5 ms·

Uhm the HSV vaccine pipeline seems to have changed. Excision had clinical trials scheduled for 2021 a few years back, if I'm not mistaken. There are about 4 bil

by biggio 5y ago

Uhm the HSV vaccine pipeline seems to have changed. Excision had clinical trials scheduled for 2021 a few years back, if I'm not mistaken. There are about 4 billion people infected with HSV worldwide*. Excision could prioritize and deliver the HSV vaccine and have the company well-funded for other causes. * https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes-simplex-virus https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes-simp...

ruined 5y ago
hsv may have a broader market, but there is clearly a greater social benefit and urgency to new hiv treatments. hsv infection is essentially a minor annoyance compared to hiv which can be life-changing and lethal.
- wyager 5y ago
  HSV is, iirc, one of the most significant causes of serious conditions like viral encephalitis. I wouldn’t be surprised if the net impact were similar to or greater than an HIV cure, considering that about 5,000x more people have HSV than HIV (order of magnitude estimate from a quick look at some stats I found online). Of course, the PR of an HIV cure is much better.
  - ruined 5y ago
    hsv encephalitis incidence is like 2 per million which is absolutely incomparable to hiv infection which has rates as much as 1 in 5 in some high risk populations and 4930 per million globally. the net impact of a new effective hiv treatment is indisputably more significant.
    - wyager 5y ago
      > hsv encephalitis incidence is like 2 per million This can’t possibly be correct. It’s the most commonly diagnosed etiology for viral encephalitis, which definitely occurs more than a single digit per million. It’s also going to be underdiagnosed because the diagnostics are bad (fewer than half of encephalitis cases are assigned an etiology). I see several sources saying in the range of 2-4,000 confirmed HSV encephalitis cases per year in the US (which are usually extremely severe, leading to brain damage or death), compared to 5,500 “HIV-related” deaths per year in the US according to the CDC. So at the very least they seem similar in magnitude.
- biggio 5y ago
  According to Crunchbase*, Excision received $70M in investment. A meagre amount of funding for the causes Excision is working on. * https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/excision-biotherapeutics/company_financials https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/excision-biotherapeu...
- anakaine 5y ago
  HIV is very manageable with drugs, and life expectations are very high. Whilst the disease is horrible, and we should be seeking a cure, its manageable. HSV is emerging as one of the biggest contributors to dementia. That is itself a disease that kills - just over a longer time span. Unfortunately for HSV there is little long term strategy for management that can address this issue. The *ciclovir drugs primarily target viral shedding, and not the rest of the infection cycle.
  - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
    I'd be very surprised if the long term cognitive effects of HSV were greater than HIV even with modern drugs.
  - est31 5y ago
    It takes non trivial logistical efforts to deliver HIV drugs to people. Think folks living in slums in south africa, homeless drug users in the USA, etc. Around 680k people died of AIDS related illnesses in 2020 alone. https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet Also the number of HIV infected people is still increasing. https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics
yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
FWIW, it seems as though Dr Jerome at FHC is further along with HSV anyway.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Relevant Reddit threads: https://old.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kvr1ka/recap_of_dr_jeromes_hsv_update_video_link/ https://old.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kvr1ka/... https://old.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/ppgg15/update_from_fhc/ https://old.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/ppgg15/...
lucb1e 5y ago
> seems to have changed. Excision had clinical trials scheduled for 2021 a few years back, if I'm not mistaken Perhaps this could help: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.excision.bio/technology https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.excision.bio/techn...
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
I recently found a great subreddit with a table in their stickied thread about the latest research on HSV cures and treatments. There are several cures under testing and we may see the first people cured of HSV in 2024: https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/latest_research_updates_especially_for_new_joiners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/...
Kliment 5y ago
Clinical trials are expensive so unless you're massively well funded (like Moderna and BioNTech are at the moment, and basically nobody else in that space) you have to prioritize for whichever is the most promising based on prelim data. This is a problem trivially solved with money, but for some reason all the promising biotech developers are massively underfunded compared to branches such as killing people or selling advertising.

by biggio 5y ago

ruined 5y ago

hsv may have a broader market, but there is clearly a greater social benefit and urgency to new hiv treatments. hsv infection is essentially a minor annoyance compared to hiv which can be life-changing and lethal.

wyager 5y ago
HSV is, iirc, one of the most significant causes of serious conditions like viral encephalitis. I wouldn’t be surprised if the net impact were similar to or greater than an HIV cure, considering that about 5,000x more people have HSV than HIV (order of magnitude estimate from a quick look at some stats I found online). Of course, the PR of an HIV cure is much better.
- ruined 5y ago
  hsv encephalitis incidence is like 2 per million which is absolutely incomparable to hiv infection which has rates as much as 1 in 5 in some high risk populations and 4930 per million globally. the net impact of a new effective hiv treatment is indisputably more significant.
  - wyager 5y ago
    > hsv encephalitis incidence is like 2 per million This can’t possibly be correct. It’s the most commonly diagnosed etiology for viral encephalitis, which definitely occurs more than a single digit per million. It’s also going to be underdiagnosed because the diagnostics are bad (fewer than half of encephalitis cases are assigned an etiology). I see several sources saying in the range of 2-4,000 confirmed HSV encephalitis cases per year in the US (which are usually extremely severe, leading to brain damage or death), compared to 5,500 “HIV-related” deaths per year in the US according to the CDC. So at the very least they seem similar in magnitude.
biggio 5y ago
According to Crunchbase*, Excision received $70M in investment. A meagre amount of funding for the causes Excision is working on. * https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/excision-biotherapeutics/company_financials https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/excision-biotherapeu...
anakaine 5y ago
HIV is very manageable with drugs, and life expectations are very high. Whilst the disease is horrible, and we should be seeking a cure, its manageable. HSV is emerging as one of the biggest contributors to dementia. That is itself a disease that kills - just over a longer time span. Unfortunately for HSV there is little long term strategy for management that can address this issue. The *ciclovir drugs primarily target viral shedding, and not the rest of the infection cycle.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  I'd be very surprised if the long term cognitive effects of HSV were greater than HIV even with modern drugs.
- est31 5y ago
  It takes non trivial logistical efforts to deliver HIV drugs to people. Think folks living in slums in south africa, homeless drug users in the USA, etc. Around 680k people died of AIDS related illnesses in 2020 alone. https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet Also the number of HIV infected people is still increasing. https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics

yakshaving_jgt 5y ago

FWIW, it seems as though Dr Jerome at FHC is further along with HSV anyway.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Relevant Reddit threads: https://old.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kvr1ka/recap_of_dr_jeromes_hsv_update_video_link/ https://old.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kvr1ka/... https://old.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/ppgg15/update_from_fhc/ https://old.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/ppgg15/...

lucb1e 5y ago

> seems to have changed. Excision had clinical trials scheduled for 2021 a few years back, if I'm not mistaken Perhaps this could help: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.excision.bio/technology https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.excision.bio/techn...

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

I recently found a great subreddit with a table in their stickied thread about the latest research on HSV cures and treatments. There are several cures under testing and we may see the first people cured of HSV in 2024: https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/latest_research_updates_especially_for_new_joiners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/kg66ds/...

Kliment 5y ago

Clinical trials are expensive so unless you're massively well funded (like Moderna and BioNTech are at the moment, and basically nobody else in that space) you have to prioritize for whichever is the most promising based on prelim data. This is a problem trivially solved with money, but for some reason all the promising biotech developers are massively underfunded compared to branches such as killing people or selling advertising.