We Might Already Have had a Solution to COVID19
This week I am talking with Dr Jake Reder, PhD the CEO of CeldaraMedical – am innovation incubator and accelerator focused on transforming academic innovations into medicines that cure the world’s most challenging diseases.
The company was originally launched during the financial crisis and as Jake points out – no better time to launch a new company than during a crisis. You have to listen in to hear the history and the fact they had 6 years ago, and still have, an infectious disease therapeutic, a broad spectrum anti-viral that has been shown to be effective against SARS, MERS, and likely also SARS-CoV-2.
I’ll pause and let that sink in for a second…………
Why you may ask, has this not been launched and it sits on the workbench? As Jake discovered in his incremental journey to founding the company and since, there is no market for infectious disease therapeutics. Without a market, it is very hard to find partners and investors to walk the path necessary to fill develop solutions. Asa society in general we are very short term focused, something vastly amplified by the media coverage that remains “If it bleeds it leads” with a very short attention span. There is lots of investment and interest in oncology therapeutics with constant market demand, but infectious diseases come and go, like flu but not always with predictable frequency
How do we create “Pandemic Security”: preparing the nation (and the world) for future infectious disease pandemics.
“We know it is much better to develop tests, therapeutics and vaccines before a pandemic strikes. COVID-19 has clearly shown how an infectious disease can destroy lives and livelihoods… Future outbreaks are inevitable, but we know how to prepare for them. It is only a question of will.”
As Paul Romer famously said
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste
If we have learned anything from this novel coronavirus pandemic, it is that the middle of a pandemic is no time to prepare to respond. It must be done now as the next pandemic could be worse.
Listen in to hear Jake talk about how we invest in transforming our systems to create a toolbox full of options for our clinical staff to use as they fight this disease and the inevitable future ones that will emerge onto our world stage.
Listen live at 4:00 AM, 12:00 Noon or 8:00 PM ET, Monday through Friday for the next week at HealthcareNOW Radio. After that, you can listen on demand (See podcast information below.) Join the conversation on Twitter at #TheIncrementalist.
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