Obesity Week Data | RFK as Health Czar and Elon & Vivek's DOGE Role in Healthcare
Lickety-Split Analytics
Good morning. This last week has been wild. From Nov 4th to yesterday’s close, the markets have rallied significantly: ^GSPC +10.55%, ^IXIC +6.06%, ^DJI +5.06%, and ^RUT +4.93%. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) is up 115.3%, and we are curious if it will continue to rise with yesterday’s news…
Obesity Week Data Presentations
Several data presentations took place last week at Obesity Week in San Antonio, Texas.
Viking Therapeutics (VKTX) presented results from the phase 1 trial testing their oral obesity drug VK2735, which showed 6.8% placebo-adjusted mean weight loss or 8.2% from baseline after 28 days. Their stock soared 9% before plummeting 14%, likely due to the competitive landscape and fears over manufacturing capabilities.
AstraZeneca (AZN) presented results from their oral GLP-1 RA in T2D patients. The drug showed 5.8% mean total weight loss over four weeks, however two patients discontinued therapy. The most common adverse effect was GI side effects. Also interesting to note, AZN’s Chinese President is currently under investigation surrounding their cancer drug Imjudo, which is not approved in China, shipments to Hong Kong, and potential insurance fraud.
Corbus Pharmaceuticals (CRBP) presented CB1 targeted pre-clinical mouse data of their obesity treatment. The high dose showed 38.6% weight loss at day 28.
Skye Biosciences (SKYE) presented preliminary mouse model data for their CB1 candidate. The high dose showed 16% placebo-adjusted weight loss.
Scholar Rock (SRRK) preclinical mouse data that showed lean mass increased 31.6% in young animals and 10.2% in older animals from baseline to week 4. The study focused on a reduction in fat mass gain, as the mice were fed a high-fat diet. Young mice showed mass gains of 68.2% in treatment lowered from 114% in the, T2D drug, metformin group and 10.6% in treatment vs 18.4% metformin group in older mice (stat. sig. not met).
RFK Leads Make America Healthy Again, Elon and Vivek Lead Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), What This Means For American Healthcare
After Trump was elected to be the 47th president, his agenda may have a large impact on biotech and American healthcare. His website specifically names addressing the rise of chronic childhood illnesses and eliminating pharmaceutical shortages by returning medicine production back to America as a part of his 2027 agenda.
RFK will play a significant role in reshaping American health as Health Czar. We have summarized some of RFKs ideas and the potential changes to American health.
Safety and Regulations: Remove Toxins From Food, Water, and Air
Perhaps one of the more distracting ideas people get stuck on is RFK’s proposal to remove fluoride from drinking water. Fluoride has been shown to have beneficial effects for dental health, preventing cavities and reducing harmful bacteria. However, concerns have been raised about its neurotoxic side effects over the long-term. Advocates for its removal believe individuals should have a choice to consume fluoride voluntarily, rather than having it added to public water supplies.
Removing artificial dyes and additives in food due to potential behavioral issues, cancer risk, immune system disruption, and DNA damage. Additives banned in the EU that are still legal in the US include red dye 3, titanium dioxide, potassium bromate, propylparaben, BVO, and a number of others. Additionally, the EPA has only banned 9 chemicals out of thousands under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which if expanded upon could create a cleaner, less polluted environment.
We wanted to highlight an example of toxins you might not know of in our food RFK might address. Earlier this year, Bryan Johnson made a video testing chocolates for heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury. We thought this was interesting, as we did not realize the extent of potential toxins that even chocolate contains. Johnson states, “Nobody wins when our food supply is dirty, nobody wins when we’re unhealthy.”
Along with removing toxins, we could see the potential for additional regulation of quality in the supplement market. We have not heard any statements from RFK on this matter, but it would not be a far stretch.
Transparency in Safety and Efficacy
Many mainstream media outlets have portrayed RFK to be a conspiracy theorist that will be dangerous to the healthcare space. This is due to his controversial opinion that vaccines may be linked growing autism and ADHD rates. The media claims he will remove vaccines from the market. RFK, himself, has stated he will not take vaccines away, only that he aims for transparent safety and efficacy profiles to allow individuals to make informed health choices. We assume this applies to other therapeutics as well. We think of Sarepta as an example. Their DMD drug EXONDYS was approved in 2016, based solely on an increase in dystrophin production, a protein thought to improve muscle function, but did not demonstrably improve the course of disease progression. This drug, that has been on the market for 8 years, costs $750,000 a year and the required post approval studies have still yet to be completed. This lack of additional transparent data is disgraceful. Does it actually work, or is it simply a way to delay revenue loss until the science catches up?
Yesterday, Trump released a statement that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a department presumably named by Elon after the cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE).
“Together these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies- Essential to the “Save America” Movement.”
“They will work together to liberate our Economy, and make the U.S. Government accountable to “WE THE PEOPLE.” Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026.”
On X, Vivek announced that he will not run for Ohio Senate and Elon stated that,
“All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency. Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know! We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining”
Under the DOGE, there is potential for significant improvements to be made in the healthcare space.
Cut Unnecessary Spending and Prevent Future Misallocations
We have heard worries surrounding cutting funding to the NIH. We would imagine the cuts would be to research that is very much a waste of taxpayer resources. We were surprised by how quickly we found a couple of examples.
1) A bit of an older study from 2014 tested the effects of Swedish massage on rabbits. They were euthanized at the end of the two year study that cost taxpayers $387,000.
2) The NIH granted $173,197 to Brown University, for a collaborative study with Beijing Normal University and Emory University. They will be testing a mobile health program called “Zhen Wo” (“True Self”) to support Chinese transgender women with HIV prevention in China. They hope to also reduce the stigma of trans women in China and the study intends to inform future studies on transgender health in China. The award was granted Sep 1, 2024 and the trial will run until Jul 31, 2027. This study seemingly has nothing to do with American health and could also be taken as an example of the US funding the bulk of health research as we will discuss next. Perhaps the DOGE will cut some of the fat.
Reducing the Cost of Healthcare for Americans
One of the core ideas Ramaswamy ran on is the idea that other countries are leeching off of American innovation and advancements. They are not acting as partners in funding the development of new drugs, treatments, and technologies because other nations often impose price controls for the same products. Low-hanging fruit, Wegovy. As a result, American consumers and taxpayers end up subsidizing the global healthcare system, making healthcare more expensive domestically. Perhaps the DOGE might direct attention to this issue quite significantly.
There may be focus on further enforcement of transparent pricing laws like Trump’s No Surprises Act from Jan 1, 2022 and implementation of additional transparency requirements for hospitals, insurance, and other medical providers. Perhaps we will see similar initiatives to The Right to Try Act from the Trump Administration.
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