Author: condor

Power Alley: Merck Buys Access To Novel DACs For Cancers, At C4 Therapeutics — For Only $10 Million In Upfronts…

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This is smart use of smallish cash upfront, to get a very big “fisheye lens / periscope” look — at C4’s aptly named “torpedo” platforms, and their potential use in immuno-oncology.

The deal will be very lucrative for C4, in a few years, if even one of the torpedos arms itself, and shows efficacy in a clinical trial. But it is firmly pre-clinical at this point.

Still very much a good news / potential future diversifying revenue stream for Rahway into the next decades. Here’s the latest, this morning:

…C4 Therapeutics shares jumped 50% premarket on Tuesday after it forged an exclusive license deal with Merck to develop its degrader-antibody conjugates (DACs) for certain cancer targets….

Merck will be responsible for antibody conjugation to create DACs in the discovery phase and for advancing these DAC candidates through preclinical and clinical development as well as commercialization.

C4 Therapeutics (CCCC) will receive a $10M upfront payment plus milestone payments ~$600M for DACs directed to the initial oncology target. The company will also earn tiered royalties on future sales.

Merck will have an option to extend the collaboration to include three additional targets that would be exclusive to the collaboration, which… could result in payments of ~$2.5 billion to C4, across the collaboration, eventually….

Now you know — onward and grinning — into the very crisp sunshine this morning — as Harvard’s board votes to keep its president, despite the GOP distraction tours / silly House crisis actors, now trolling the Congress.

नमस्ते

Paul Mirengoff: Gunning For More Firings — When He Has Opposed Academic Speech Codes, His Whole Adult Life.

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I am bored to death with these morons.

They are more than moronic. They are malign reprobates. Updated: it is so insipid, he’s now hidden it behind his paywall. No, I won’t pay for that drivel. Nor should you.

That is, Paul doesn’t believe a word of this drivel he types, in truth. He knows that advocating for something, that targets no specific person, is bedrock First Amendment protected. He also knows that Dr. Gay was speaking of nuance — and that if it seemed that the speaker was trying to incite violence against Jews for being Jews… it would be a code violation, and grounds for expulsion — and likely prosecution, under federal hate crime statutes.

Here’s the proof: he complained — and bitterly so, with Hinderaker, in 2020, about DoJ using hate crime laws, in relation to Black people being beaten and killed — solely for being… Black. [Same, Asians — in 2019-20.] And, back in 2018, naturally, he complained that there weren’t enough “free speech” zones on a Georgia college campus, places where fundamental Christians could fire and brimstone public preach, with a mega-phone — to unwilling students passing by, on their way to class. Yup against the use of just those same speech codes,

Really Mirengoff — shut your prevaricating, whining pie-hole, on the topic of Harvard’s testimony on its speech codes, last week, before Congress.

Just shut it.

Of Hinderaker’s Entirely Unblinking Irony: Ask Gov. DeSantis, About 12 And 13 Year Olds Being Shown The Same Cesarini Painting.

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So… we all well know MAGA GOP Florida Gov. DeSantis is a book banner/burner. As is Texas Gov. Abbott.

The pair have independently threatened teachers with firing or prosecution — ones who’ve allow middle school kids to read materials on the Holocaust (as one example — slavery, as another).

Here we have a series of nude young women, in a masterpiece of oil — from Cesarini. But Hindereaker goes on for several paragraphs about how Muslim parents in France ought not be allowed to object to the content of it, for 12 year olds.

I guarantee you, John, that Gov. DeSantis would charge teachers as groomers / child pornographers, if it were learned that they showed it to 12 year olds, in any public middle school.

And John would be right there, cheering the prosecutions.

[Of course killing French middle school teachers is no answer. But John’s suggestion that this is a serious problem… in America… is NOT a serious person’s position. It is a polemicist’s.]

Irony is an amazing thing, Hinderaker. Take a teaspoon — or a tall glass — on second thought, you better drink the tall glass of it.

Part II — Of The Nine Cowards — On The Supreme Court Of Texas. Disgusting.

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The Texas Supremes now know they’ve awakened the righteous indignation of all educated Texans, but especially the women of Texas. What else might explain this frankly BS opinion’s issuance, only after Ms. Cox’s counsel let it be known by press release that she’s left the state (since the Texas Supremes on Friday night had effectively blocked her right to a medically necessary abortion — as determined by her own physician)? Nothing else.

I won’t quote the odious sophistry of the Texas Supreme Court. These (at the moment, entirely) political creatures have twisted themselves — and the rules of civil procedure in Texas — into a pretzel, to avoid admitting the obvious: the sitting Attorney General of Texas, on this past Friday, openly threatened in a public press release he posted to Xitter — that he would bring felony charges against any hospital or clinic that aided Ms. Cox — or her physician. AG Paxton himself wrote:

…[Anyone] allowing an abortion to proceed will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas abortion loss. This includes first-degree felony prosecutions….

That is simply a gestapo tactic — one the highest court of Texas ought (if it had any respect for ordered liberty under the rule of law) to admonish him against, and perhaps even sanction him, for a false public statement about what Texas law actually provides. That was an en terrorem and falsely premised attempt — and as hideous as it was. . . it turned out to be momentarily effective (yet and still, she will be vindicated, in Colorado or Illinois or California).

Paxton drove Ms. Cox out of the state.

It matters not a whit, that tonight the Texas Supremes only vaguely imply he hasn’t that authority. They could have ruled he was out of bounds. They did not. They never breathed a peep about it — at all.

They were willfully blind to the threats made, lawlessly — as an absolutely crystal clear abuse of his office… and instead published a half-assed, chicken-feed opinion, saying that doctors themselves (perhaps with some future guidance from a Texas medical board) must risk criminal prosecution, if AG Paxton remains in office.

That is, these Texas Supremes won’t rule that any given situation… is a reasonable medical judgment. They… punted — when there could scarcely be a clearer case that the medically necessary exemption ought to cover.

Cowardice — that is what rules the Texas GOP Supreme Court. Nothing more. Out.

नमस्ते

Deplorable — The Texas Supreme Court Has Driven A Woman Who Needed A Medical Procedure… To Leave The State. Positively… Medieval.

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There are no actual medical doctors on the State Supreme Court of Texas. AG Ken Paxton is no MD. Gov. Abbott is no doctor.

And yet, a woman whose own doctor’s medical opinion (based on genetic testing — i.e., real science) has said she is endangering herself, physically and certainly psychologically — by carrying what will be a still-birth (due to a rare but well-known Trisomy-18 abnormality)… in Texas, amounts to… nothing. At least at the Texas “Supremes”.

To say this is… barbaric — by the Court — is to insult barbarians, everywhere… and give them a… black eye.

This is much worse — since those flowing, showy black robes… are supposed to mean something. Obviously, they do not (and what of the three whyte women on the court?! Who ARE these people?!).

In any event, here is the latest — damn.

. . .A Texas woman who had sought a legal medical exemption for an abortion has left the state after the Texas Supreme Court paused a lower court decision that would allow her to have the procedure, lawyers for the Center for Reproductive RIghts said Monday.

State District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble last week had ruled that Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two from Dallas, could terminate her pregnancy. According to court documents, Cox’s doctors told her baby suffered from the chromosomal disorder trisomy 18, which usually results in either stillbirth or an early death of an infant.

In response to Gamble’s decision, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned a Texas medical center that it would face legal consequences if an abortion were performed….

Kudos to Judge Maya Guerra Gamble (you did your duty, faithfully) — and… a pox on all nine “justices” — depicted at lower right, in my graphic.

Travel well, and travel light, Kate Cox… but I’d advise not returning to Texas for a year or so — as the cretin Paxton will very likely seek to charge you, on your return. You’ve been plenty brave enough. Now go protect yourself, your partner and your children: go, and live — in Colorado! Out.

नमस्ते

Over Short Alito Dissent, Unsurprisingly, The Supremes Deny Kennedy The Privilege Of Line-Jumping, Out Of Monroe, Louisiana

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This is little more than trivia — but here you have it.

This morning, just as we predicted, the Supremes (over a short dissent from “Bought by BusinessTM” Alito) said there is no right to “line jump” to the Supremes, simply by saying “Hey ya’! I am running an utterly quixotic campaign for president, so I get to skip the line — and dive right into a Supreme Court case, on the docket!” Nope. That’s just not… how any of this works — it does not make it so.

Yup, that is today’s silly trivia — and I post on it, largely because this is the same argument Tangerine is making, about his gag order as he appeals it, out of DC. To be clear — that one is even more beyond the pale, as it comes in the context of a felonies prosecution — where Tangerine is also very likely guilty (but as yet uncharged with) witness tampering under 18 USC § 1512(b)(1). He, like Kennedy, will lose.

In fact, just this very morning, Jack Smith, as prosecuting Special Counsel in DC, has petitioned the Supremes to rule against Tangerine, on his claim of absolute immunity. Tangerine… simply doesn’t have it. Out.

नमस्ते

Moderna and Merck Team Up Again — This Time With mRNA-4157 / V940, An INT Candidate — Now Enrolling A Phase III, In Australia, Against Certain Classes Of NSCLC…

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As promised, this is the power alley item for the morning. This is also a very astounding time to be alive, in bioscience.

The idea here is individualized mRNA generated proteins, from one’s own T-Cell factories… may be immensely helpful in stopping, and in fact reversing the spread of certain classes of lung cancers, using mRNA-4157, or (V940), in combination with pembrolizumab (Keytruda).

And the pair has a long history of working very well — and very profitably — together (think also of COVID-19- and Ebola- vaccines, here). Just search any of over 100 posts in the box, under the name “Moderna”, at right. Here’s the latest:

…Moderna and Merck said on Monday they have started a late-stage trial of their experimental personalized mRNA cancer treatment in combination with blockbuster drug Keytruda for patients with a type of lung cancer.

The therapy, V940, belongs to a class of treatments called m-RNA-based individualized neoantigen therapy (INT) and is tailored for each patient to generate T-cells, a key part of the body’s immune response, based on the specific mutational signature of a tumor….

The study is called INTerpath-002. It is a global, randomized, double-blind, placebo- and active-comparator-controlled Phase 3 trial evaluating approximately 868 patients with completely resected Stage II, IIIA or IIIB [N2] NSCLC. Following complete surgical resection and adjuvant chemotherapy, participants 18 years and older (in Australia, at first) will be dosed with the combo.

Now you know. Onward — smiling at the world that is… now arriving. Excellent. And looking to the south this morning four times, already… Grin.

नमस्ते

Read Of The Ongoing Mistreatment Of The Man Who Blew The Whistle On Child Labor, In Chinese Amazon Assembly Facilities…

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This popped up in my feed, almost immediately after I wrote my last one, below — so we will cover it… now. [A new Merck story up next.]

Even in China, it is unlawful to force teenagers at 16 or under, to work more than 10 hours a day, or weekends or late nights.

But Tang Mingfang saw it, day after day, month after month. Here’s the story, from FT:

…Early each summer, the bus began to fill with teenagers. Tang Mingfang, a 40-year-old office manager, watched as his shuttle from the workers’ dormitories to Foxconn Hengyang, an Amazon supplier factory in southern China, grew more crowded with kids brought in to assemble Kindle ebooks and Echo speakers for Christmas. By the peak of the production cycle, there were so many that Tang was unable to squeeze on to the bus. Sent by their vocational schools, the students arrived by the hundreds, as part of an arrangement with Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing giant that operates the plant.

An exclusive assembler of many Apple and Amazon products, Foxconn is China’s biggest private employer, with more than 700,000 workers. But during Chinese factories’ busiest periods, it’s common to see students from age 16 being bussed in to meet the higher demand for products. Once they reached the Hengyang factory, their task was to put together electronic devices often for up to 10 hours per day. Not that the students had much choice. If they said no, their teachers could refuse to let them graduate….

One day he heard from colleagues about a vocational schoolteacher berating a crying student at the plant. Assembly-line managers didn’t discipline the students directly, instead complaining to the teachers. This instructor had been yelling and pulling the boy by the ear. Tang thought of his own young son, about to start primary school. What if his teachers treated him like that? I wouldn’t accept it. I couldn’t accept it, Tang thought. In the spring of 2019, assuming he understood the possible consequences, he decided to speak out….

The rest, as they say, is history (and yes, Apple was guilty, too — both were, and are, huge Foxconn clients). Do go read it all. Onward, into the morning’s brisk sunshine.

नमस्ते

Scott Johnson Lauds The Guy Who Wanted To Toss The Defense To Libel Laws Out.

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Twice in recent columns, Scott Johnson has heaped praise on a guy whose judicial opinions (thankfully primarily in losing, dissenting opinions) read like InfoWars or Alex Jones’ podcasts.

Or like… Fox or Brietbart. [And as irony would have it, each of those have lost huge libel verdicts, even with all the protection of NYT v. Sullivan — their lies being found by the courts to have been offered with “actual malice.”]

Charming — but not proper, as discourse — as a form of complaint, inside judicial rulings (at page 21 — in dissent):

…Although the bias against the Republican Party—not just controversial individuals—is rather shocking today, this is not new; it is a long-term, secular trend going back at least to the ’70s… Two of the three most influential papers (at least historically), The New York Times and The Washington Post, are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets. And the news section of The Wall Street Journal leans in the same direction. The orientation of these three papers is followed by The Associated Press and most large papers across the country (such as the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and Boston Globe). Nearly all television—network and cable—is a Democratic Party trumpet. Even the government-supported National Public Radio follows along.

As has become apparent, Silicon Valley also has an enormous influence over the distribution of news. And it similarly filters news delivery in ways favorable to the Democratic Party. See Kaitlyn Tiffany, Twitter Goofed It, The Atlantic (2020) (“Within a few hours, Facebook announced that it would limit [a New York Post] story’s spread on its platform while its third-party fact-checkers somehow investigated the information.…

He also wanted to declare Bivens a nullity (where the FBI arrested, beat and stripped a black man in his home — solely for his skin color — suggesting such conduct was not problematic, as a matter of law). He felt the FBI agents deserved near absolute immunity. Sheesh. Again, thankfully, a strong majority of the Supremes (then and now, excepting only Clarence Thomas, feel Bivens is good law).

And he felt — like Tangerine, and Hinderaker — that the protections of NYT v. Sullivan should vanish — utterly… surreally equating a free press to Soviet era Brezhnev policy.

This is also the guy who (with two others) met with Iranian officials (then an enemy government) to hear about a “deal” — a deal to have Iran delay a hostage release (in return for US-made arms), if such a deal would help defeat Jimmy Carter and seal the election of Ron Reagan, in 1979-1980.

Yeh.

Not someone to… lionize, boys. Even in death. Your Murdoch / Fox tail/tale is… showing.

Out.