A: The Nerdy Girls want nothing more to wake up one day to this type of COVID-19 “game-changer” news. Maybe this was all a bad dream! For now, we lean towards consuming this stream of press with both cautious optimism AND skepticism.
The news story in question from Friday came from a press release by Sorrento Therapeutics, whose stock went up 153% on the news that it had found an antibody that provides “100% inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 infection of healthy cells after four days incubation.” The antibody works by preventing the virus from attaching to the host’s healthy cell, which means it can’t enter the cell and reproduce.
This does sound like promising news, so file under cautiously optimistic. Caveats include:
1)This is a “laboratory” study, meaning a test tube/petri dish rather than in real humans.
2)The actual study/data has not been released in a scientific pre-print OR peer reviewed paper.
3) Even best case, this is not an overnight “cure”. “We anticipate having enough material to start a Phase I trial in patients in the ICU within two months.”
“If the Phase I trial starts by the beginning of July, they will know within a week or two whether the antibody is having an effect. If it is effective and safe in the patients, they would expect to start a larger Phase II trial in August or possibly September.”
4) Finally, there seems to be a pattern to pharmaceutical press releases without accompanying data that result in large stock surges…enough reason to maintain some healthy skepticism until further results come out.
Finally, with all of the treatments and vaccines being tested right now, there will likely be a steady stream of news of “magic bullet” cures. Real progress will likely be more incremental, but large and cumulative in the medium and longer term. We Nerdy Girls have the upmost confidence in the potential of all the human brainpower focused on solving this COVID-19 problem right now. Breakthroughs will happen, but they will have to last beyond one news cycle and be vetted thoroughly. We stand ready to help interpret the firehose of news along the way!
