Adam Davidson, CEO of Trident Royalties, discusses offtake milestones and catalysts to boost FY24. Watch the video here.
Doc D - how many times have I explained: our data always showed some efficacy with IFNs with most respiratory viruses. It’s not that “they do not work “. It’s that the effects are relatively weak unless you give them prophylactically. So the failure to show a strong effect in P3 is what I anticipated and warned everyone about
You are misreading this article Tommy . Most of it is about ameliorating the effect of iFNs.
May be your amateur insight will win the day and 3 years from now IFN will be in the clinic. Maybe the disappointing results we had with RSV, influenza and herpes viruses were misleading. But 40 years of failure, the failure of P3, the points I make below all suggest this is more likely to fail than succeed. I worry about the faux science you all push
tommy - this is the position with influenza . it causes a huge release of ifn which is why you feel so **** when you have it, why you get muscle ache and a fever
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc4638190/
Aether
I am not sure I know what a "sock puppet" is but I doubt it is something flattering. I find it amusing that although I accurately warned about the risks of the phase 3 trials you still assume I am something other than an expert on interferon.
OK today's quiz. A serious one for all the amateur scientists out there - looking at you in particular Tommy.
As you know IFN is a natural product. It is produced naturally in all tissues, including the lungs, in response to a viral infection. This all happens without any intervention from medical practitioners . IFN is one of the oldest forms of passive immunity and IFN like substances are even found in plants. So over 100s of millions of years IFNs have evolved to be highly effective. Not only do they create an antiviral state in uninfected cells (thereby providing protection) but they play a key role as messengers in the passive and adaptive immune systems. There are numerous types of IFNs and their effects are important and subtle.
The role interferons play have evolved under evolutionary pressure. That pressure comes from viral infections. The passive and adaptive immune systems have been in an arms race with viruses for 100s of millions of years.
The problem with the idea that IFN might be an effective antiviral in therapy is that it carries an assumption that our bodies would be better defended if they produced more IFN. In other words evolutionary pressures have resulted in our producing this incredible stuff IFN but we would be better protected if we produced a bit more. Really? If it were so simple we would have evolved to produce more .
It is not surprising therefore that in 40 years we have only had one widely used application for IFN in treating virus disease (HepB)- and its rubbish at that
IFN does work ok as an prophylactic. And that kind of makes sense in that you are giving it before the body has had the opportunity to produce IFN in response to infection. AND I acknowledge that there might in theory be some viruses which are successful in suppressing IFN production (although I remain sceptical about this for technical reasons). But the idea that IFN would ever be a useful broad spectrum antiviral because our immune systems did not work out they need to produce a bit more is to my mind doubtful.