Fortune Article

Good afternoon, readers.

Has it really only been a week? The four-day wait for the presidential election results (and the aftermath) certainly made it seem much longer.

And as if the tumultuous political news weren’t enough to keep us occupied, we were treated to news of major advances for Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID vaccine, which the companies announced is 90% effective against coronavirus.

There’s still some data parsing to do on that claim, including whether or not different subgroups across demographics respond to the vaccine candidate differently than others. But with Wednesday’s news that another company, the biotech Moderna, is also close to releasing its own positive COVID vaccine data, it’s worth exploring the technologies which unite these two therapies: messenger RNA (mRNA).

The science behind these vaccine is just, well, cool. There has never been an mRNA-based therapeutic approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and as little as a year ago, many in the biotech sphere were skeptical it would ever work.

“RNA vaccines work by introducing an mRNA sequence (the molecule which tells cells what to build) which is coded for a disease specific antigen, once produced within the body, the antigen is recognized by the immune system, preparing it to fight the real thing,” according to the University of Cambridge.

In plainer English: mRNA has the ability to turn your own cells into a therapy-building machine. (For more on the science behind the leading COVID vaccine candidates, you can check out my explainer from last week.)

This comes with its own set of problems. For instance, these vaccines made of precious biological material require refrigeration at ultra-cool temperatures, which could present a major logistical nightmare for Pfizer and Moderna when it comes to distribution.

And then there’s the fact that both of these vaccines require two doses spaced several weeks apart, which could make present its own logistical challenges.

Still, the progress for this new type of science is more than welcome after months of false starts for various COVID therapies.

None other than Dr. Anthony Fauci himself expects the Moderna data to come in strong in the coming weeks, saying he would “be surprised if we didn’t see a similar degree of efficacy” to Pfizer’s candidate during an event with the Financial Times on Monday.

Read on for the day’s news, and see you next week.

Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy

DIGITAL HEALTH

Amazon Alexa's latest feature: monitoring the elderly. In its latest update, Amazon's Alexa comes with a new feature called CareHub which makes it easier for families to check in on their aging relatives, who are choosing in increasing numbers to live independently. Two Alexa accounts can now be linked between the elderly and their caregivers (with permission) and caregivers can check in on Alexa activity feeds on a very basic level to see if, say, the aging party's lights are on or off. (CNBC)

Medtronic launches smart insulin pen. Medical device giant Medtronic has launched a new smart insulin pen for diabetes patients. This specific pen is tailored towards individuals who have to take multiple insulin shots per day and comes loaded with a calculator that makes it easier for the patients to make decisions about how much insulin should go into a given dose.

INDICATIONS

FDA advisory committee slams Biogen's Alzheimer's drug. Drug giant Biogen's controversial experimental Alzheimer's drug aducanumab isn't exactly feeling the love from a group of experts who advise the FDA on drug approvals. Ten of the 11 members of the advisory committee voted against considering it reasonable to consider a single trial's positive results as proof of efficacy given that a different trial showed lower efficacy. The FDA doesn't always have to listen to such panels' advice but usually does. Aducanumab would be the first-ever drug approved to treat the actual underlying Alzheimer's disease rather than just its symptoms. (TIME)

THE BIG PICTURE

Obamacare may escape unscathed again. The Affordable Care Act, for a third time, is heading to the Supreme Court. A lawsuit supported by both the GOP and the Trump administration alleges that the entire law should be tossed following the effective nixing of the individual mandate. But conservative Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh don't seem to buy that logic, asserting that the rest of the statute is perfectly severable from the individual mandate during oral arguments for the case this week. "This is a very straight forward case for severability under our precedents, meaning that we would excise the mandate and leave the rest of the act in place," Kavanaugh said, echoing Roberts. (CBS News)

Biden appoints all-star COVID task force. President-elect Joe Biden has named an all-star team to lead a task force on coronavirus. It includes a prominent slew of physicians, medical academic experts, epidemiologists, and former government officials including: former FDA commissioner David Kessler; former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy; professor of surgery Atul Gawande; NYU School of Medicine's Celine Gounder; and a host of others. One member of the task force has already said that a four to six week lockdown would effectively control the pandemic.