Member Info for Matml74

Matterhorn,

This latest study is still looking at the mutations on the Toll like receptor (TLR) genes. Earlier studies had identified mutations on TLR3. This study identified mutations on TLR7 as being the most important in leading to severe disease.

Relax. This post is not about vaccines.

“ A study of young men with COVID-19 has revealed a genetic variant linked to disease severity.

The discovery, published recently in eLife, means that men with severe disease could be genetically screened to identify who has the variant and may benefit from interferon treatment.”

"Our results show that young men with severe COVID-19 who have lost function in their interferon-regulating genes represent a small but important subset of more vulnerable COVID-19 patients," says co-senior author Elisa Frullanti, Researcher of Medical Genetics at the University of Siena.

Co-senior author Alessandra Renieri adds: "These mutations could potentially account for disease severity in up to 2% of young men with COVID-19. We believe that screening for these mutations in men who are admitted with severe disease and promptly treating them with interferon could prevent more deaths."

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/e-rgv032321.php

Really appreciate that post. Thanks Schnorrer.

Syn, Ties in nicely with this paper out today on Ageing and Interferons.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/10/3/708

“ As highlighted by the COVID-19 global pandemic, elderly individuals comprise the majority of cases of severe viral infection outcomes and death. A combined inability to control viral replication and exacerbated inflammatory immune activation in elderly patients causes irreparable immune-mediated tissue pathology in response to infection. Key to these responses are type I, II, and III interferons (IFNs), which are involved in inducing an antiviral response, as well as controlling and suppressing inflammation and immunopathology.”

The stats are done externally by Toby Batten of Veramed. Thats the there done that way last time on P2 hospital trial.

Just on the Bloomberg terminal. IMO I think it might be an error.

I have seen all the Bloomberg screens from early February and all those from March (there are 5). On the screens in early February it showed tikvah as holding no shares. Now we know tikvah sold down to below 3% from the early Jan RNS, so in Feb I presumed they have sold down to 0. However on the March screens Tikvah are back with 7m shares just over 3%. I find it hard to believe they held over 5% sold down to 0 and then re-bought 7m shares.

In respect to Polar the above may help to explain why they are not on the screen. If they have sold they are overdue a TR1 as the screen indicates them not being a shareholder in early March. Polar have always been efficient with the TR1's so I think that unlikely.

Doc,

It's always been there. There have been some amendments today to the P2/home trial protocol. They have added some long covid endpoints 60 & 90 day. Means last data from home trial will be collected 19th April (90 day for last dosed patient.

It's not related to Activ-2.

It is SG016 - P2/home trial you are looking at not SG018 (P3).

Scotty, More likely to be gendrive's POC. They are able to identify all genotypes with their Hep C POC test that has been around a while.

This is not a threat to LFD's though. It would be used in combination with them.

The news out today about a new test focussing on fast genotype testing in the daily mail is very interesting.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9387127/New-Covid-test-HALVE-time-takes-identify-mutant-strains-experts-say.html

What is Genedrive's POC Hep C test able to do?

"The PoC assay identified all major HCV genotypes"

https://gut.bmj.com/content/67/11/2017

A POC test that can identify all covid variants will be massive. I think gendrive may have cracked this. Seems strange that there has been no news on the POC when it was due in Q1. I think we are in for a nice surprise!

Soleboy,

Third bullet point says it all. Gov test not yet named .......

The Company's production capacity will be used to fulfil demand across a range of lateral flow tests:

· VISITECT® CD4 Advanced Disease test - a rapid, semi-quantitative lateral flow assay used in the treatment of patients living with HIV

· VISITECT® branded COVID-19 lateral flow antigen tests - now CE marked and being launched in April as noted above

· COVID-19 Lateral flow antigen tests - under contract for the UK Government (as announced on 11 February 2021)

· VISITECT® COVID-19 IgM/IgA/IgG - a rapid test for the detection of three antibody isotypes to SARS-CoV-2

· AbC-19TM COVID-19 Rapid Antibody Test

Interesting finding in MS patients.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33743151/

“ Patients with MS were less likely to develop COVID-19 when treated with interferons (0.61%) and glatiramer acetate (0.51%)”

“ Interferons and glatiramer acetate were associated with a reduced COVID-19 risk, whereas anti-CD20 therapies were associated with an increased risk, within the treated MS cohort.”

Tikevah have also bought back in to just over 3%.

Generating CV data for a test is not like running a blinded clinical trial where no-one knows what data is being generated in therms of efficacy. They will know exactly the data they are getting for the clinical validation hence his confidence this week around CE marking end of quarter. It's just a matter of getting the total numbers tests required to fulfil the validation. Can't be far away now. Been running it for a month.

The future. Good to see this is being discussed. SNG are going to have a fairly complete dataset based on early and hospitalised administration and when is best to give the drug.

https://aac.asm.org/content/65/4/e00065-21

IMO the reason to invest in early stage biotech is to hold them until there is a takeover.

Lol. Was just trying to lower the tone Pigster.

Good paper on asymptomatic transmission.

“ Until there is widespread implementation of robust surveillance and epidemiological measures that allow us to put out these smokeless fires, the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be fully extinguished.”

Come on down AffiDX!

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6535/1206

Of course Avacta is working with Porton down. The work done on the variants was with Porton Down that was rns'd last week.

So sovereign test manufacturer's get contracts worth £1.5 billion to be ready to produce 2 million LFD's a week by end of May. That is an awful lot of AffiDX® SARS-CoV-2 Lateral Flow Rapid Antigen Tests!