While the coronavirus has impacted millions of Americans across the United States, it has hit the elderly population particularly hard. In fact, more than 40 percent of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. have been linked to long-term care facilities, according to a New York Times survey. In an effort to bring those numbers down, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has just launched a late-stage antibody treatment trial focusing on residents and staff at nursing homes.
"COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on nursing home residents," Lilly's chief scientific officer Daniel Skovronsky said in a statement. "We're working as fast as we can to create medicines that might stop the spread of the virus to these vulnerable individuals."
The trial is expected to enroll up to 2,400 participants who live or work at a facility and have recently been diagnosed with the disease. The trial will evaluate the safety and success of using LY-CoV555, a potent, neutralizing antibody that works against the spike protein of the novel coronavirus. The trial will look at whether a single dose of the antibody treatment reduces the rate of infection over four weeks as well as symptoms over eight weeks.
"The importance of these kinds of therapies for people like the elderly or immunocompromised is that they can provide the hope and the safety net that these people really need right now," said Andrew Adams, vice president of new therapeutic modalities & COVID-19 research at Eli Lilly, who is overseeing the trial. "I think people in those populations are really desperate and looking for something to help with the coronavirus."
Eli Lilly is taking its trial on the road with customized mobile research units that can travel directly to areas that are experiencing outbreaks.
"This is an interesting solution, to bring the medicine to these vulnerable patients," said Adams. "This lets us be flexible and move these trials around the country, tracking these trials as we come across them."
Adams said he is hoping Eli Lilly will have results on the efficacy of these antibodies in the fourth quarter of this year. Even if successful, though, he says research for a vaccine needs to continue.
"These have to be thought of as more of a bridge, where a vaccine provides long-term protection in terms of years of immunity, where we will provide hopefully in the range of months with these types of treatments. We hope this to be a short-term bridge to the long-term effective vaccination," he said.
After two decades of engineering, over $10 billion, and a series of delays, the most powerful telescope built by NASA is finally scheduled to launch on Saturday. The James Webb Space Telescope was built to provide a fresh look at the universe by detecting light that is invisible to the human eye and to reveal new information about the universe's oldest stars and galaxies. Lou Strolger, observatory scientist and deputy head of instruments division, space telescope, joins Cheddar News.
Carlo and Baker kick off the weirdest week of the year with all the news you missed over the holiday weekend, including calls for the CDC to shorten its isolation window as Omicron sweeps through the country.
The 2022 Winter Olympics will be without some of hockey's biggest players. The NHL and the NHL Player's Association have agreed to not participate in the men's hockey tournament at the Games in Beijing next year. The league has been forced to postpone some games because of a rise in COVID-19 cases among players. Washington Post sports reporter Samantha Pell joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss what this could mean for the Winter Olympics and the sport of hockey.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a formal investigation into Tesla. The agency is looking into about 580,000 Tesla vehicles, and a feature called 'Passenger Play' which allows drivers to play video games on the center touch screen. The feature previously only worked when a vehicle was in park; but, the NHTSA says it has confirmed that the feature has been available while vehicles are in motion since December of 2020. iSeeCars.com executive analyst Karl Brauer joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Baron Davis and Kate Hudson want you to bring cannabis home for the holidays. The cannabis-infused seltzer brand Cann released a new spot featuring the actress and former NBA player. The campaign comes hand in hand with Cann's launch of a new holiday bundle, which includes its product with Hudson's King Street Vodka. Davis and Hudson are also Cann investors. Cheddar cannabis reporter Chloe Aiello spoke to Davis about his involvement with the company and its new campaign.
Healthcare workforce management platform ShiftMed
recently announced a $45 million funding round.
The company's platform connects nurses and healthcare professionals to hospitals and other healthcare providers.
ShiftMed's new funding comes amid widespread labor shortages in the healthcare sector. The company's CEO Todd Walrath joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Universities like UCLA, Yale, and Duke have announced they're implementing remote learning amid the COVID omicron variant surge, despite President Biden recommending that K-12 schools should continue in-person education. Jared C. Bass, senior director for Higher Education at American Progress, joined Cheddar to break down what institutions of higher education might be considering differently. "I think some universities are allowing periods of a bit of a respite to allow students to get testing and make sure when they do return back to campus that they're healthy," he noted.
Supply chain issues have become one of the biggest roadblocks for the U.S. EV market, with production woes likely to stunt the industry's growth in 2022. Rich Steinberg, electric vehicle expert and industry advisor, told Cheddar that the Biden administration investing in domestic mining for essential minerals used in battery manufacturing — such as lithium — could help alleviate the bottlenecks. "Some of those same materials are available domestically, they just haven't been prioritized," he said, noting the paradox between green tech and "dirty" mining. "The good news is that there are ways to extract those materials cleanly."
Hyperfine, the pioneer of the very first FDA-approved portable MRI device, made its public debut on the Nasdaq via a SPAC merger. CEO Dave Scott joined Cheddar's "Opening Bell" to discuss the IPO launch, the company's valuation at $580 million, and the impact of its machine called Swoop. "We can roll an MRI system, our MRI Swoop system, right into the room where you are, right up to your patient bedside, and scan you right there and get an image in less than an hour," he explained.
Dr. Rob Davidson, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Health Care and an ER Physician in West Michigan, joins Cheddar News to break down the expectations of Pfizer's new COVID-19 treatment pill.
