{"id":5102,"date":"2022-07-19T10:56:44","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T10:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=5102"},"modified":"2022-07-19T10:56:44","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T10:56:44","slug":"big-pharma-cant-figure-out-how-to-cash-in-on-long-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=5102","title":{"rendered":"Big Pharma Can\u2019t Figure Out How To Cash In On \u2018Long COVID\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Authors:mmDYLAN HOUSMAN<\/a>HEALTHCARE REPORTER July 11, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major pharmaceutical companies are struggling to develop treatments for \u201clong COVID\u201d because it\u2019s been nearly impossible to nail down what exactly the ailment actually is, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines and antiviral treatments resulted in record-breaking profits<\/a> for companies like Pfizer, which say they plan to continue<\/a> cashing in on the pandemic and its new variants for years to come. Treating \u201clong COVID,\u201d however, has remained elusive, as scientists can\u2019t even agree on what exactly the condition is or isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Head of biotechnology company Ovid Therapeutics, Jeremy Levin, told The WSJ<\/a> that big pharma is eager to jump into the long COVID game, but they don\u2019t have enough data<\/a> on how to do so. \u201cIt\u2019s not that the industry doesn\u2019t want to get in; it\u2019s just that the data hasn\u2019t played out, yet,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd until you can have more clear targets, you don\u2019t have a measurable outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government has failed in its role to research long COVID, at least so far. The National Institutes of Health got $1.2 billion from Congress more than a year ago to study long COVID, but has yet to make much<\/a> meaningful progress. Researchers may have recently discovered<\/a> a reliable biomarker for long COVID, but that would only be the first step toward developing clinical trials for a treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most commonly reported symptom of long COVID is fatigue, according to The WSJ, but patients have reported a vast variety of other ailments ranging from loss of smell to anxiety to memory loss. One study<\/a> found at least 203 potential symptoms of long COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global director of vaccine development at Cleveland Clinic, Ted Ross, told The WSJ that it will likely take persistent protest from patients for big pharma companies to devote more resources to the condition. But for now, they aren\u2019t biting, for the most part. Pfizer said<\/a> earlier this year it currently has no clinical trials in progress devoted to long COVID treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authors:mmDYLAN HOUSMANHEALTHCARE REPORTER July 11, 2022 Major pharmaceutical companies are struggling to develop treatments for \u201clong COVID\u201d because it\u2019s been nearly impossible to nail down what exactly the ailment actually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[767,592],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cost-benefit","category-treatments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}