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UserSteve your whole point was comparing orders and sales for gdr/ncyt products in relation to the timing of their CE marks but failed to highlight the timing of the CE Mark for Ncyt???? Do you want to do a bit more research and come back to us with this information before summarising, otherwise your point is completely baseless....
Dentist shareholder here - I think there's two perspectives to think about, the patient and the dentist. From a patient's point of view they want to be confident that the dentist and nurse do not have Covid and they want confidence that the practice has got suitable measures in place that reduce the risk of covid entering the practice. From the dentist's perspective, we clearly want to know every patient doesn't have Covid. Our Standard Operating Procedures will change as the government alert levels change, so whilst we are in alert levels 3-5 we will be wearing enhanced PPE (FFP3 masks and gowns, both nurse and dentist) during an Aerosol Generating Procedure (AGP) so that's drilling/ultrasonic scaling. Most practices do not have a negative pressure system in their surgeries and so will have to leave the surgeries for 1 hour after performing an AGP. Following this 1 hour 'fallow' period we then clean for probably 15 minutes to get ready for the next patient. What does the dentist do for that 1 hour 15 minutes?? Essentially whatever happens, dental practice revenues are going to be hit hard, perhaps taking 30-50% of previous revenue at a guess. I suspect a lot of practices will fold or a lot of associate dentists will lose jobs if this doesn't go away. Now if we had an low cost rapid POC test, this could open up dentistry up but it really does depend on the sensitivity of the test and the LOD imo. I don't know where the threshold of acceptability would be for dentists to stop using enhanced PPE and stop the surgery 'fallow' period after AGP's. In terms of dentists and nurses testing daily, I don't think that would be made mandatory but if we found that patient's confidence in coming to the dentist was improved by staff taking daily tests then I'm sure dentists would be happy to do that. They're businesses at the end of the day so they will do whatever it takes to make sure the business is viable. I watched a webinar the other day and a high profile dentist asked the question 'when did infection control in our profession move from risk mitigation to risk elimination??'...I had to laugh....because before we weren't in the middle of a global pandemic??
I'd rather he got this placing out the way prior to big news (prototype completion and CE approval) so PI's don't get spiked like what happened over at GDR. If he does produce the goods, at least he has released news in the correct order to protect investors. Glass half full here!
That daily mail article suggests it'll be up to regulators whether further research is needed or if it can be licensed immediately. Could this mean skipping phase 3 trials due to unprecedented circumstances?
'If the trial is successful, it will be up to drug regulators to decide whether a licence can be issued or further research is needed.
The researchers hope a strong result will allow the treatment to be rolled out immediately.'
More publicity in The Times business section today talking about businesses that have increased in value since share placing. Describes avacta as rising over 1000% since it started developing a new coronavirus test. All good publicity...
It does also say blood samples are sent back for processing and validating in that study so it doesn't look like a POC test to me?
Would it not be fair to have a lower level of sensitivity requirements for roll out of a saliva based POC test if the LOD is better and also easier to acquire a sample. Surely they can't have a blanket cut off for sensitivity and specificity if there are other variables that can affect the false negatives rate?
Background of Prof Stimson
Bill is the founder of the Department of Immunology at The University of Strathclyde. He has been involved in eight start-up/spin-out biotech companies. He has been a long -term consultant to five multinational companies including Akzo Nobel, Rhone-Poulenc and Johnson & Johnson. Bill has published 215 scientific papers and 25 patents. He was involved in the use of the first human monoclonal antibodies for cancer therapy.
Part 2-
they start to destroy the alveolar tissues and also cluster between the blood capillaries and the endothelial cells on the surface of the lungs and prevent oxygen uptake by the capillaries. There are strong positive feedback loops between the cytokine and lung damaging cell populations that result in an uncontrolled inflammatory response that destroys lung tissue. This is an image of when the “Cytokine Storm” hits land, like an immunological hurricane sweeping over a Caribbean island destroying everything in its path. At this point lung tissue has been damaged and the purpose of therapy is to limit damage and keep the lungs viable.
Alpha interferon subtypes have the potential not simply to reduce just one inflammatory cytokine but the entire cascade as interferon works on the cells that produce the cytokines. Classical anti-cytokine therapeutics, whether monoclonal antibodies or inhibitors to IL-6, IL-17 or TNF-alpha, remove just one component of the Cytokine Storm. Whereas this may be very effective in a narrow anti-inflammatory condition, the more complex or “stormy” the cytokine system the harder it is to manage the Storm by simply dealing with just one cytokine.
Innate Lymphoid Cell Therapeutics (ILC), a UK biotech company, have patented and are developing an Alpha 14 interferon therapeutic to bolster the initial innate immune response to respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and prevent the development of Cytokine Storm and ARDS.
Part 1 - Just been reading an article on The Times app about the cytokine storm and the above person commented on the article. He has set up the above company that he talks about at the end of his post. I'll post more on his background but this is what he posted. (I know it's interferon alpha, so I've asked him about beta and synairgen, if I get a response I'll update you)
This is a good article explaining the process of cytokine storms. A storm at sea is not as dangerous as when a storm hits land. In this context Cytokine Storms “hit land” when they impact the cells in the human lungs and this is when the damage happens. Although you refer to the triggering of innate anti-viral responses by RNA you do not mention that the chemical messenger responsible for this protective response is Alpha Interferon. It was the first ever cytokine discovered and has its name because it “interferes” with viral replication and an increase in patient’s temperature is a key part of this “interference.” Only when the body’s alpha interferon response is circumvented/delayed by a virus does a cytokine storm and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) manifest. The best therapeutic intervention is the prevention of the Cytokine Storm and ARDS not its treatment - stop a fire developing rather than fight a fire.
Natural Alpha interferons: produced by everyone, are a family of about 12 very similar proteins some with varying anti-viral and immunostimulatory effects. Alpha Interferon subtype 14 not only has powerful anti-viral activity but also stimulates innate immune cells in the respiratory pathway to fight the virus, these cells are called Natural Killer (NK) cells. As long as the virus does not circumvent the alpha interferon response then it is contained until an adaptive response is built up to eradicate the infection. SARS, MERS and COVID-19 have all developed strategies to protect themselves against the interferon response, mostly by buying time, and delaying the innate immune response. This strategy is most effective in patients who have early and high viral loads in their cells thanks to higher number of ACE2 receptors or other factors that are not fully understood as yet. This is why strengthening the innate immune response early in the disease using alpha interferon is of such therapeutic interest. Interferon also has a long record of successful co-therapy or adjuvant therapy with classical anti-viral compounds like ribavirin in the treatment of Hepatitis C.
When the protective Innate Immune response mediated by alpha interferon and NK cells is overwhelmed then the body seems to “throw the kitchen sink” at the virus by recruiting Neutrophils and alveolar Macrophages. These innate immune cells were first discovered in the 19th century and together represent about 80% of the White Blood Cells in our bodies. The Cytokine Storm ( IL-6, IL-17, IL-8 etc.) and related messengers called Chemokines attract these cells onto the surface of the lungs where
Both lab tests though right? Roche and Abbott....neither are POC.
Sir John Ball when interviewed on ch4 news just now said the home antibody tests we had tested were not very good "so we had to build our own"....that sounds pretty positive to me
Thanks tricky, I didn't see the whole interview so just piecing things together.
So it sounds like they've completed the original study, with 1,000 blood tests (lab based) and many more nasal swabs, that's how they've got the 0.27% figure and now they are extending the study with a different antibody test developed by the University of Oxford 'that works' and are now in the process of scaling the test up.
Very positive.
I think this is the study the director of ONS was referring to:
https://oxfordbrc.nihr.ac.uk/large-scale-covid-19-infection-and-antibody-test-study-launched/
Talks about phlebotomies and lab tests so not sure why he used the term 'scaling up' unless it's a new type of test...