Frequency Therapeutics — Hearing Loss Regeneration

Well then,

Just try it, it's free.

 

I'd guess that most of the scientists do want to release info, but they're probably not allowed.

Also I don't want to be negative, but shouldn't we also consider that tomorrow could become quite disappointing and that we have to wait a little longer?

 

Indeed.

Hoping for the best is fine, but we should all be ready in case tomorrow brings us nothing of tangible worth.

 

I don't think we will learn anything tomorrow.

 

Well, I do. They started Frequency Therapeutics with intellectual property that was developed at Harvard Medical School and MIT. Their salaries and the costs of running their labs came from public funds and charitable donations. Their work was built on decades of science from all over the world. None of those other scientists will see a penny from the hoped-for windfall. I fully appreciate that someone like Will McLean probably spent years being poor while he worked through his various degrees. He deserves to do very well out it all. But there's still a social contract at play here. I think they have some sort of obligation to try to make it affordable for ordinary people.

 

As part of their faculty obligations, they are expected to teach and publish their research findings. I am sure that they had done that. This has nothing to do with them creating private enterprises where they use the science that is in the public domain (published research) to create a product that other people might be interested in buying.

 

Except that our tax dollars may have in part funded the discovery of this technology?

 

Even if that is the case, the value that you get in this case is the publication of their research (instead of them hiding their research results from their potential competitors).

Using your logic, your tax dollars might have funded the children that that faculty member might have had while being employed by the university (assuming their faculty salary is their only source of income). Does this mean that you have a claim on that child's future income, or a legal reason to spend time with the child?

 

Allow me to completely shut you down.

Ready?

Tinnitus is the number one service related disability among US vets cause boom sounds while "fighting for our freedom". Also the FDA has approved many drugs that also cause tinnitus. Now that this drug has been developed, the US government should declare tinnitus a national health crisis and grant it superfund status and rapidly make it available as soon as technically possible. Every veteran with tinnitus from their service and every person that got tinnitus from an ototxic FDA approved drug should get this 100% free. This isn't a fucking iPhone or an electric car (US tax payers subsidize Tesla electric cars on average $7,500 each) and this technology was more than likely largely developed with public grants. So spare me the super uber gung ho corporate profit cheerleader bullshit.

You're wrong, I'm right. Get over it.

 

Well at least @JohnAdams is trying to keep the ball rolling on prioritizing tinnitus relief for all of us. We might get some extra attention to fast track the damn thing (provided it works) The wheel that squeaks gets greased. I sure don't like my tormenting noise.

 

It's a pointless discussion really because it's about a moral (not a legal) viewpoint and we're clearly not going to agree. The legalities were all in place a long time ago. Anyway... I really don't know but I doubt they started Frequency Therapeutics with nothing but published data. It's really not what you'd fire up a start-up with, is it? From their website: "Frequency has a worldwide exclusive license to related intellectual property from MIT and Partners Healthcare". So, for whatever reason, they were allowed to take the intellectual property.

Again, with my one and only point. Without public funding, there'd be no Frequency Therapeutics. Without philanthropic donations, there'd be no Frequency Therapeutics. Without the work of other scientists, there's be no Frequency Therapeutics. Actually, without people donating their bodies to "science", there'd probably be no Frequency Therapeutics. Like it or not, they are part of a huge human enterprise (in the widest sense of that word). You say that they are entitled to maximise their profits. I say they should consider the public good. This is NOT something they cooked up in the garage from scratch.

By the way, if I'm a research scientist working for IBM whatever I discover or develop belongs to IBM. They don't have a claim on my firstborn though .

 

Poverty is also a huge problem. The US government should declare poverty a national crisis. Then the government could just send everyone a cheque for a million bucks! Alternatively, I hear that doctors are making good money. The government ought to just send a medical school diploma to every citizen - problem solved!

What you are suggesting would be a dream come true for those corporations (and will be one additional nail in the coffin for the taxpayers). Anyone will be able to say that their T is due to them taking Ibuprofen, so anyone who feels like it will be able to get this expensive treatment. In other words, the quantity demanded will be the one when price is zero (a quantity that is much higher than the quantity demanded if people were to be faced with the price the company will be charging the taxpayers).

Or are you suggesting that the state just take away a private firm's patent and begin giving their product away for free? With a precedent like that, there is not going to be any research into anything that has any possibility of being declared a "national emergency". The researchers studying cancer treatments would then have to switch to investigating cures for baldness.

 

I feel like my IQ dropped about 5-10 points while trying trying to understand that.

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say they wouldn't exist but they did do at least one proof of concept experiment with a donated human cochlea, and in one of their presentations McLean said they checked cadaver cochleas for the presence of progenitor cells in regards to the efficacy of this for older people. So donated bodies certainly helped strengthen their body of knowledge tremendously.

 

Frequency Therapeutics Completes 42 Million Dollar Series B Financing

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...peutics-Completes-42-Million-Series-Financing

 

Do progenitor cells survive with severe hearing loss?

 

So awesome news: both $42 million to continue, mentioning top-line results from the trial and advancing into Phase 2. Seems the results for public from 1/2 may be delayed for a bit since a generic "first half of 2019" is mentioned..

Newbie on posting here, but read quite a bit. For me, a cure for hearing loss is much more important than curing my mild to severe tinnitus for the moment. So yippee!

 

I did a search for a definition of "topline results" for clinical trials and I found this:

"Topline results of Phase 2 trials are typically first disclosed through press releases so that key stakeholders (patients and their advocacy groups, physicians, clinical trials practitioners, investors, etc.) can have timely access to a high level summary of the important findings."

I'm guessing topline results for phase 1 trials would be similar. High level summary of the important findings.

 

If anyone from Frequency Therapeutics is reading this thread, good luck today!

 

Yeah. I think we can now assume that the phase 1/2 trial went at least ok.

 

Did they say anything about the trials in detail?

 

That is really great news! For sure those investors have had access to a lot more data than has been published and they decided to invest so the data must be convincing. Frequency Therapeutics has many venture cap investors as owners currently and it is very likely that if successful FX-322 will be sold or licensed to a buyer who will commercialise the treatment. Maybe some global large pharma that has sufficient resources in place. Current owners of Frequency Therapeutics are early stage investors whose owners want their money back with maximum multiple at exit, they are not long term dividend investors. Any discussion of Frequency Therapeutics not maximising value from FX-322 is nonsense.

 

I know this has been discussed before, but can someone please explain what Phase 1/2 means? Are they testing both safety and to some extent efficacy? Because usually Phase 1 is only safety and then Phase 2 is efficacy and Phase 3 is mass-testing on all of the above, right?

 

@Philip83
Phase I/II clinical trial
Listen (fayz … KLIH-nih-kul TRY-ul)
A study that tests the safety, side effects, and best dose of a new treatment. Phase I/II clinical trials also test how well a certain type of cancer or other disease responds to a new treatment. In the phase II part of the clinical trial, patients usually receive the highest dose of treatment that did not cause harmful side effects in the phase I part of the clinical trial. Combining phases I and II may allow research questions to be answered more quickly or with fewer patients.

https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/phase-i-ii-clinical-trial

 

How many phases are there, just two?

 

A crucial question. If you can stand trawling through all of this thread or the Hearing Loss Regeneration thread, I recall that issue being discussed.

 

"Normally" phase 1 would be a safety and tolerance trial. Then 2+ for efficacy. I don't know why they're calling these phase 1/2 (I'm just a musician, not a scientist), but it doesn't really matter I think. They already tested for safety, and this trial will be testing for efficacy in the 24 or so people who took part. This could be a very good day for a lot of people

 

Usually I think 3. But I have no clue whatsoever what the next phase is for this, it could be a 2, maybe a 3, hopefully a 3, who knows????

 

Next phase is phase 2.

sweet, so another 3 month study that will take another year, then maybe 1 or two more studies that will take another year each after that?

anyone know how expensive a flight to Korea is?

 

Yes they had a phase 1a and then a phase 1b. The next phase is 2. Then if all goes well we will have phase 3. Phase 1a was to test for any adverse affects. That one came back good. Phase 1b was two different dosages, but I think we could find out if some of the people regained any hearing since they all had audiograms done. If all goes well, like JohnAdams mentioned about a year for phase 2 and then phase 3 after that. I wonder if we can improve upon this if they go the fast track route. Things are looking promising for now especially with that new financing in place.