Brian Finrow

Uncommon results like this are commonplace at Lumen Bio. Requires a team with uncommon talent — talented people like YOU! Join us! Especially — right now — if you have a passion for clinical trials or assay qualification/validation.

1/ For nearly 350 years, science has communicated itself through one object: the paper. A linear narrative, frozen as a PDF, written for a human reader. We've come to treat that format as the medium of science itself. It doesn't have to be. It's a historical artifact. 🧵

There's a common misconception that Brutalist buildings were unpainted, but thanks to microscopic analysis of the exteriors we can now recreate what they looked like in their prime.

Wealth permits a morality to exist that would be incomprehensible to our ancestors. E.g. Germany yesterday finally captured the stranded whale whose story had gripped the nation, and is now escorting him via barge back to the deeper Atlantic. An enormous, multiday operation.

@CloisterRes There's a literature on everything nber.org/papers/w34678

I am totally in the bag for GLP-1s due to my $NVO position, but it is actually shocking that there is debate around covering GLP-1s for obesity. Like, how can it possibly be true that, in aggregate, putting everyone on GLP1 wouldn't save billions to the system writ large? Not sure why insurers are so resistant, even for overweight folks.

The dream of China surpassing the U.S. as the world’s largest economy is fading. In 2021, China’s GDP was about 78% of the U.S.; by 2024, that share had fallen to roughly 64%, back to around 2017 levels, with the gap between the two economies doubling in just a few years.

There is more high tech in Israel than in Italy w x 6 the population because rich Israelis invest in the risky projects of young Israelis while rich Italians more prudently demand safer investments. The result of all that prudence is a terrible stagnation that pols ignore

US manufacturing capacity has shown solid growth for 16 consecutive quarters, indicating a consistent trend. This is the first sustained expansion of US manufacturing capacity in nearly two decades. What makes it more interesting is that many of the sectors leading the expansion are those that feed back into production itself: business equipment (+4.6% YoY), machinery, electrical equipment, fabricated metal, and computer and electronic products. federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/c…

VC is becoming more and more like momentum trading -- investing big amounts in things already working. But VC at its best is about giving the underestimated outsider a chance to change the system for the better, even though the odds are against them. We must not lose that!

It’s interesting how many aspects of modern political commentary hold up the 1945-1971 postwar period as the natural state of things that was broken by our weird new modernity, when instead maybe it’s more accurate to see this period as profoundly unusual. I think about this with media commentary all the time: “Why can’t we get back to Walter Cronkite, shared sense of reality, etc” A brief and strange information oligopoly created a scarce number of radio/TV stations, which enforced a news monoculture on radio/TV audiences. Whether that was altogether good or bad, it was extremely weird! Look at the 19th century. A zillion newspapers, many of them insane and terrible and partisan. The chaos is what’s normal.

The Industrial Revolution would not have happened if it had begun amid our current institutions, political economy, and level of regulation/procedural roadblocks aka “democratic input.” This is among the starkest challenges facing Western society today, though uncouth to discuss.

@rtnarch …but obviously a statutory change would be clearer and more permanent so great news, it if passes…

@rtnarch Not even necessary for Congress to act—the agency already has the power it needs to do this tomorrow morning. They too “can just do things.” pharmexec.com/view/fda-power…

Great to see FDA & the administration prioritizing FIH (First in Human) reform. The current IND process is broken & has shifted FIH trials overseas. Countries like Australia have relied on a more flexible, notification-based pathway for years. Now Congress has to act.

@cremieuxrecueil Many such buttons lying about, it seems pharmexec.com/view/fda-power…

It's extremely delightful seeing the third world slop replaced by Japanese gemposts. Who knew you could just flip the switch and beautify the timeline!

@varma_ashwin97 @Banana_Oncology @DrPaulyDeSantis You and me both, brother

@Finrow @Banana_Oncology @DrPaulyDeSantis So this uses public ER forecasts, but I'd be curious for the actual forecasts of industry execs! :)

Another interesting biopharma fact: $MRK management expected Pembro to bring in $500m peak annual sales at best case scenario, early in clinical development Pembro brought in $32b last year for $MRK Not too far off

@varma_ashwin97 @Banana_Oncology @DrPaulyDeSantis Nice piece here quantifying that insight: nature.com/articles/nrd41…

@Banana_Oncology @DrPaulyDeSantis Source?

@beffjezos @jrkelly pharmexec.com/view/fda-power…

The fact that drug development has to be done in China because of FDA overregulation should be alarming. We need to deregulate in order to accelerate biotech progress in the United States. Eroom's law must come to an end. Enough.

When asked abt the benefits of AI, most CEOs of AI companies point to its potential in medicine. I'm hopeful too, but claims like "it will make clinical trials last 1 year" do not take into account the actual constraints. writingruxandrabio.com/p/a-response-t…

@davidycli Seems right. Interesting that most biotech VCs say (i) “platforms are out” and (ii) strongly prefer outsource-maxing clinical affairs to the big CROs (“best practices”) to building that in-house. Which big biotech firms are the bucking these trends, anyone know?

the only viable US biotechs going fwd are: i) novel platform tech (better way to find target, have better selectivity, or super power efficacy in a particular modality) OR ii) clinical team that can "king-make" a best in class mlc from China or an AI shop (ie uniquely experienced team for a particular disease indication that has specific expertise for shepherding programs through difficult to execute indications eg rare disease, respiratory, etc) every co in the middle (potential best in class mlc w/o differentiated clinical team, me-better approaches, and even novel targets without unique clinical strategy) is on the clock

This is a remarkable chart. Hep b vaccines previously had extremely high uptake because the first dose is administered in the hospital at birth. Almost no other vaccine has this level of uptake. This tells me recommendations matter, and we should be much less certain about the expected penetration of new vaccines.