Peter Kolchinsky

Our Quest to Beat Autoimmune Disorders — No Patient Left Behind Biomedical innovators are developing new autoimmune therapeutics - insurance reform will ensure new treatments and cures are accessible and affordable.

Autoimmune diseases afflict 45 million Americans—and it requires a collective community effort to change that.

Our new Community Quest video shows how investors, innovators, regulators, patients, insurers—and you—make new treatments possible, accessible, and affordable.

chat-NPLB — No Patient Left Behind

Anyone with questions about drug pricing, investment in innovation, insurance…

There is now an AI you can speak with:
www.nopatientleftbehind.org/chat-nplb

Give it a spin. Call out what you think it gets wrong. (That’s one of the exercises in the NPLB fellowship, actually).

Protect American Innovation — No Patient Left Behind

No Patient Left Behind steps up again
@nplb.bsky.social

Video from many #biotech leaders to #Trump on addressing international freeriding (others paying less than US for meds).

Learn why “Most Favored Nation” policy backfires… and a better approach.

www.nopatientleftbehind.org/protect-amer...

Do you serve on a biotech board? Wish meetings were clearer, shorter, focused on strategy?

You’ll love RA Capital’s Gateway (gateway.racap.com), a resource for execs/directors.

Insights from peers. Used by thousands. Eg. Core value propositions & elephant slides. Role of chair. Price discovery

Rfk Jr & vaccine “skeptics” mislead when they say vaccines haven’t been tested vs placebo. The first vaccine of every kind is absolutely tested vs placebo. When it works, it’s unethical to test future versions vs placebo. Those are tested vs prior version. If better, then also better than placebo.

Reposting for the Harvard Biotech Club members who are joining now for the podcast recording.

YouTube video by BioCentury Video Ep. 75 - PBMs, IRA, RFK Jr: A Conversation With Rep. Jake Auchincloss

Flying back from JPM? Watch this. Congressman Jake Auchincloss knows more about what’s wrong with healthcare, PBMs, drug value assessment, & pricing policy than most executives. Biocentury’s @steveusdin.bsky.social interview surfaces issues all execs need to know.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Ji...

That’s where I think it helps to have choices and to work on what you are more certain has a higher expected return. Question isn’t whether to work on something but what to work on of all the things that could be worth doing.

Ahh… that’s fair. I think of it this way. Someone decides it’s worth stepping up to the plate. They believe they can connect with the ball. Double would be great. Sometimes they hit a homerun or grand slam. They didn’t not predict it, but didn’t expect it. No harm being realistic in one’s optimism.

Arguably the people who invest successfully in these trends predicted these things, even if they didn’t write about it (but they do; gotta look). Some of us bet plenty of money on obesity b/f glp1s… wrongly. Novo and Lilly predicted glp1s could be big… rightly. Someone’s always getting it right. ;)

Semper Maior: Pumping up the candor — RApport Wouldn’t it be better if everyone in our ecosystem were candid with one another? After all, within companies it’s common to encourage everyone to speak their minds. If you see a problem, call it out;...

Biotech on Bluesky get a look first.

RA Capital’s annual thoughts on how biotech can better (Semper Maior; always better). This one explore how we can elicit more candor. Some stories, too.

And tons of top-down data analyzing 2024 performance & setup for 2025.

rapport.bio/all-stories/...

Sure, interesting hypothesis, among others (e.g. tau). Meanwhile, when a drug specifically lowers X and improves Y, that's pretty strong evidence that X is "involved" in Y. Doesn't mean X is everything. But it's probably something. And maybe microglia and tau are good drug targets, too.

We’ll soon open up application for the next No Patient Left Behind fellowship. Completing the “Biotech Unveiled” course & earning a certificate (gotta score well) qualifies one to apply for the fellowship.

Will likely also be part of applying to our TechAltas division.

Biotech on Bluesky, I’m sharing with you first.

RA Capital just launched Biotech Unveiled, a free online course our team created.

Learn at own pace. Covers fundamentals of how insurance + investment direct R&D. Essential knowledge for leaders.

racap.thinkific.com/courses/biot...

And then there’s the question of algos.

But so far, the fact that @erictopol.bsky.social has the most followers and highest follower/post ratio I’ve seen here is heartening. Good to see a bent.

Maybe just my algo, though :)

Good luck Bluesky.

I’m guessing that as the platform matures and people saturate their target market, the ratios won’t be as useful. But for now, Bluesky and many people are it offer a dynamic range in which to appreciate what diffuses through its thick liquid (twitter is more a gas).

…interesting someone might be. Some people have a <1 ratio, many are around 10, and some standouts are at 100.

I would say this is like a virus’s r (which indicates how infectious it is) except that followers effectively never decline (everyone stays infected :)

The interesting thing about Bluesky is watching something like the Wild West open up.

Who knows if it ever becomes as populated as Twitter, but in these early days, you see how a platform takes shape.

For example, notice the ratio of followers to posts… it seems a sign of how… 1/4

It’s a start. That’s how progress works. It compounds. I choose to see the possibilities and look forward to hearing from others who do.

lowering it is relevant to disease improvement. That’s what matters.

amyoid isn't "the" issue but it is part of the issue, which is why the current drugs work at all. That's ok. Some diseases are complex and solving them requires developing a whole toolkit. Cancers can require dozens of drugs. heart disease, dozens.

Opinion | Biden faltered on bird flu. Here’s how Trump can course-correct. The Biden administration’s bird flu response has been too slow. Now comes a test for Trump’s White House.

As a virologist, I encourage everyone to listen to @scottgottliebmd.bsky.social’s advice on preparing for possible flu pandemic. As an investor, I hope US makes appropriate investments.

We have better tools now than we did for COVID. Diff virus, diff tools.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Ain’t that the truth. My daughter is eleven and has food allergies. She feared her EpiPen. asked me regularly how intranasal epinephrine was coming along. Took years… but was just approved and transformed her life. My son has celiac. No cracks yet.

Yes, that’s indeed the pickle. Pace of progress suggests we’ll learn a lot in next few years, which is a blink.

HOME GRUPPO PROGRESS Da 30 anni mettiamo a tua disposizione l'eccellenza dei software gestionali italiani, accompagnati dall'expertise e dalla competenza dei nostri specialisti certificati. Con la nost...

Sure, when problems have one right answer, then crack can only mean to solve. In medicine, we take joy in progress.

Eg I’m not saying Alz is cracked… I thought it might never be, yet now we’re making progress (it’s cracking :). Gives hope that last years of life won’t be stolen by dementia.

Wonderful example of scientific spillover, long ignored by health economists who use simplistic formulas to tell us how little a novel drug is worth. They don’t consider what more we may learn to do with it before it eventually goes generic as a medical Swiss Army knife.

Indeed… long been tough and now we see a way forward. What approach are you most inspired by? (immune reset? Cell therapy? Other?)

By crack, I don’t mean solve… just means that the problem no longer feels impenetrable.

The slowing of progression by anti-abeta antibodies (two now approved) has spurred further work on newer antibodies that should have more efficacy and fewer side-effects. That’s how progress builds.

My whole career (scientist/VC) there were diseases that I thought I might never be cracked.

Alzheimer’s was one. Now seeing signs of progress.

Lupus was another, now cracking. I think it’s curable.

What diseases would you want to see cured?

Scientists here can add if they feel optimistic.

Even they could benefit from candor. I would argue that most investors see no upside in potentially causing offense and not getting a callback. So management needs to signal that it considers all feedback to be a favor they will repay by staying in touch about any thesis changing news.