a grey area: lab notebooks and lab data are generally speaking the property of the lab. The proper procedure is to request permission to create a copy of them when you move to a new institution. Check your university’s IP policy, it should be the governing rule set.

There isn’t enough information in the linked article to say how unique or important these particular cells are or how difficult they would be to replicate. On the more valuable end could be cells provided by a company for testing (maybe transformed to express some sort of protein they’ve created), or primary cells (isolated from an organism) that are unique in some way, or hybridomas that produce monoclonal antibodies for something druggable or diagnostically relevant.

The Boston Herald article linked by another commentator suggests that in at least one element this case fits the pattern of others that have been appearing: the accused is receiving funds from the Chinese government under an ostensible scholar program. In some of the other cases, such as with the Thousand Talents program, the scholars signed contracts that agreed to disclose or assign IP only to the Chinese institutions, conceal the source of funding for studies (both to journals or funding agencies), or agree to work at the Chinese institutions in excess of the norms for visiting appointments. The Thousand Talents program and others like it are a coordinated, calculated, and deliberate effort run by the Chinese government, not the accidental missteps of some aloof academics.

IIRC Logitech used to do this with warranty replacements on Harmony remotes—don’t know if they still do. It made purchasing one used risky.

I assign some blame to always-on modern gauge clusters. You couldn’t see the old-style front lit ones at night unless you turned on your headlights, so there was a sort of natural reminder.

Might have to do with the claims are they seeking for Maxigesic?

That’s what I was trying to say but didn’t successfully, the BEV fires I’ve seen in testing accelerate quite a bit faster. Plus, the battery tends to be located below the passenger compartment, whereas fuel fires tend to start in the engine compartment. It doesn’t feel like the two types of vehicle fires are directly comparable by frequency of incidents alone.

The lithium battery fires I’ve seen associated with BEVs accelerate faster (edit, was: are quite a bit more vigorous) than those I’ve seen associated with gasoline or diesel fueled vehicles. Shouldn’t the violence of the fire (not just the number of incidents) figure into the safety calculus?

At what point do Musk’s statements represent a moderate legal risk?

For the sake of argument, could Musk’s statement, along with his very public insistence of being actively engaged in the design process, demonstrate a cavalier disregard for proper safety engineering at the management level (outside acceptable industry practice) and so a defective process?

I submitted this because there are more than a few startups in the lab test space (partly to take advantage of CLIA).

Or, buy any reasonably newish used car with reasonable parts availability, drive it gently, and keep it well maintained.

Over the long haul an electric car should be superior in total lifecycle emissions relative to a comparable ICE or hybrid, but Tesla’s questionable initial build quality (reworks figure into total emissions!) and odd design choices (like needing to replace the flash unit for the MCU, semiconductor manufacturing is highly polluting), I would question the “greenness” of Tesla in comparison to other makes.

That said, overall it feels unproductive to focus only on a car when thinking about the total impact of oneself on the environment. Someone who drives a brand new Tesla, lives in a single family home, and eats steaks every night I would guess has a larger impact than someone who drives a used Corolla, lives in an apartment, and eats lentils every night. Personal transportation matters, but it’s a part of a larger whole that’s about consuming much less.

You don’t need a PhD, but it helps.

If you want to have a decent shot at getting funding from biotech VCs, the team overall needs experience in biotech AND startups, and the less experience the founder has in biotech the more the team will require to compensate for the deficiency. And vice versa for business experience, a freshly minted PhD is going to need team members with significant biotech BD experience.

A PhD or MD counts towards experience in biotech. MS + years of industry experience also counts, as would BS + many years of industry experience.

A PhD is nice because because it demonstrates deep experience in a narrow field plus an understanding of context. The context part is key. Autodidacts tend to miss out on the context, and their learned knowledge tends to be more fragile as a result, so there is a slight bias towards advanced degrees.

Insufficient experience is a hard no for biotech. Nobody wants to see another Theranos, and notably biotech VCs didn’t put any money into Theranos. We’d like to keep it that way.

I both appreciate the pointer and the suggestion. Thank you.

The suggestion was sadly too long by 6. I’ve gone with “Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices”.

Note that I had to trim the lengthy title: I think this issue is an interesting and an important one to discuss, and that the discussion doesn’t benefit from the political framing. I certainly did editorialize however and would appreciate a better short title if one is offered.

Up until around 89 (I think) you could have even tow started it! The instructions are even in the manual. They are incredible machines.

ABS yes, but it’s a Bosch mechanical pump. There’s a reason for the manual stop lever on it! There is an “electronic diesel system” that feeds into the ALDA system, but the car will run without ALDA. I don’t think the 300D had EDS though.

If there is ever a nuclear apocalypse, the giant mutant cockroaches that survive will be driving around in style in 80’s diesel Mercs.

Fine. Where did BASF get their money from? How much, in your esteemed opinion, should it cost to develop a therapeutic Ab from a drugable target? How should my industry pay for pipeline failures?

You could, if you were dealing with a new chemical entity and were so inclined, file a new application with human pharmacokinetics claims, and then elect the PK patent for your FDA-assisted patent term extension. An excellent choice, since the PK claim patent will likely have the most recent priority date.

> To answer your question directly: in this case study, I see no evidence that a reasonable amount of regulation on pharmaceutical pricing in the United States would have had any discouraging effect whatsoever on the development of this drug

With the benefit of hindsight? I suspect you are correct. But pharma portfolios operate on the lognormal success model of VCs. Without the blockbusters, you can’t fund “development” of the failures that could lead to another blockbuster. (Of course, much if large pharma R&D is by way of strategic partnership and acquisition.)

As to your pricing of the Humira acquisition: I personally would have included some consideration to the existing market exclusivity of the drug. The transaction price is unlikely to be just the “replacement cost”.