Tag: COVID-19

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for the second quarter of 2023

Preparing for the next pandemic: don’t waste the value of waste During the Covid-19 pandemic, I got in the habit of checking weekly the Boston sewage report, as a reliable, unbiased way of monitoring trends of infectious activity. There is clearly much more information to extract from waste monitoring and a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine makes a number or recommendations. The CDC is implementing some of them, but in the end, exploiting this source of information will depend on 100s of local actors

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An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for March-April 2022

The opioid crisis and patient abandonment A perspective from a February issue that I originally missed highlighting the plight of patients who have been on a long-term opioid regimen for chronic pain. They are often stable, but it is when their physician retires or leaves that all hell breaks loose because, in this day and age, they cannot find another physician to continue the regimen. For someone who has been taking large doses of opioid for many years, going cold-turkey, or even tapering, is just not an option. These folks

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Wrapping up 2021: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for November-December 2021

In search of a diagnosis: deploying genomics at scale A substantial number of children have a disease identified as “rare” without having any kind of causative diagnosis (autism is not a causative diagnosis!). In a UK pilot study, 2,183 proband children were referred for exome sequencing with additional sequencing of family members if warranted. The overall diagnostic yield was surprisingly high, about 25% overall. Of the approximately half of probands who had neurological or sensory disorder, an explanatory diagnosis was reached in almost 40% of the cases. Two thoughts: 1)

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All immunity: an opinionated take on NEJM highlights for February 2021

We can cure Hep C but not immunize against it Sovaldi and other drugs have made curing chronic Hepatitis C a routine, if expensive, proposition. Still, given how common Hep C infection is, and how it can irreversibly damage the liver without overt signs, a vaccine would be highly valuable. Unfortunately, an NIH sponsored trial with a GSK vaccine in 548 IV drug users at high risk of contracting the disease failed to show any protection: 28 participants developed chronic Hep C evenly divided between the placebo and treatment groups. 

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Closing a tough year: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for December 2020

Cardiovascular health – go big or go narrow? A follow up on the development of evinacumab (Regeneron), an inhibitor of ANGPLT3 (see this opinionated take from 2017), confirming the safety and LDL reduction effect in a population of individuals with cholesterol levels refractory to other therapies (including PCSK9 inhibitors).  Given the history of PCSK9 inhibitors, the development path of this asset will be interesting to follow. Of the 6 trials listed on clinicaltrials.gov not one has anything close to a clinical endpoint – it’s all biomarker based. That will probably

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Covid, medical education, and a bit of RNAi: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for June 2020

What’s your blood type? The first report of a genome wide association study of Covid-19 severity on approximately 4000 patients and controls conducted in Spain and Italy identifies a locus on the 3rd chromosome that spans 6 potential genes for which polymorphisms appear to drive severe disease. Once the culprit gene is determined, this may help us think about drug targets. Reassuringly the study also recovers the correlation of severity with blood group that has empirically been noted in the past (on chromosome 9 although the signal is not as

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Covid, iPSCs, and ADCs: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for May 2020

Remdesivir works… but not enough to change the public health perspective The eagerly awaited results of the remdesivir NIH trial are out, and it’s solid but not smashing, although this is a partial read since the study was interrupted before completion because of evidence of benefit (and we should get more data in the coming months).  Overall, the primary end-point of faster improvement in the treatment group was met while mortality showed a benefit that was just short of statistical significance. Also important is that remdesivir is clearly safe. But

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Covid and the rest: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for April 2020

Hydroxychloroquine does not seem to help much in Covid-19 (with caveat) There has been significant attention to the use of the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine in Covid-19, but data on impact has been scarce. In the absence of clarity, New York Presbyterian Hospital left the use of this drug to the discretion of individual treating physicians from mid-March to early April. This has led to two cohorts of Covid-19 patients which can be compared in retrospective analysis: patients treated with hydroxychloroquine (N=811) and those who did not receive the drug (N=565).   The

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Strategy in the Time of Covid

Preamble A recent post from Recon Strategy outlined the longer-term strategic implications of Covid-19 on 12 healthcare sectors. This post highlights the opportunity to redeploy corporate strategy assets to focus on the most important short-term strategy imperatives to not only ensure organizational resilience but to set up for success coming out of this crisis. Corporate strategy teams have tremendous analytical, creative, and operationally savvy resources that are accustomed to jumping into new situations, getting quickly up-to-speed, and delivering value. Leaders should proactively point these resources towards these areas of greatest

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The infectiologists have the floor: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for March 2020

A first Covid-19 interventional study – unfortunately negative The first of what promises to be a series of many interventional studies for acute Covid-19 disease to appear in the Journal. Lopinavir is an HIV drug that had shown in-vitro activity against SARS, another corona virus, and ritonavir is a drug that boosts lopinavir concentration by reducing its rate of metabolization – so it was worth trying the combo in sick patients with Covid-19.  The study was clearly conducted in quasi-battlefield conditions in one of Wuhan’s main hospital from mid-January to

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Coronavirus and more: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for January/February 2020

Keeping up with COVID-19 It’s not easy for a refereed weekly print periodical to keep up with an epidemic that evolves on a daily basis, but the NEJM is doing its best and all articles are free on-line. Most interesting beyond the description of the initial cluster in Wuhan are: (1) the first US case was quite severe and the patient received the antiviral remdesivir (was in development by Gilead for Ebola, but showing activity against coronaviruses) – it is now in testing in China; (2) the rigorous documentation of

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