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Latest Study explores the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry Market Witness Highest Growth in near future – My Kids Health

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

The VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry market research report now available with Market Study Report, LLC, is a compilation of pivotal insights pertaining to market size, competitive spectrum, geographical outlook, contender share, and consumption trends of this industry. The report also highlights the key drivers and challenges influencing the revenue graph of this vertical along with strategies adopted by distinguished players to enhance their footprints in the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry market.

The recent research report on VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry market offers an extensive assessment such as market trends, as well as factors affecting the market growth during the analysis timeframe. It also incorporates details like market segments, and manufacturers. The report also assesses the market drivers and opportunities. Furthermore, the research also contains information on factors which may restraint the growth of VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry market over the study duration. The report consists of an overview of the business environment keeping in mind the influence of COVID-19 pandemic on the industry outlook.

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The report is structured using principles of Porters Five Force analysis and SWOT analysis.

Analyzing the competitive landscape of VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry market:

Summary of the geographical landscape of the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry market:

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Additional features of the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry market report:

Major Highlights from Table of contents are listed below for quick look up into VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry Market report

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Latest Study explores the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry Market Witness Highest Growth in near future - My Kids Health

Last Time This Bitcoin Statistic Hit A New High, BTC Surged 3.5xAnd Its Back – Forbes

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

A key Bitcoin statistic has hit an all-time high, suggesting the start of an accumulation phase.

The so-called HODLwave of Bitcoin has hit a new all-time high. The metric indicates the amount of unmoved BTC on the blockchain in the past 12 months. It typically suggests that investors are increasingly accumulating the dominant cryptocurrency.

Researchers at Cryptowatch, a crypto market data company owned by U.S. exchange Kraken, wrote:

Bitcoin's 1-year HODL waveBTC unmoved on the blockchain over the last 365 dayshas hit a new all-time high of 63%. Bitcoin's HODL wave is up 1% since the start of July.

HODLwave of Bitcoin shows how addresses with BTC unmoved for a year.

The last time this many users held onto Bitcoin without transferring it to other addresses was in early-2019. At the time, BTC rallied from around $4,000 to $14,000, recording a 250% uptrend.

Various On-Chain Metrics Hint At Improving Bitcoin Market Sentiment

The HODLing activity of Bitcoin has continuously hit new highs since late last month.

On June 30, Altana Digital Currency Funds chief investment officer Alistair Milne said the metric hit 62%. He predicted that it could hit 70% at its peak during the ongoing cycle.

Milne said:

HODL'ing for a year or more just made a new ATH of 62%. Similar levels of HODL last seen during a 3-month consolidation at around $400 before starting a two-year bull run. Guesstimate that this cycle will peak around 70%?

Since then, within a month, the price of Bitcoin rallied from $9,187 to over $11,000. On July 27s peak, BTC rose to as high as $11,417 on spot exchanges, such as Bitstamp.

The performance of Bitcoin against the U.S. dollar since HODLwave hit 63%.

Apart from the HODLwave, other on-chain metrics and statistics suggest that the market sentiment around Bitcoin remains positive.

Most recently, market data firm Glassnode said the number of Bitcoin addresses holding at least $1 million surged to 18,000.

The statistic shows that new whalesinvestors holding a significant amount of Bitcoinhave increased in prominence over recent months.

Historically, when new whales bought Bitcoin, it led to strong rallies.

For instance, data from Glassnode shows the number of new whales increased in December 2017 and July 2019. In those two months, Bitcoin surpassed $20,000 and $14,000, respectively.

The number of addresses with a Bitcoin balance of over $1 million.

Other Data That Suggest More Volatility Is Likely Incoming

On July 29, Grayscale said that the assets under management (AUM) of the company reached $5.1 billion.

Accredited and institutional investors in the U.S. usually gain exposure to BTC through the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

Grayscales record-high holdings indicate that the involvement of institutions in the cryptocurrency market is still high.

The daily trading volumes of the spot, options, and futures markets are continuing to increase, showing heightened demand for crypto.

Atop the exchange data, Ki Young-ju, the CEO of on-chain analysis firm CryptoQuant, said whales have begun sending Bitcoin and stablecoins to exchanges.

He said:

BTC whales are sending Bitcoins to exchanges. #Stablecoin whales are sending stablecoins to exchanges as well. This week will be a battle between Stablecoin and Bitcoin exchange inflows. These inflows indicate potential buy/sell pressures.

A confluence of optimistic on-chain statistics, an overall increase in trading activity, and the rising involvement of whales could further improve the sentiment around Bitcoin.

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Last Time This Bitcoin Statistic Hit A New High, BTC Surged 3.5xAnd Its Back - Forbes

Cryptocurrency Market News: PlusToken team members arrested in the biggest crypto scam around $6 billion worth – FXStreet

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

BTC/USD is flat but remains bullish awaiting the daily bull flag to be broken.

ETH/USD had a breakout towards $335,59, a new 2020-high, and remains the leading cryptocurrency.

XRP/USD dropped to $0.234 but recovered quickly and its now trading at around $0.247.

The biggest winner today was SpendCoin, a coin that had almost no trading volume but suddenly jumped 1,400% with $28 million in volume and a $21 million market capitalization. No one knows exactly what happened as there was no news to push the coin up. Vechain also had a notable trading day gaining 10%.

PlusToken, the biggest cryptocurrency exit scam that stole around $6 billion in cryptos is finally finished. 27 core PlusToken members were just arrested by the Chinese police. In fact, around 82 members have been arrested before. Dovey Wan, the founding partner of Primitive Ventures said:

I sincerely hope this attempt can be a good learning experience for the Chinese community to start an effective DAO [Decentralized Autonomous Organization], a bottom up governance, a real movement from the people thats for the people.

She was referring to the owner key that was burned to avoid further fraud.

More scam accusations coming up from a fork of Yearn.Finance (YFI). The copy, called YFII offers a weekly ROI of over 10% but its supposed to be fully decentralized. Many people are still studying the code of YFII but so far nothing was found.

EQUOS.io, a new derivatives platform will be listed on Nasdaq. The exchange is operated by Diginex, which is based in Hong Kong and announced that EQUOS will be backdoor listed on Nasdaq through a combination with 8i Enterprises Acquisition Corp. Once the acquisition is completed, EQUOS will become the first publicly-traded crypto exchange in the U.S.

Binance just confirmed that crypto debit cards are shipping to Europe soon. A Binance representative stated:

We began shipping a limited quantity of Binance Cards on July 24 and the cards are being shipped to users in European Economic Area

As the value goes up, heads start to swivel and skeptics begin to soften. Starting a new currency is easy, anyone can do it. The trick is getting people to accept it because it is their use that gives the money value.

Adam B. Levine

Cryptocurrency Market News: PlusToken team members arrested in the biggest crypto scam around $6 billion worth - FXStreet

Cryptocurrency Gets Strong Boost From Thailand, 13 Crypto Services Approved – International Business Times

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

KEY POINTS

The Securities Exchange Commission of Thailand has granted a license to ERXtrading platform to operate as a digital asset exchange, thus increasing the number of crypto exchanges in the country to six and the number of crypto platforms to 13.

The other digital asset exchanges in the country are Bitkub, BX, Huobi, Zipmex, and Satang Pro. The Royal Decree on Digital Asset Businesses of 2018 defines a digital asset exchange as a center for trading digital assets, operating by matching orders or by facilitating a person to enter into an agreement to buy a digital asset. BX is in the process of returning its licenses after discontinuing its service.

Digital assets may be cryptocurrency or digital token. Cryptocurrency can be used as a medium exchange created through an electronic system while digital token specifies the right of a person to participate in an investment or to a specific good or specific service. Of the six digital exchanges, only ERX does not deal with cryptocurrencies.

The three digital asset brokers licensed in the country are Coins TH, Bitazza, and Kulap. The SEC defines a digital asset broker as those who provide services dealing with "the holding or exchanging digital assets" outside a digital asset exchange. The main difference is that the digital asset exchange licensee can operate an order-book style trading platform. Of the three licensed digital asset brokers, Kulap is not yet operational while Coins TH only deals with cryptocurrencies and not with digital tokens.

Coins TH is also listed as a digital asset dealer, which is similar to the digital asset broker except that it can provide exchange and trade of digital assets for its own account.

SEC alsolisted fourinitial coin offerings (ICO) portals - Longroot, T-Box, SE Digital, and BiTherb. ICO portals are defined as a place for offering newly issued digital tokens. Of the four listed portals, only BiTherb is not operating.

The clarity of cryptocurrency regulation in Thailand made the country an ideal place for exchanges to set up operations in Southeast Asia. Huobi Thailand, for example, is the local platform for global exchange Huobi. Coins TH is the Thai platform of Philippine-based Coins.ph (now acquired by Indonesian unicorn Go-Jek).

The royal decreeeffectively classifies all crypto platforms as financial institutions. This classification allows the crypto platforms to partner with traditional institutions but also be hailed accountable and subjected to Thailands laws. For example, when Cash2Coins failed to secure a license for insufficient Know-Your-Customer (KYC) rules, it discounted its services within months.

A monk walks in front of a giant Buddha statue wearing a face mask at Wat Nithet Rat Pradit temple in Pathum Thani outside Bangkok Photo: AFP / Mladen ANTONOV

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Cryptocurrency Gets Strong Boost From Thailand, 13 Crypto Services Approved - International Business Times

LATEST NEWS ON THE CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKET | INTEL, COINBASE, BITGO, AND BINANCE Bulletin Line – Bulletin Line

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

A recent report published by QMI on cryptocurrency market is a detailed assessment of the most important market dynamics. After carrying out a thorough research of cryptocurrency market historical as well as current growth parameters, business expectations for growth are obtained with utmost precision. The study identifies specific and important factors affecting the market for cryptocurrency during the forecast period. It can enable manufacturers of cryptocurrency to change their production and marketing strategies in order to envisage maximum growth.

Get Sample Copy of This Report @https://www.quincemarketinsights.com/request-sample-58594?utm_source=BL&utm_medium=Santosh

According to the report, the availability of the decentralized system and the absence of fees on transactions is expected to drive the growth of cryptocurrency market during the forecast period.

Cryptocurrency can be termed as a virtual currency that is used as a medium of exchange and transaction which is secured and has gained much popularity in todays economic world. Most of the important transactions have now shifted to the use of cryptocurrency and a huge segment of the market is now shared by these currencies.

Growth in the number of digital transactions and the availability of a much-secured transaction through cryptocurrencies are the key factors for the growth of Global Cryptocurrency Market. The absence of interest rates or exchange rates on transactions has enabled it to gain worldwide recognition and has led many people to invest in this market. Many other benefits like protection from fraud, low fees, quick international transfers and non-regulation of transactions have led to the growth of the global cryptocurrency market.

Make An Inquiry For Purchasing This Report @https://www.quincemarketinsights.com/enquiry-before-buying/enquiry-before-buying-58594?utm_source=BL&utm_medium=Santosh

Some of the key Impact Factors:o Secured transaction facilitieso Availability of decentralized system and absence of fees on transactionso Unavailability of Government regulations

Insights about the regional distribution of market:

The market has been segmented in major regions to understand the global development and demand patterns of this market.For cryptocurrency market, the segments by region are for North America, Asia Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Rest of the World. During the forecast period, North America, Asia Pacific, and Western Europe are expected to be major regions on the cryptocurrency market.

North America and Western Europe have been one of the key regions with technological advancements in ICT, electronics & semiconductor sector. Factors like the use of advanced technology and the presence of global companies to cater to the potential end-users are favorable for the growth of cryptocurrency market. Also, most of the leading companies have headquarters in these regions.

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The Asia Pacific is estimated to be one of the fastest-growing markets for cryptocurrency market. Major countries in the Asia Pacific region are China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Australia. These economies in the APAC region are major contributors in the ICT, electronics & semiconductor sector. In addition to this, government initiatives to promote technological advancement in this region are also one of the key factors to the growth of cryptocurrency market. The Middle East and rest of the World are estimated to be emerging regions for cryptocurrency market.

By Application:RemittanceTradingE-commerceRetailPaymentOthers

By Process:TransactionMining

By Offering:HardwareGPUASICFPGAWalletSoftwareOthers

By Region:North AmericaBy Country (US, Canada, Mexico)By ApplicationBy ProcessBy Offering

Western EuropeBy Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Rest of Europe)By ApplicationBy ProcessBy Offering

Eastern EuropeBy Country (Russia, Turkey, Rest of Eastern Europe)By ApplicationBy ProcessBy Offering

Asia PacificBy Country (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, Rest of Asia Pacific)By ApplicationBy ProcessBy Offering

Middle EastBy Country (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Rest of Middle East)By ApplicationBy ProcessBy Offering

Rest of the WorldBy Region (South America, Africa)By ApplicationBy ProcessBy Offering

Companies:Bitmain, NVIDIA, Xilinx, Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Ripple, Bitfury, Ethereum Foundation, CoinBase, BitGo, and Binance

Reasons to buy this report:Market size estimation of the cryptocurrency market on a regional and global basisThe unique research design for market size estimation and forecastsProfiling of the major companies operating in the market with key developmentsBroad scope to cover all the possible segments helping every stakeholder in the market

Customization:We provide customization of the study to meet the specific requirements:By segmentBy sub-segmentBy region/ country

Contact:Quince Market InsightsAjay D. (Knowledge Partner)Office No- A109Pune, Maharashtra 411028Phone: +91 706 672 4848 +1 208 405 2835 / +44 121 364 6144 /Email:[emailprotected]Web:www.quincemarketinsights.com

ABOUT US:QMI has the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services available on the web. We deliver reports from virtually all major publications and refresh our list regularly to provide you with immediate online access to the worlds most extensive and up-to-date archive of professional insights into global markets, companies, goods, and patterns.

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LATEST NEWS ON THE CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKET | INTEL, COINBASE, BITGO, AND BINANCE Bulletin Line - Bulletin Line

Durango man battled COVID-19. Now hes fighting health restrictions – The Journal

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Jaime McMillan just overcame a six-week battle with COVID-19, but hes worried health restrictions are now more of a menace to individual liberties and commerce than the virus is to public health.

The only instrument we have to protect individuals liberties is the Constitution. And you cant protect the health and safety of people by doing a shortcut around the Constitution, and this is coming from someone whos survived COVID-19, McMillan said in a phone interview.

The Fifth Amendment, he said, protects people from being deprived of property without due process of the law or without just compensation.

Health restrictions in place by the state, the citys mask ordinances and even guidance from local public health agencies, McMillan says, are now skirting with legal jeopardy as essentially governmental takings from private businesses without compensation and eventually are likely to be challenged in court.

McMillan, a former constitutional law professor, said governmental takings arent confined to eminent domain. The law also protects people and businesses from regulatory takings stemming from enforcement of laws.

I think that the federal government can defend itself because you know, whatever you think about the relief packages, weve printed something like $5 trillion for relief, he said, but when you look at the health restrictions on restaurants from the state, when you look at the mask ordinance by the city, no ones considered compensation.

While McMillan, 53, who battled COVID-19 for six weeks in March and April, said the discussions might seem academic, the problem is festering and getting more serious with each business, like The Palace Restaurant, which has announced it will close its doors.

Theres a click economy and a brick economy, and were in danger of losing our brick economy, he said.

The problems with COVID-19 health restrictions are particularly severe in small towns dependent on small businesses, said McMillan, a Durango investment adviser and former candidate for City Council.

The problem in a rural community like Durango, is theres a big difference in the ability of small businesses to withstand this versus a national chain. Walmart can withstand a diminution of sales that a small business cant. And it seems our governments in the name of public health dont recognize that disparity.

The chance of any lawsuit emerging from a Durango small business or even a Colorado small businesses might be remote, but McMillan believes some small businesses across the nation are likely to challenge COVID-19 health restrictions as takings under the Fifth Amendment.

I think peoples patience will run out at some point. Is anybody going to file a lawsuit? Well, most people dont have the legal knowledge, the time or the budget, but there will be a lawsuit somewhere.

parmijo@durangoherald.com

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Durango man battled COVID-19. Now hes fighting health restrictions - The Journal

Perseverance Launches to Hunt for Signs of Ancient Martian Life | Planetary Science, Space Exploration – Sci-News.com

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

NASAs Mars 2020 Perseverance rover andIngenuityhelicopter launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:50 a.m. EDT on July 30, 2020.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover and Ingenuity helicopter are on the way to Mars after the July 30 7:50 a.m. launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Image credit: NASA.

The Perseverance rover mission will address high-priority science goals for Mars exploration.

Developed under NASAs Mars Exploration Program, it will seek signs of past microbial life and characterize the planets climate and geology.

It will also collect samples of Martian rocks and dust for a future Mars Sample Return mission to Earth, while paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

Perseverance will land in Jezero Crater on Mars on February 18, 2021.

Home to a lake billions of years ago, Jezero isnt a typical Mars crater.

This is a wonderful place to live for microorganisms, said Perseverance project scientist Dr. Ken Farley, of Caltech, speaking of the time when the lake was still there.

And it is also a wonderful place for those microorganisms to be preserved so that we can find them now so many billions of years later.

The car-sized Perseverance is also the largest, heaviest robotic Mars rover NASA has built.

The rover is about 3 m (10 feet) long not including the robotic arm, 2.7 m (9 feet) wide and 2.1 m (7 feet) tall. But at 1,025 kg (2,260 pounds), it weighs less than a compact car.

Its robotic arm is equipped with a rotating turret, which includes a rock drill, science instruments and a camera.

But while Perseverances arm is 2.1 m (7 feet) long, just like Curiositys, its turret weighs more 45 kg (99 pounds) because it carries larger instruments and a larger drill for coring. The drill will cut intact rock cores, and theyll be placed in sample tubes via a complex storage system.

Perseverance also has a six-wheel, rocker-bogie design derived from all of NASAs Mars rovers to date that helps to maintain a relatively constant weight on each of the rovers wheels and minimizes tilt.

The wheels are slightly narrower and taller than Curiositys but are similarly machined out of a rigid, lightweight aluminum alloy.

Both Curiosity and Perseverance have wheels lined with grousers raised treads that are specially designed for the Martian desert.

This artists concept depicts NASAs Mars rover Perseverance on the surface of the Red Planet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Perseverance is carrying seven different scientific instruments:

(i) Mastcam-Z is an advanced camera system with panoramic and stereoscopic imaging capability with the ability to zoom;

(ii) SuperCam is an instrument that can provide imaging, chemical composition analysis, and mineralogy at a distance;

(iii) Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) is an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer and high-resolution imager, which will map the fine-scale elemental composition of Martian surface materials;

(iv) Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) is a spectrometer that will provide fine-scale imaging and uses an ultraviolet (UV) laser to map mineralogy and organic compounds;

(v) The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) is a technology demonstration that will produce oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide;

(vi) Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) is a set of sensors that will provide measurements of temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, and dust size and shape;

(vii) Radar Imager for Mars Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) is a ground-penetrating radar that will provide centimeter-scale resolution of the geologic structure of the subsurface.

NASAs Mars helicopter Ingenuity. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Another special feature on Perseverance can be found on the aft crossbeam: a plate that contains three silicon chips stenciled with the names of approximately 10.9 million people from around the world who participated in the online Send Your Name to Mars campaign from May to September 2019.

The fingernail-sized chips also contain the essays of 155 finalists in NASAs Name the Rover essay contest.

The chips share space on an anodized plate with a laser-etched graphic depicting Earth and Mars joined by the star that gives light to both and a message in Morse code in the Suns rays: Explore as one.

Perseverance is also bringing a twin-rotor, solar-powered helicopter named Ingenuity to test out aerial flight on another planet for the first time.

The Wright Brothers showed that powered flight in Earths atmosphere was possible, using an experimental aircraft, said Ingenuitys chief pilot Dr. Hvard Grip, a researcher at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

With Ingenuity, which weighs only about 1.8 kg (4 pounds), were trying to do the same for Mars.

Perseverance is ferrying 23 cameras to the Red Planet the most ever flown in the history of deep-space exploration. Two cameras are installed on the Ingenuity helicopter.

Perseverance Launches to Hunt for Signs of Ancient Martian Life | Planetary Science, Space Exploration - Sci-News.com

From Frying Pan to Fire: Strategic Issues When Reimbursement Disputes Turn Into Criminal Investigations – JD Supra

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Early on the morning of June 13, 2017, over one hundred federal agents raided facilities across southern California belonging to behavioral health provider Sovereign Heath. The agents provided search warrants indicating that they were seeking evidence of fraudulent billing and kickbacks. The items sought suggested a potential connection to a civil lawsuit that Sovereign had filed against insurer Health Net for bad faith denial of insurance claims, as well as cross-claims for fraud and kickbacks that Health Net had filed in response. Sovereign eventually collapsed. On May 5, 2020, it filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against Health Net, its parent company Centene Corp., and several of Health Nets outside counsel, accusing them of providing false information to the government in order to induce the investigation and force Sovereign out of business. Dual Diagnosis Treatment Center, Inc., et al. v. Centene Corp., et al., Case No. 2:20-cv-04112 (C.D. Cal.).

While perhaps a dramatic example, the Sovereign case is hardly the only one in recent years in which a private insurer has allegedly encouraged law enforcement to pursue a provider, sometimes while the insurer and provider are engaged in a dispute. For example, beginning in 2016, insurers sued several dialysis providers for paying kickbacks through a charity, while a related DOJ investigation was underway. In October 2018, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee confirmed that it was cooperating with the Department of Justice in the prosecution of various individuals and companies allegedly involved in a $174 million telemedicine fraud against private insurers. And earlier this month, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the convictions of two Alabama doctors for defrauding private insurers and others; a Blue Cross Blue Shield employee testified in the trial as a government witness. See United States v. Ruan, Case No. 17-12653.

Criminal cases involving commercial health insurers often proceed in parallel with civil litigation between the payer and provider. In some cases, the payer asserts an overpayment and initiates litigation including fraud claims. In others, the provider sues for non-payment or underpayment, and the insurer either defends or countersues by alleging fraud. However the dispute arises, insurers have become increasingly aggressive in referring fraud claims to law enforcement agencies, including DOJ, in connection with the civil litigation. Often, these referrals are made through the insurers Special Investigative Units and counsel, sometimes with the hope of gaining additional leverage in the dispute. As in any situation featuring overlapping criminal and civil cases, such collaborations between insurers and prosecutors are rife with strategic and procedural landmines for both sides.

One of these critical issues that often arises for the provider in the civil case is whether to assert the Fifth Amendment and refuse to testify. If a provider does so in federal civil court, it can result in the judge or jury drawing adverse inferences that can be devastating to the providers case. Even in the state courts of California or other jurisdictions that prohibit such adverse inferences, asserting the self-incrimination privilege can make it harder for the provider to introduce helpful evidence. But waiving the Fifth Amendment and testifying can provide valuable fodder for the government in the criminal case, which may prove even more dangerous. For that reason, the provider may seek a stay of the civil case until the criminal matter is completed, which may delay resolution of the payment issue but can avoid the self-incrimination dilemma.

On the other side of the coin, the civil proceeding may offer the provider certain advantages in the criminal case. In particular, civil litigation allows for much broader discovery than is generally afforded to criminal defendants. A provider facing parallel cases can use depositions, document requests, and other discovery devices to pin down testimony from key witnesses, extract exculpatory admissions, and obtain documents useful for his defense, all of which might be unavailable in a criminal case. For that reason, the provider might choose risk defeat in the civil case by not pursuing a stay, while the government might instead ask to suspend the civil proceeding. In other cases, the government may not seek a stay, but instead ask the court for a protective order barring discovery of witnesses communications with the government, or other information the disclosure of which could undermine the criminal investigation. See State Compensation Ins. Fund v. Drobot, 2016 WL 3546583 (C.D Cal. Feb. 29, 2016).

The government and payer, too, must be careful in pursuing a coordinated attack. Courts have held that the government may not secretly use a civil proceeding to obtain information for a criminal case. See United States v. Stringer, 521 F.3d 1189 (9th Cir. 2008). In other cases, they have found that the governments excessive direction of a private actors dealings with a criminal defendant render that private actor a government agent, whose actions can violate the defendants constitutional rights. See United States v. Connolly, et al., Case No. 16-cr-370 (S.D.N.Y.) If the government and insurer appear to be working too closely, and one seems to be taking too much direction from the other, a court could find misconduct or perhaps order additional discovery from the insurer in a criminal case. At a minimum, close involvement between the two could provide a line of defense in the criminal case regarding the bias or improper motives of the government. A similar defense was successful in the recent acquittal of a Fitbit executive on criminal trade secrets charges apparently prompted by a competing companys advocacy.

Like anyone who provides information to law enforcement, insurers referring matters to the government must also be both scrupulously accurate and reasonably thorough in their disclosures. If an insurer give false or misleadingly incomplete evidence to the government in order to persuade it to pursue charges against a provider in order to gain a litigation advantage, it could be subject to a claim of malicious prosecution, or even criminal false statements charges under 18 U.S.C. 1001. Such allegations of false accusations provided part of the basis of Sovereign Healths RICO lawsuit against Health Net, discussed above.

While civil disputes and criminal investigations may sometimes mix, particularly in the case of provider-insurer reimbursement disputes, they raise both the stakes and the complexity in both proceedings. Navigating such parallel proceedings requires careful planning and counsel with experience in both the civil and criminal realms.

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From Frying Pan to Fire: Strategic Issues When Reimbursement Disputes Turn Into Criminal Investigations - JD Supra

In defense of the softball interview – Columbia Journalism Review

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Dr. Marc Siegel (right) interviews Donald Trump. Screenshot via YouTube

When it came to asking the president about his mental soundness last week, which Fox News reporter extracted the more revealing answer?

First up was Chris Wallace, the tough Fox News Sunday anchor, who said this about the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test that Trump so proudly passed: I took the test too when I heard that you passed it, said Wallace. Its notwell, its not the hardest test. They have a picture, and it says, Whats that? And its an elephant.

A few days later, Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox Newss medical commentator, asked Trump about the same topic, but framed his inquiry this way: Presidential health, or health of the candidate, is going to be on the table. Ive seen a lot about your health, being in good health. What do you think should come outregarding Vice President Biden?

Wallaces question may have been more emotionally satisfying, but it was Siegela commentator prone to adulation of Trumpwho got the more telling answer: a six-minute meander through Trumps thicket of self-diagnosis, during which the president mentioned China, Russia, Ukraine, judicial appointments, the Twenty-fifth Amendment, and, most notably, his ability to recite a string of five words while under observation by medical experts. The camera, trained mostly on Trump, occasionally cut to Siegel, who smiled sweetly and nodded understandingly, barely uttering a word as the president repeated Person, woman, man, camera, TV four times.

After Siegels interview went viral, he went on Tucker Carlsons show to explain his interviewing style: Thats been asked of me a lot: Why didnt you interrupt him on the cognitive question? Well, I was brought up not to interrupt people. Its a sign of respect.

THE MEDIA TODAY: The logistical and ethical challenges of sports reporters restart

Softball questions arent considered a standard part of the journalistic canon. Journalists lionize reporters like Chris Wallaces father, Mike, who once asked the Ayatollah Khomeini how he felt about being called a lunatic, or Oriana Fallaci, whose brutal interview of Henry Kissingerwould become, in his words, the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press.

Theres an important difference between a softball question and the dear-leader sycophancy that a TV personality like Foxs Maria Bartiromo demonstratesmost recently in May, when she asked Trump, Ive never seen anybody take a punch and then get right back up and keep punching. I mean, where does this resilience come from?

None of this means that reporters should avoid difficult questions; theyre essential for many stories. But occasionally, a hard question puts the presidentor someone of his egoon the defensive, while the gentle one prods him to be more candid than he intended.

Two days after the Siegel interview, Trump was back before the cameras at the White House, this time being interviewed by Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports. Portnoy can be causticas well as misogynistic and racistbut at the White House, he became a tail-wagging puppy, seeking Trumps approval in return for a morsel or two. And it worked.

After beginning the interview by praising Trump because he didnt fall for an Ali G interview years ago, Portnoy then asked the president how the country can close the divide. It seems like half the country hates the other half. How do we bring it together?

Trumps answer: Success. The best employment numbers in the history of our country. Best stock market weve ever had. Everybody was making a lot of moneyand then China sent us this horrible, bad present.

Portnoys question is as easy as it gets for politicians, most of whom would gush a paean to American history and vow to bring the country together. Not Trump. He cant countenance the idea that the chasm goes beyond the stock or job market to issues of equity, racial justice, or pandemic responses.

As their chat nears its end, Portnoy displays some self-awareness about what hes doing. I feel like so many interviews, theyre always coming from an agenda, positive or negativethey come at you hard, you just come back harder. People say, Is it presidential, is it not? And you just do your thing.

Softball questions dont always work. In March, as the pandemic was shuttering candidates indoors, CNNs Brooke Baldwin tossed this hanging slider to Biden:

Really your strength is in traveling around the country and connecting with people, right. Connecting with voters. Looking them in the eye, a hug, handshake. Especially in these crucial months before the election. And you cant do any of that right now. Mr. Vice President, does that worry you?

Biden parried that one with ease: No, it doesnt worry me. The thing that worries me is whether we get this under control.

An occasional bonus with softball interviews is the surprise shown by reporters when they realize that the guest just unexpectedly delivered actual news. That happened in 2018, when the Stormy Daniels story was gaining steam, and Foxs Sean Hannity hosted Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Hannity asked about Fusion GPS, a private investigative firm, and the dossier compiled by Christopher Steele on Trumps presidential campaign. For some reason, Giuliani turned the discussion to the $130,000 hush paymentthe one that Trump had denied being involved with. He tells Hannity, That money was not campaign money, sorry. Im giving you a fact that you dont know. Its not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. They funneled it through a law firm, and the president repaid it.

Hannity seemed taken aback by Giulianis candor. Oh, I didnt know that he did. Neither did the rest of the country, until the presidents lawyer blurted it out, to one of his favorite interviewers.

ICYMI: A new media neighborhood for an emerging world

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In defense of the softball interview - Columbia Journalism Review

"It’s the decent thing to do" – News – La Junta Tribune Democrat

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Three patients of Pioneer Health Care Center in Rocky Ford who tested positive for COVID-19 (one test is awaiting confirmatory results) have died, Crowley / Otero Health Departments Director Rick Ritter told the Tribune-Democrat Friday. Ritter said the health department gives its condolences to their families.

"Any time this happens we are certainly sorry that they lost a loved one," Ritter said.

COVID-19 cases in Otero County totaled 36 as of Saturday, according to Colorado Public Health and Environment, although Ritter said in a news release that numbers reflected by the state were not up to date. In the same statement, Ritter confirmed that three coronavirus patients at Pioneer Health Care Center in Rocky Ford had died and at the nursing home two staff and a total of 13 patients tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Ritter noted that results of confirmatory tests for some patients were still awaiting results as of Saturday.

Following Gov. Jared Polis's executive order mandating mask use in indoor public facilities July 16, businesses and services have had to crack down on enforcing mask use. Although many businesses and public buildings have posted signs alerting prospective patrons to their mandated enforcement of mask use, others have posted notices that state they will not enforce mask use.

In some instances, the notices make questionable references to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the 4th and 5th Amendments, or other facets of the U.S. Constitution or U.S. law.

Thaxton's Market in Fowler, for example, posted a sign in their window that read, "Due to HIPPA and the 4th Amendment, we cannot legally ask you what your medical condition is."

The sign continued to state that store employees would assume anyone entering without a mask was exempted from the statewide mandate. The Tribune-Democrat called Thaxton's Market last week to inquire about the store policy, but it did not hear back in time for publication.

Arkansas Valley Lumber outside Rocky Ford stirred up controversy when a sign it had posted in its entrance made rounds across local social media groups. The sign declared Arkansas Valley Lumber was no longer a public company and would only accept business from "United States citizens that believe in their constitutional right of freedom from oppression."

A day later, Arkansas Valley Lumber apologized on its official Facebook page and clarified that it would not discriminate against anyone, although it maintained that it would not enforce the use of masks.

Ritter isn't sold on Thaxton's claims or those of others, however.

"There's a lot of information I'm just going to come out and say it disinformation out there," said Ritter.

Ritter noted the statewide mask order makes exemptions for people with health conditions that complicate their breathing, such as asthma or COPD.

But contrary to what some businesses are claiming, a store is not legally prevented from offering patrons masks, nor is a store prohibited from asking someone who claims to have a medical condition that prevents mask use what that condition is, according to attorney to Otero County Nathan Schultz.

"I've seen a lot of people saying they're not going to ask about masks due to HIPPA," said Schultz. "The Fourth Amendment, then one store that says they're not going to ask about masks because of the Fifth Amendment. HIPPA is designed to protect information from covered entities, like doctors and hospitals, from disseminating that information without a release. That has absolutely no bearing on a grocery store. The Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment, both, any time you're trying to claim you have constitutional protection, there has to be government action."

Schultz agreed it was possible that some business owners might have conflated HIPPA with the American Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability. But even the American Disabilities Act allows for what Schultz called reasonable inquiry if someone doesn't have an obvious disability.

"I think the stores still have the duty to ask someone to wear a mask," Schultz said. "If they're saying they don't cause of health reasons, you can ask what the health reason is because then the store needs to establish what reasonable accommodations they can make."

Schultz said allowing someone to not wear a mask would probably not be a reasonable accommodation. Instead, though, a store could implement curbside service in such an instance, Schultz suggested.

Schultz said seeing misinformation circulate on social media has been frustrating. Counter to more claims from those opposed to mask use saying the governor's mandate was unlawful or does not have the same effect as law, Gov. Polis's executive order carries the full weight of law, Schultz said.

"Earlier this week, the public health order 20-31 came out, also mandating masks. Public health orders are enforceable by local law enforcement under 25-1-506," said Schultz. "Those can be punished civilly, they can do it administratively where they can pull your business license, or they can do it criminally up to a first degree misdemeanor."

Otero County Sheriff Shawn Mobley said his office will not enforce the mask mandate. Mobley referenced his short staffed department and ongoing criminal investigations. Schultz said he thinks Mobley's decision is okay, but that he was angered by sheriffs from other counties who claimed Polis's law was unconstitutional or did not carry legal weight.

Bent County Sheriffs Office also said in a joint statement with Bent County Public Health that the sheriffs office there would not be enforcing the mask mandate, although they did not provide additional reasoning with their statement.

Otero County will try to utilize civil and administrative means to regulate the mask mandate as opposed to pursuing criminal charges, Schultz said, noting it doesn't do anyone any good to start jailing more people right now.

Another piece of disinformation Schultz wanted to address was that of masks versus the size of COVID-19 particles. Schultz made the distinction that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is not airborne in the stirctest sense: The viruss primary mode of transmission from host to host is through respiratory particles in other words, spit.

"I'm still seeing a lot of misinformation about the cloth masks themselves," Schultz said. "A lot of people are pointing out micron sizes and all that. This virus has never been airborne, it's transferred through saliva droplets. So the cloth mask does nothing to protect the wearer, it's designed to protect the community from the wearer. So if everyone's wearing a mask, the saliva's less likely to spread to others.

In other words, posts on social media claiming that cloth masks dont stop COVID-19 from passing through them are missing the point, because COVID-19 travels primarily in much larger respiratory droplets that are stopped by a cloth face covering.

Health Director Rick Ritter stressed that many businesses have been compliant with the mask order and that the health department receives numerous calls daily from people looking to improve the safety of their establishments.

Ritter said hes seen people be dismissive of social distancing guidelines and mask use because they dont believe others are taking it seriously.

"To the people saying, 'Well nobody's doing it," that's absolutely wrong," said Ritter. "And that is disrespecting the businesses that are working hard to do what's right, to protect customers, employees, and this is not a hard thing to do, my gosh, we put on pants to cover our lower torso, we put on shirts, and that's not a violation of our constitutional rights.

"If I went out naked on the street, and you can print this, the police would be called. If I said, You can't make me put on pants, that's against my constitutional right to be naked, that wouldn't cut any ice. We're just covering our face and if somebody says, Well you put on pants for decency's sake, I say you put on a mask for decency's sake because you're protecting others.

"A mask is primarily worn to protect others, and that's what I'm saying. These cloth masks, if we all wear them like we're supposed to, it's a kindness to others, it's a consideration for others, and we're going to reduce risk."

Schultz added the health department is working around the clock to try to achieve the best outcome for the community.

Tribune-Democrat reporter Christian Burney can be reached by email at cburney@ljtdmail.com. Help support local journalism by subscribing to the La Junta Tribune-Democrat at lajuntatribunedemocrat.com/subscribenow.

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"It's the decent thing to do" - News - La Junta Tribune Democrat

The lunar rock hounds of Apollo 15: Exploring the moon in a bucking bronco buggy in 1971 – PennLive

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Just two years after the first men walked on the moon, some astronauts drove a buggy on it.

Although astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin described the Lunar Roving Vehicle more like a bucking bronco buggy.

Scott, Irwin and Alfred M. Worden went to the moon aboard Apollo 15 in 1971. Scott and Irwin were the first astronauts to operate a vehicle on the moon and Worden was the first to go on a spacewalk.

As the trio entered the orbit of the moon on July 29, 1971, The Patriot reported, Three excited men seeing a desolate world of craters and rugged mountains below them and calling it absolutely overwhelming absolutely mind-boggling.

Apollo 15 launched from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on July 26, 1971.

This mini-panorama combines two photographs taken by Apollo 15 lunar module pilot Jim Irwin, from the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) site, at the end of the second Apollo 15 moonwalk on August 1, 1971. Apollo 15 was the fourth crewed mission to land on the Moon and the first to visit and explore the Moon's Hadley Rille and Apennine Mountains which are located on the southeast edge of the Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains). The image shows the ALSEP Central Station in the foreground, the Passive Seismic Experiment beyond the left side, and the Lunar Surface magnetometer in the background near the center. Mission commander David R. Scott is leaning to his right and is putting down the Apollo Lunar Surface drill used to take core samples and set up a heat flow experiment. The Solar Wind Spectrometer is in the right foreground.The min-pan of photographs AS15-11845 and 11847 was combined by Erik van Meijgaarden, volunteer contributor to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal site. (NASA)

Scott was the commander, Worden the command module pilot and Irwin the lunar module pilot.

From July 30 to Aug. 2, Scott, Worden and Irwin spent 18.5 hours on the moon and collected 170 pounds of material.

During the return trip, Worden performed the first spacewalk in deep space.

From NASA, During three periods of extravehicular activity, or EVA, on July 31, and Aug. 1 and 2, Scott and Irwin completed a record 18 hours, 37 minutes of exploration, traveled 17.5 miles in the first car that humans have ever driven on the moon, collected more than 170 pounds of lunar samples, set up the ALSEP array, obtained a core sample from about 10 feet beneath the lunar surface, and provided extensive oral descriptions and photographic documentation of geologic features in the vicinity of the landing site during the three days (66 hours, 55 minutes) on the lunar surface.

The Lunar Roving Vehicle weighed about 460 pounds. It could be folded for storage aboard the lunar module.

Astronaut James Irwin beside the Rover parked near the lunar module, looking northeast, Mount Hadley in the background. (AP Photo)

Mike Neufeld, a curator in the space history division at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. told space.com, "It was a very elegant little vehicle," Neufeld said. "It had to be lightweight and had to be folded up in a very compact space. They were very successful there were no major failures so clearly it was a successful design."

The vehicle had a top speed of about 8 mph. The rocky surface of the moon prevented the astronauts from going very fast.

Neufeld said, "They weren't driving on flat land it was more like a dirt buggy than anything else. It didn't travel that fast, but for the astronauts who drove it, it seemed like it was exciting and fast. It was a pretty bouncy ride. Even flat looking terrain on the moon is not very flat because there are so many crater pits, so it would have been a fairly exciting ride."

On Aug. 2, 1971, The Patriot reported, The Apollo 15 lunar rock hounds think they found what they went to the moon for a piece of crystal rock that may date from the creation of the universe.

The astronauts were searching for and found anorthosite, a type of rock that is very rare on earth. Grains of anorthosite found in soil from the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites have been dated at 4.6 billion years - the age of the solar system.

In this image provided by NASA, the two Apollo 15 astronauts are shown gathering lunar samples during their second lunar surface extravehicular activity in this reproduction taken from a color transmission made by the RCA color television camera mounted on the Lunar Roving Vehicle, August 10, 1971. David R. Scott, commander, is on the left. On the right is lunar module pilot James B. Irwin. (AP Photo/NASA)

Apollo 15 also was the first flight to include a spacewalk.

On Aug. 5, Worden became the first person to perform deep space extravehicular activity.

Worden said he was outside the spacecraft for 38 minutes.

He described it to smithsonianmag.com, Black as the ace of Spades, but as Jim and I floated out, there was enough sunlight to light our way. It was an unbelievable sensation. I described it once as going for a swim alongside Moby Dick.

What a feeling to be free in deep space about 196,000 miles from home."

... It was the most unbelievable sight one could imagine, and I was so proud of our ability and ingenuity as a nation to do something this magnificent. By turning my head just so I could position myself so that both the Earth and the Moon were in field of vision. I realized that no one in all of history had ever seen this sight before. What an honor it was.

The astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, 335 miles north of Honolulu on Aug. 7.

Helicopters picked them up and took them to the USS Okinawa.

The return was safe despite the fact that one of the three parachutes on the command module failed.

The three astronauts were reprimanded a year later when it was revealed they had secretly carried unauthorized postal covers to the surface of the moon and each paid $7,000 for it. When NASA got wind of the stamp covers being for sale by a German stamp dealer, they were reprimanded and had to forfeit the money. In addition, they never flew into space again.

Three Apollo 15 Astronauts, from left, David Scott; Alfred Worden, and James Irwin, were disciplined by NASA July 12, 1972, for secretly carrying 400 souvenir, stamped envelopes that could have been sold for $600,000 or more. One hundred of the envelopes were given to an acquanintance of the astronauts and sold at a reported price of $1,500 each. The three, who eventually decided not to take any of the $150,000, "exercized poor judgement," NASA said. (AP Photo)

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The lunar rock hounds of Apollo 15: Exploring the moon in a bucking bronco buggy in 1971 - PennLive

Hope Leads the Way to Mars – The Planetary Society

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Mat Kaplan:Leading the way to the Red Planet, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome. I'm Mat Kaplan of the Planetary Society with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. Hope is on its way to Mars. We'll enjoy a conversation with the two leaders of the Emirates Mars Mission in a few minutes. China's Tianwen-1 was also successfully launched a few days ago. By the time the first of you hear this, Perseverance, NASA's next Mars rover should be hours away from its liftoff. The agency's Thomas Zurbuchen and Mimi Aung, leader of the Mars Helicopter project are moments away.

Mat Kaplan:Down the line, we'll hear from Bruce Betts about comet NEOWISE and the other wonders waiting for you in the night sky. The July 24 edition of the down link is topped by a view of two worlds that aren't from around here. In fact, these young gas-giants circle the star that is 300 light years away. The image was captured by the European Southern Observatory's very large telescope in Chile. Yeah, that's its name, the very large telescope. It was augmented with a chronograph that blocked most of the star's light revealing those planets.

Mat Kaplan:Launch of the James Webb Space Telescope has been delayed again, as the pandemic continues to take its toll and just on us humans. NASA is now looking at October 31st of next year, that's right, the most powerful and ambitious space telescope ever will get a spooky Halloween send-off. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Chris Cassidy have completed the power system upgrade of the International Space Station with the final space walk. Behnken and Doug Hurley are set to return to Earth in their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on August 2nd.

Mat Kaplan:As always, you'll find much, much more at planetary.org/downlink and you can sign-up to receive our weekly newsletter for free. Remember Mimi Aung? We talked back in July of last year with the project manager for the first flying machine headed to another planet. Aung participated in a July 20th virtual event presented by Space Foundation. Titled Roving the Red Planet, the webinar also featured past Planetary radio guests NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Jet Propulsion Lab Director Michael Watkins, and NASA's Associate Administrator for its Science Mission Directorate Thomas Zurbuchen. We'll hear from Zurbuchen in a few minutes, but first, here's some of what Aung had to say.

Mimi Aung:There are three technologies being demonstrated on Mars 2020. The terrain relative navigation for safer landing in hazardous terrain, Montse, which converts a carbon dioxide to oxygen for instituted resource utilization, and the Mars Helicopter. NASA performs technology demonstrations, tech demos to demonstrate advanced capabilities for spacecraft for our future missions. The Mars Helicopter tech demo will be the first ever to attempt a rotorcraft flight at Mars. In fact, we as human beings have never flown a rotorcraft, a helicopter, anywhere outside of our own Earth's atmosphere. So, really a Wright Brothers moment but on another planet.

Mimi Aung:For NASA, the Mars technology demonstration, Mars Helicopter tech demo is motivated by the potential to add the aerial dimension to space exploration. Today we explore Mars from spacecraft in orbit and rovers roving on the surface. In the future, there'll be astronauts on the surface and the helicopter can serve as scout for rovers and astronauts. A helicopter can also allow us to reach places that are simply not accessible today without being able to fly.

Mimi Aung:It's not easy to build a rotorcraft to fly at Mars. The atmosphere is really thin. Compared to Earth, it's about 1%. A vehicle to fly in Mars has to be really light and it has to spin really fast. The helicopter we've built is named Ingenuity, and Ingenuity has a rotor system that's 1.2 meter in diameter and the entire vehicle has to weigh under two kilograms. That's about four pounds. To build this vehicle that weighs about four pounds while having the capability to fly and land autonomously, and to survive and operate autonomously at Mars, remotely operated from Earth, that's a huge challenge. It's the tiny package with tons of capability packed. The day our vehicle weighed in, it weighed in a hair under 1.8 kilogram. That was a huge day for us.

Mimi Aung:Since then, we've performed the helicopter test flights in a simulated Mars atmosphere in the 25-foot diameter space simulator chamber here at JPL. Very importantly, Perseverance has tested deploying us from the belly pan of the Perseverance Rover successfully to the surface. At this point, we've performed all the tests that we can on Earth and the next step really is now to do it in the real environment this Mars Helicopter Ingenuity is designed for in space vacuum, as soon as after launch, and finally on the surface of Mars.

Mimi Aung:We have a 30 Martian day window to do our flight experiments. We have up to five flight plans to be performed in that time period. The first and foremost, the most important flight for us, for our team is the very first flight where we'll repeat the flight that we have tested multiple times in our test chamber here on Earth. And then after getting the first flight, then we will be performing more bolder and bolder flights of higher heights and further distances. So, here we are. Exciting days ahead. Helicopter is about to be launched. Our team is thrilled. It's truly the high risk/high reward phase of our project. High risk because every step forward, every event that we have will be a first time event, right? First in space vacuum, and then in the environment of Mars.

Mimi Aung:But more importantly, high reward. All of the experiences will be feeding into future much more capable rotorcraft for our team. That is the ultimate reward that we've worked really, really, really hard for. I came to NASA inspired for the opportunity to contribute to space exploration. And along the way, I also fell in love with making first of a kind capabilities work for increasingly autonomous advanced space systems. Here today is an example of the dream come true. Here we are on a historical mission, Perseverance working on a tech demo, Mars Helicopter Ingenuity. Thank you so much

Mat Kaplan:Mars Helicopter Project Manager, Mimi Aung. The tiny whirly bird is now making its way to the Red Planet in the belly of the Perseverance rover. Thomas Zurbuchen, always speaks eloquently and with great passion about our exploration of the solar system and beyond. Here are a few excerpts from his contribution to Space Foundation's webinar.

Thomas Zurbuchen:Before I get started, I wanted to congratulate the United Arab Emirates for their successful launch of the Hope Mission to Mars along with their Japanese launch partners, that's a truly amazing accomplishment and we're happy to join them soon with Perseverance because together, Hope and Perseverance are essential ingredients of exploration. It's truly an exciting decade ahead of us as the entire world sends missions to Mars, to study and explore the Red Planet.

Thomas Zurbuchen:Next week, the United States returns to Mars. It's the next step in putting together a puzzle we've been working on for centuries which has accelerated in the last 55 years beginning with the first flyby of Mars by Mariner 4. The world's eyes were opened when the Viking lander sent back transformative pictures of the surface of another planet for the first time. The world got to see for itself the color Mars red with its own eyes.

Thomas Zurbuchen:We saw how it resembled our great American desert scapes and we wondered anew what our two planets might have in common where all the ingredients necessarily to life, carbon, other elements, water, energy; were they present on Mars and [inaudible 00:08:58] produce microbes as they did on Earth. But did unhappy celestial occurrences for the neighbors snuffed out that agent's life as we strive here and flourish here on Earth as life is an important part of our planet.

Thomas Zurbuchen:These are questions scientists have pondered for decades and more. Now, we sent Perseverance, the most capable robotic scientist ever sent to the surface of another planet, to the most promising place we could determine from here that could have supported life. An ancient river delta by what might have once have been a huge lake. The Perseverance Rover belts on the legacy of NASA's Mars exploration program and joined a fleet that right now includes our rover, outlander, and multiple orbiters. It's our ninth mission to land and our fifth rover.

Thomas Zurbuchen:Perseverance is our first mission to astrobiology. In this case, the search of ancient life as part of its top line science goals, that current fleet of Mars including the rovers planet made Curiosity which is still roving five years in. On older missions we have sent historically, these other missions have all found things that led us to keep going down this path. Having found organics, methane, signs of water in the past and even now, Perseverance suites of instruments will take the next step.

Thomas Zurbuchen:Perseverance is also the bridge between science and human aspiration that demonstrates how the two can support and reinforce each other. It will do incredible things until human scientists with their own unique perspectives and ability to make science judgments are able to walk the surface. I'll look forward to that personally, many of us, too. What will Perseverance do? The planet stories told in parts through its climate and meta will tell us more about the weather on Mars and prevalence of dust and how it would affect human missions.

Thomas Zurbuchen:RIMFAX will probe beneath the surface perhaps finding ice deposits human missions could use. SuperCam and Mars cam will survey and study the environment and turn amazing images. Basically, Perseverance will bring all human senses to Mars. We'll sense the air around it. See and scan the horizon, hear the planet with microphones on the surface for the first time, feel it as it picks up samples into cache and perhaps even taste it in the sense as pixel and other instrument sample the chemistry in the rocks and soil around it.

Thomas Zurbuchen:As humans prepare for the greatest adventure here in-person exploration of Mars, our robots can help. MOXIE will help that demonstrate how we might live off the land by converting carbon dioxide into oxygen that we can breathe or for rocket fuel. Sherlock in addition, do searching for organics uses space suit material for calibration which will also help us learn how it degrades on Mars and technologies such as MEDLI and terrain relative navigation, TRN will help our rover to the surface and also provide data that is important to landing future human missions on Mars.

Thomas Zurbuchen:Jim is going to talk a lot about this and this important context of human exploration as well. A helicopter named Ingenuity will demonstrate powered flight on another planet for the first time. I really look forward to seeing this Marsian Wright Brothers moment. Mimi will tell us more about this. I'm just so excited about it. Perseverance is going to prepare for humanity at long last to hold a piece of Mars in our hand, not just a meteorite from somewhere but a piece of an actual surface with its geologic context analyzed with the best instruments there for us to study back on Earth, the best instruments humanity has available to themselves, not only today but also in the future.

Thomas Zurbuchen:This is the first lap of humanity's first-ever roundtrip to another planet. This amazing explorer could not have been ready for launch. In this transient window we have without the perseverance of teams across the country and the world who struggled and sacrificed through the global pandemic to keep their sights on this milestone of humanity. Their work and this mission embody the agency's and our nation's spirit of persevering even in the most challenging of situations, providing inspiration and advancing science and exploration.

Thomas Zurbuchen:The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering towards the future. Mike is going to tell us more about this, especially. Perseverance carries our hopes and dreams, the names of 11 million people from across the world who sent in their names to go with us under the plaque we read, "Explore as one." I just want to tell you, both of my parents who are no longer with us, their names are there. That is really meaningful to me from that perspective as well as also my family who's here, whose all of their names are on this list.

Thomas Zurbuchen:Perseverance carries the goodwill of the entire space community that we and other nations all sent missions to Mars this decade. It reinforces NASA's commitment to working with our international partners to accomplish stunning achievements in science, technology, and exploration. When Perseverance launches, it takes us all. Everyone of us will have a chance to learn from and be inspired by this mission. Any time we attempt something that pushes us to the next threshold is a time to celebrate. It is a big moment. A milestone for humanity that we all share. We explore and discover together. And together, we persevere.

Mat Kaplan:Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. We're grateful to Space Foundation. We've got a link to their complete Roving the Red Planet Webinar on this week's showpage@planetary.org/radio. We're far from done. After a quick break, we'll head for the United Arab Emirates for a great conversation with Sarah Al Amiri and Omran Sharaf, leaders of The Emirates Mars Mission and the Hope orbiter. Stay with us.

Bill Nye:Where did we come from? Are we alone in the cosmos? These are the questions at the core of our existence. The secrets of the universe are out there waiting to be discovered, but to find them, we have to go into space. We have to explore. This endeavor unites us. Space exploration truly brings out the best in us. Encouraging people from all walks of life to work together, to achieve a common goal, to know the cosmos and their place within.

Bill Nye:This is why the Planetary Society exists. Our mission is to give you the power to advance space science and exploration. With your support, we sponsor innovative space technologies, inspire curious minds, and advocate for our future in space. We are the Planetary Society. Join us.

Mat Kaplan:We featured a launch party on last week's show. One of the many voices you heard belonged to Her Excellency Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri. Sarah is Deputy Project Manager and Science Lead on the Emirates Mars Mission or EMM. She's also Minister of State for Advanced Sciences in the UAE and she has been named the new President of the UAE's Space Agency. Those are just a few of her titles and accomplishments.

Mat Kaplan:Joining Sarah on this week's show is Omran Sharaf. Omran is the EMM Project Director at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center. He's overseeing every aspect of this ambitious mission including the transition from a focus on Earth observation satellites to development to interplanetary missions. You're going to hear the term MEPAG used. That's the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group. Sarah and Omran, thank you so much for joining us on Planetary Radio. It is a great honor to be able to speak to you so soon after the beginning of this mission, the Emirates Mars Mission with its Hope spacecraft.

Mat Kaplan:I know I speak on behalf of our audience and everyone, all my colleagues at the Planetary Society want to congratulate you on this terrific start for this mission to the Red Planet. Thank you for being here.

Sarah Al Amiri:Thank you for having us, Mat. It's a pleasure for us to be on and to talk about the start of the Hope Mars Mission.

Mat Kaplan:I have to join NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine who we heard on the show last week and many other space experts and officials around the world who are also congratulating you and your team. I'm sure you have been asked this question too many times, but how does it feel to be on your way to Mars? Sarah, why don't you start again?

Sarah Al Amiri:It's been over six years of intense work. As you all know, it's challenging to get a spacecraft built to Mars and it's even more challenging to do it in six years. It's been a mixture of emotions across the board even after launch, leading up to launch. Now that we have the spacecraft there, it's a rollercoaster of emotions where you hit a high every time you achieve a milestone, but you know there's another challenge coming up. It's just these series of challenges that will continue on until we get to orbit around Mars, until we get to starting our science operations and getting scientific data down and start analyzing that. The emotional journey that we're on at the moment will continue on for the next few months.

Mat Kaplan:Omran, a slight variation on that question. How did it feel? Was there a sense of relief when your spacecraft turned toward the big antennas and started to say, "I'm feeling fine. I'm on my way to Mars."

Omran Sharaf:I wouldn't say a full relief. It felt good. I was happy that actually the spacecraft is safe and is communicating with us. It's a long journey. It's a seven-month journey. We have the Mars Orbit Insertion; a very, very critical days in the project that's going to take place in February 2021. It felt good, but not fully relieved.

Mat Kaplan:What is the current status of the spacecraft, Omran?

Omran Sharaf:The spacecraft is safe and sound. It's healthy. It started its cruise towards Mars. We're monitoring the spacecraft on a continuous basis 24/7 for now, as we are commissioning the spacecraft as part of the deal. This process will stay like this for about two weeks, maybe. Later on, we'll switch to normal operations in which we'll be having our operations conducted or contacting the spacecraft twice a week, for six hours every contact. So far, everything looks good and we're happy with the status of the spacecraft.

Mat Kaplan:Are there any significant milestones during this cruise phase as Hope makes its way to Mars?

Omran Sharaf:Yes. We do have very important operations that would take place about 10 days from now, the TCM, trajectory correction maneuver. We have a series of 70 scans taking place which are being launched and arrive to Mars which are very critical for us. This is, I would say, the most critical operation that will be taking place. It will be taking place about seven times throughout the journey.

Mat Kaplan:So, plenty to keep you busy, it sounds like.

Omran Sharaf:Yes.

Mat Kaplan:I know and I'm sure you know that arrival at Mars whether it's orbital insertion as you'll be doing are heading down to the surface is thrilling but can also be terrifying, and this is your first time doing this. What steps have you taken or will you be taking to make sure things go smoothly?

Omran Sharaf:Yes, as you mentioned it's a very risky operation. When it comes to risk [inaudible 00:21:17] the best way to mitigate those risks especially with these missions and especially if it's a platform that you developed, it's not a platform that's been bought or something that's been used before, is by testing it, testing it, and testing it. Before launching, we had a lot of scenarios that simulated the Mars orbit insertion and saw how the spacecraft reacted to these scenarios.

Omran Sharaf:For now, what we can do is again just monitor the spacecraft and make sure that we are on the right trajectory. By the time we reach Mars, we make sure that the softwares are up to date, the data that the spacecraft is using to conduct the maneuvers are up to date, whether it's a nominal scenario, whether it's a scenario [inaudible 00:21:58] error and saw how the spacecraft reacted to that error and fixed that error.

Mat Kaplan:What happens after you achieve your initial orbit at Mars? There are some further adjustments that have to be made before Sarah and her science team can start doing their work, right?

Omran Sharaf:Yes. We will [inaudible 00:22:18] orbit in about month or two. It depends in the spacecraft. During that time, we again check the status of all the subsystems of the instruments, and make sure that the instruments are actually working well. A calibration will take place. Then, after that, we shift it to our science orbit and again, we'll have to check the status of the systems again and calibrate it for the science orbit that it will be operating from. Once that's done and we check the validity of the data that we are receiving from the spacecraft basically, the science team will be able to take that data and use it, and distribute it to the rest of the world to also use it in their studies.

Mat Kaplan:Sarah, let me turn to you. If you're like other missions scientists that I know, I expect you'll be going a bit crazy as you wait through all of these to begin gathering data and doing the science that Hope was going to enable.

Sarah Al Amiri:A large part of what we're doing as the science team at the moment, is the scientists have actually been working on what we're calling the path to science closure and that's analyzing the data that we will get from the Hope probe from about a year-and-a-half now. All the models that need to go into play visualization tools, certain studies that need to take place have already been in development and we've utilized either data that has been captured from the instrument on the ground or sometimes, especially for us on the Emirates side, utilized a lot of training data from other missions that somewhat will capture some form of data that is similar to the Emirates Mars vision. We've been able to work on developing capabilities through that.

Sarah Al Amiri:Also, the processing is very important to the instrument scientists on the team are currently working on the data pipeline, ensuring that we're able to process the data to a level with which scientists can take it and analyze it. They'll be working in conjunction with the engineering team through cruise because there's a few maneuvers that need to happen with regards to the instruments and also in capture orbit, we'll be collecting data while we're in capture orbit transitioning into science. Work on the science team at the moment is ramping up and the team is now really looking forward to getting their hands on the data.

Mat Kaplan:This is such and important point and I think a lot of people who otherwise consider themselves space enthusiasts, don't realize the level of work that has to go in not just by the engineers behind the mission, but the scientists in preparing to get the data for, as you said, months and years before that data starts to flow.

Sarah Al Amiri:Absolutely. A lot of people used to say the science team's work starts after launch, when you get into science orbit. That's absolutely not the case. We started very early on, on the mission together with the engineering team. That's how you scope the requirements. You start with objectives of what you want to study of the planet, and you start breaking that down into the requirements that engineers then go and design and develop the mission for. We've been working on this mission even more closely with our system engineering team, our spacecraft developers, all the instrument teams both on the engineering and science side to get to the point that we're at, mission designers.

Sarah Al Amiri:Even how you capture your data, how often do you want to cover which areas of Mars at which resolution, all of this is defined very early on by the science team. Before you launch, you need to verify that the instruments are functioning according to plan. Then again, after you launch, you need to ensure that a lot of the design and development work goes into place so that you're able to get the right datasets. That's the role of the science team that's very well-integrated in the overall mission and starts from day one and stays on to well after decommissioning to release data.

Mat Kaplan:Is it fair to call Hope Mars' first weather satellite?

Sarah Al Amiri:Absolutely. We're providing the first holistic view of the Marsian weather throughout an entire year and cover the gap in knowledge that we have, and that's the transitions from the day to night cycles. It's every time of the day, we'll be able to cover all of Mars in roughly a 10-day span. This gives us a much better understanding of the weather system of Mars. We also get to correlate how much impact does the weather have on atmospheric loss.

Mat Kaplan:Could you go over briefly because I know there's much more detail on the mission website and we will link to that website and other resources on this week's showpage@planetary.org/radio but what are the instruments that Hope carries that will be collecting this data?

Sarah Al Amiri:It carries three different instruments to collect the data. All three instruments are scientific instruments. The first two which is the Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer and the Emirates eXploration Imager are providing the weather data for us. They'll be looking entirely at the lower atmosphere of Mars. That's where weather occurs. They'll be capturing data about dust, water vapor, ice clouds, ozone so that we're able to fully characterize what happens in the lower atmosphere.

Sarah Al Amiri:We also have a second instrument which is the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer. That is looking at how far out hydrogen and oxygen extends into the atmosphere. It focuses at the exosphere of Mars. The other aspects of this mission which is our third objective is we want to understand, if something happens in the lower atmosphere of Mars, for example there's dust storm. How does that impact atmospheric loss? What does it do with escape rates of hydrogen and oxygen?

Sarah Al Amiri:We're able to do that using the EMUS instrument that also looks at the thermosphere and it measures carbon monoxide and oxygen, and provides us that link between upper and lower atmosphere. So that we can have an overall view of what role does Mars play in the loss of its atmosphere and we already have an understanding of what role space plays in the loss of Mars' atmosphere. That can provide us a better understanding of climate change on Mars and atmospheric loss on the planet.

Sarah Al Amiri:Hopefully, in the larger perspective of things and this is something that was vital to its mission, to be complimentary to other studies on Mars. In the larger perspective, things will help us better understand how the Marsian atmosphere went from a much denser and wetter one to a dry and very thick atmosphere.

Mat Kaplan:Complimentary indeed because of course with what you've been describing, you've made me think of the MAVEN Mission that we've also covered pretty extensively on this show. Would you say that the MAVEN will definitely be complimented and maybe its work will be amplified by what Hope may be helping us to learn?

Sarah Al Amiri:It's not only the MAVEN Mission. You can take several other missions including ones that for example cover on the polar orbit and they cover the Marsian atmosphere at a higher resolution than our mission. Then, you got the landers that are on the surface that cover quite extensively local weather in a very localized place. It fits in very well on the overall science and the reason it does that it's because we utilized the report that MEPAG usually releases on scientific goals for exploring Mars and been able to find gaps within that, that no other mission is designing for.

Sarah Al Amiri:The purpose of that is that we want to send a purely scientific mission that doesn't replicate other missions, to add on to the scientific findings, and it helps our team get the full experience. It is our first mission, yes, but we wanted our team to learn because we're building, he built his own capacity. Therefore, to learn they need to go through the entire process of learning and things that are unknown and defining science objectives in areas that you're not 100% sure what your outcome is going to be.

Sarah Al Amiri:Now, what will be interesting for me personally is taking what we get in terms of findings and then having that spin out more questions. That for me is what exploration is all about. When your one answer builds into or translates into several other questions to be asked about Mars, and it continuously pushes forward unlocking all the mysteries.

Mat Kaplan:Boy, that's science for you, isn't it? Omran, let me turn back to you. Space communication, deep space communication especially always a big challenge. How are you going to be getting Sarah's data back here to Earth and sending commands to the spacecraft?

Omran Sharaf:It uses an X-band antenna that we have onboard our spacecraft to communicate with the spacecraft and also to send commands and receive data and telemetries. We're utilizing the deep space network, NASA's Deep Space Network. We thought instead of us building everything from A to Z, it was more about utilizing existing platforms and infrastructure around the world to deliver this mission. The command and control room in Dubai is connected to the DSN. That's how we communicate with it.

Omran Sharaf:As you mentioned, it's a big challenge. As we move further away from Earth, the delay in communication increases and by the time we reach Mars, the delay is going to be between about 15 to 20 minutes which adds bigger challenges to the operations and sort of to what we mentioned earlier, Mars orbit insertion in which that process will have to take place autonomously and on its own. Basically, we find out about it if we succeeded or not 20 minutes later.

Mat Kaplan:Yeah, always a challenge.

Omran Sharaf:The spacecraft definitely needs to be smarter than let's say spacecrafts orbiting Earth. The EMUS Mars Mission was at least five times more complex than the previous missions that we worked on at the center. The challenge here was also not just the fact that it had to be smarter but also, for us to understand how smarter it needs to be and also at the same time, build a spacecraft or design it or get the knowledge, and deciding of how to design such a smart spacecraft. That was also a challenge for the team.

Mat Kaplan:Sarah, let me switch gears here and come back to you as we talk about the other reasons this mission is taking place. Of course the chance to gather unique data at Mars is exciting and very important, but it's those other reasons the UAE is taking on this challenge that I want to turn to beginning with the name you chose for this spacecraft. Is this mission all about hope?

Sarah Al Amiri:This mission is all about hope. At the time that we started this mission in late 2013, the Middle East was known notoriously for all the unrest across various countries. Most of it, if you dig down deep to the root cause of it was the youth weren't getting the necessary opportunities that they were looking for. We come from a region that's made up of 100 million people under the age of 35. It got to a point where the energy and the creativity of those people were being used in the wrong groups and for the wrong reasons. It was very important for us to bring another purpose to work for, and this mission was developed from the very beginning to be run completely by those under 35, done in a certain way that it has a scientific purpose.

Sarah Al Amiri:We were requested to design a mission not only to get to Mars and capture an image, but to capture valid scientific data that not only develops our science community, but is able to benefit science communities be it in the Arab Region or around the world and provide another way to look at how to advance countries and where to put the energy of the youth, and to provide opportunities for people and how to create them. We never had people that worked on planetary exploration missions prior to this mission. Seven years ago, the jobs that we have today were not there. The experience that has been captured by the team members that have been through this program has never been in the region.

Sarah Al Amiri:Yes, we have a lot of people who have left the region and are now working in various institutions abroad, but within the regions, this is the first time such an area of knowledge is there. What this changes and that's where hope factors in and even more than that, it's the hope that transforms into expanding possibilities is when you see that happening, when you put together an audacious goal that people very early on doubted it would ever see the light of day, and deliver on it as promised, within the timeline promised, within the budget promised, and with the dedication of the team working in conjunction with our knowledge partners across the world.

Sarah Al Amiri:That has sent a strong message from what I've personally from the people around me of various ages just in The Emirates. We've heard from the first time from people from around the Arab world asking questions on what does change really mean? How do you create opportunities? What are the possibilities out there? It's this dialogue that has been quite important for this mission is to let people think of a different possibility and hope for a better life and more stable life.

Mat Kaplan:This must be very gratifying, then, to see this and there's good evidence for it. I'm grateful to your colleague, Alexander McNabb for getting us together. But he also gave me this great background materials about the mission and your work including a report by University College London about the impact of the mission. The report contains this terrific infographic that I have in front of me. It quantifies many of the mission's social, educational, and cultural benefits. Do you know the one I'm talking about? It's really very impressive.

Sarah Al Amiri:Yes, and that has been something that we've had from the get-go. We've had an outreach team that has been part of this mission very early on. We've catered, I think at some point, to children as young as three years old all the way to post-graduate education. There's been dedicated programs across the board for those. We will continue those and expand them on to the region. But something that's also important that's in the University College London report that comes to our ... the objective that the UAE started a planetary exploration mission in the first place. And that was, how do you build experience in an area that does not exist within the country? How to build capabilities around that? How do you expand the capacity that you have?

Sarah Al Amiri:What this mission allowed us is to create a model by which we design and develop a project or a mission that has a very clear end outcome. At the same time, within the process of that design and development, you're transferring on experience and you're developing capabilities by sharing knowledge across nations. What this helps you to do is to not reinvent the wheel, to learn from the experience of others, more importantly to learn from the tacit knowledge that other people have had. Not something you can never be taught on a book and you can never read it and learn it from anywhere except by going through the development with someone who has gone through it before.

Sarah Al Amiri:There's very small nuances in design and development that people have learned throughout the years, that have come from failing on other programs or doing things in a certain way on other programs that have informed the path for it. What the report provided us was a sanity check. Is this model the right model by which we can go about as a nation to develop new industries? Because what we're working on for the next 10 years is to establish new economic sectors within the country and to increase the impact of scientific research within the country, and increase the capabilities and capacity of the science community overall.

Sarah Al Amiri:The purpose for that is about 20 years from now, demands for oil, for energy will start declining. That is a portion of our economy. That's not entirely our economy, but that is still a significant portion of our economy. It's very important for us to expand on the methodologies by which you can establish new sectors and be able to do that in the correct method. In some way, this has been an experiment in policy making and setting forth a method by which you can develop new sectors in the country.

Mat Kaplan:With that all nations took the long view that the UAE appears to be taking with this project and a goal that really stretches over a 100 years, I know that just over a third of your team members are women. I'm sorry to say that I think that may surprise some people outside the UAE and the Arab world, but I hope it's a pleasant surprise.

Sarah Al Amiri:I've heard that quite a lot as a surprise for us. I think it's just the natural progression that that is over 30%. The reason for that is 56% of those that enter into STEM fields today are women. You have gender parity when it comes to the input. 70% of university graduates overall are women. We've been lucky enough as a young organization that has just been established since 2006 to bring people on who are the best and brightest, and most passionate of minds to work on this project, regardless of gender. It was never something that was put sort of as a criteria and some people do assume that that was the case. It was just the best minds out there that are part of this program and part of this development process.

Mat Kaplan:You're both relatively young people. Omran, here you are, the project director for a Mars mission. I suspect you may be the youngest ever. It sounds like that fits into some of what we've heard from Sarah.

Omran Sharaf:I don't know if I'm the youngest ever project director of Mars mission, but if I am, that's a big honor, to be honest.

Mat Kaplan:I think so, yeah.

Omran Sharaf:But as you know, at the end of the day, I mean, yes we are a young team that worked on this mission and has been given this responsibility by the UAE government to deliver and to execute this project. However, we shouldn't forget that also, we work with our partners, our knowledge partners at the University of Colorado, Boulder which had experienced people with understanding and background in deep space missions. It's a combination of the youth, of the young and the combination of the experienced working together as one team, I think was a major factor in us being able to come up with this new model and approach to do doing things. At the same time, delivering the mission with the limited resources we had when it comes to timeframe and also the budget.

Omran Sharaf:One thing that the UAE government was very clear with us at the beginning, they said, "Don't buy it. Build it. However, learn from others. Don't start from scratch. Work with others [inaudible 00:41:23]. [inaudible 00:41:23] task and program, and delivering something that's new and unique, a new model of executing such missions that is more innovative, that is more efficient, that's more effective. A model that is based on collaboration rather than competition." And as I said, international cooperation was core to this mission and the reason why we were able to deliver it.

Mat Kaplan:Sounds like a pretty wise approach. Sarah, back to you. Looking away from the mission just for a moment or two, I'm thinking of your new job that you're going to move into on August 1st as president of the UAE Space Agency. Do you see that as an opportunity to extend the sorts of goals that you've talked about for this mission?

Sarah Al Amiri:Absolutely, yes. It has been something [inaudible 00:42:12] has been set up to work on. The overall space program of The Emirates is not a one-off program. We have a space agency. We've got a space center. There's an overall long-term development plan for that sector, and what is a success story for us moving forward is one, how do you transfer this capability tangentially into other sectors and two, how do you start building the space economy and further supporting the creation of businesses on the space sector in a different way, filling in a potential gap in the overall industry globally.

Sarah Al Amiri:This for me is an area that we need to seriously work on over the course of the next few years. The other aspect is a program that has been launched and it's about also working with different people in the Arab Region hosting some of the greatest minds out there to work on design and development of spacecrafts with us in conjunction, so that they can also be the voice of change within their countries and they're able to then take their experience and be able to build upon it, and build a spacecraft that are quite vital when it comes to the data or utilize data from spacecraft for urban development and overall development of the science and technology ecosystem within their nations.

Mat Kaplan:Very exciting future ahead, it sounds like. I hope that as we move into this future, even the immediate future that we can stay in touch with both of you to talk more about The Emirates Mars Mission, the Hope probe. But also, I'd love to hear more about your new job when you get into it, Sarah. I'm just wondering now as we come to the end of this, where the two of you will be on that day in February when Hope arrives at Mars?

Omran Sharaf:In the command and control room in Dubai.

Mat Kaplan:Not surprising.

Sarah Al Amiri:Exactly.

Mat Kaplan:Okay. Hopefully, a good celebration afterward. It has been a delight. Thank you so much and congratulations once again from all of us who are following this mission certainly, all of us at the Planetary Society and listeners to this show. The greatest of success to both of and the entire EMM team as we head for Mars with you.

Sarah Al Amiri:Thank you, Mat.

Omran Sharaf:Thank you, Mat. Thank you.

Mat Kaplan:We have been talking with Her Excellency Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri who was appointed as Minister of State for Advanced Sciences in The United Arab Emirates. In October of 2017, she is also the Deputy Project Manager and Science Lead on the Emirates Mars Mission EMM, where she leads the team developing and fulfilling the mission's scientific objectives, goals, instrumentation and analysis program. She was programs engineering on the Dubai Sat-1 and Dubai Sat-2 Projects. She also shares The United Arab Emirates Council of Scientists, and as we said on August 1st, she'll become president of the UAE Space Agency.

Mat Kaplan:Sarah, I got to bring up something that you mentioned before we started recording. A certain gentleman that I work for, apparently played a role in inspiring you toward this career?

Sarah Al Amiri:Yes. I grew up watching Bill Nye The Science Guy. He brought science to life to me. It was really interesting just growing up watching that and having science brought to your household, not having it the typical textbook science that you study. That has expanded my understanding of how much impact science had on our daily lives and what you can do with it, and what you can create with it. It's an absolute pleasure to be on this podcast.

Mat Kaplan:The Science Guy can be very proud when I tell him about this. Omran Sharaf is The Emirates Mars Mission Project Director at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center in the UAE. He and his team are responsible for developing, launching, and operating the Hope spacecraft that we've been talking about. Omran has worked on the project from the start and developed all the necessary capabilities and partnerships at the center. He oversaw this transition from Earth observation satellites to a center that develops interplanetary exploration missions. Omran, I have to note that you got your Bachelor's Degree from my father's alma mater, The University of Virginia. Go, Cavaliers!

Omran Sharaf:Go, Cavaliers! Go hoos!

Mat Kaplan:And we will go on to talking with Bruce Betts for this week's edition of What's Up in just a moment.

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Hope Leads the Way to Mars - The Planetary Society

Movers & Shakers, July 24 | BioSpace – BioSpace

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Krystal Biotech Whitney Ijem was tapped to serve as the first Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development at Krystal Biotech. Ijem joins Krystal fromGuggenheim Securities, where she served as Managing Director and Senior Biotechnology Analyst covering genetic medicine and rare disease companies. Prior tojoining Guggenheim, Ijem was a therapeutics analyst atTourbillon Capitaland before that she was an analyst in theJ.P. Morgan Equity Research Healthcaregroup focused on biotechnology.

Viroclinics Biosciences Netherlands-based Viroclinics Bioscience B.V.named Davide Molho as its new chief executive officer. Molho succeeds Bob van Gemen, who has served as the company's CEO since 2011. This transition is part of a planned succession strategy. Molho's appointment takes effect on Aug. 1. Molho joins Viroclinics from Evolution Research Group, where he served as CEO. Prior to ERG, he worked for almost two decades at Charles River Laboratories, most recently serving as president and chief operating officer of the global organization. As CEO of Viroclinics, Molho will lead the company through its next phase of growth with a specific focus on driving revenue diversification in adjacent and novel therapeutic fields, as well as continued strategic expansion through acquisitions.

Windtree Therapeutics John Hamill has been appointed chief financial officer of Pennsylvania-based Windtree Therapeutics. In this role, Hamill will help accelerate key initiatives to advance the company's business, financial planning and shareholder value. Hamillis replacing Windtree's former CFO,John Tattorywho is leaving to pursue other opportunities.He most recently provided consulting services to various life science companies, headed up finance at Trevena, Inc., Savient Pharmaceuticals and PharmaNet.

Kronos Bio Barbara Kosacz was named chief operating officer and general counsel of California-based Kronos Bio. Kosacz joins the company with more than 25 years of experience providing strategic and legal advice to life sciences companies, and served most recently as international head of Cooley LLPs Life Sciences Practice. In her role at Kronos, she will be responsible for internal operations and legal functions within the Company. Kosacz is a member of the Board of Directors of XOMA Corporation and is on the Board of Trustees of the Keck Graduate Institute.

Akcea Therapeutics Christophe Hotermans was named senior vice president of global medical affairs at Akcea Therapeutics. In this role, he will lead and evolve the execution of medical strategies, activities and operations worldwide in collaboration with executive management. Prior to joining Akcea, Hotermans served at Biogen for more than a decade in various roles, most recently as vice president and head of U.S. medical. Before Biogen, he was chief of the neurology clinic at the University of LigeinBelgium.

ImmunoGen -- Susan Altschuller has been appointed senior vice president and CFO of ImmunoGen, Inc. Altschuller has 20 years of financial management, investor relations, and business planning experience with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. She joins ImmunoGen from Alexion Pharmaceuticals where she started as Head of Investor Relations before moving to Head of Enterprise Finance, where she led global financial reporting and provided counsel on investment prioritization to support the companys strategic imperatives. Before Alexion, Altschuller was head of Investor Relations at Bioverativ. Early in her career, Altschuller held positions at Biogen in various functions of increasing responsibility, including investor relations, corporate finance, and commercial finance.

Signifier Medical Technologies Signifier made two key appointments, Matt Sharris as vice president of Sales in North America and Steve Saunders, as head of Sales in EMEA. These appointments follow the company strategy to drive and maximize commercial footprint later into the year in their respective geographies. Sharris was most recently director of Sales and vice president of Payor relations for Regional Home Care, with prior roles within account management and sales for ResMed. Saunders joins Signifier from Philips Respironics, where he held leadership and commercial roles, and worked as a liaison to the U.K. government during the early stages of the COVID crisis. Prior roles have included Sales and Marketing positions for a range of medical technology companies including GE, Siemens, and others.

Qkine U.K.-based Qkine expanded its leadership team with the appointments of Rob Nixon as head of Commercial and Cassie Doherty, Investment Director at Parkwalk, as a new member of the board of directors. Nixon joins after having worked for both world-leading global life science reagent companies Merck Millipore and GE Healthcare Life Science, as well as emerging, fast-growing start-up Jellagen.

Adverum Biotechnologies Thomas Kochy joined the company as vice president, commercial and program strategy. In this new position, Kochywill be responsible for leading commercial planning, product strategy, and program management. Prior to joining Adverum, Kochy served as a strategy consultant in ocular disease areas. Before that, Kochy worked at Genentech from 2004 to 2019, most recently as regional sales director for Actemra and Rituxan Immunology. He also led ophthalmology pipeline strategy and worked on Lucentis.

Homology Medicines Jeff Poulton, CFO of Alnylam, was appointed to the board of directors of Homology Medicines. Poulton brings 25 years of experience to Homologys Board of Directors, including leading finance, business development and commercial operations at companies using differentiated technologies to develop treatments for patients with rare diseases. Prior to his role at Alnylam, Poulton served as CFO at Indigo Agriculture. He previously held various roles of increasing responsibility at Shire Plc, concluding his service as CFO and a member of its executive committee and board of directors.

Cradle Genomics San Diego-based Cradle Genomics expanded its executive team with the additions of Tanya Moreno, as Vice President of Development and Sue Gross, as Chief Medical Officer. Moreno has over 13 years of experience in diagnostics development and the commercialization of genomic tests.Gross has had a distinguished clinical career with roles at Montefiore Einstein, Natera where she was CMO, and most recently at Mount Sinai Hospital and Sema4 where she was the Medical Director for the Reproductive Lab and Clinical Analysis Division.

Parexel Parexel announced the addition of former regulators with significant expertise in oncology, immunotherapy and rare disease to its Regulatory and Access Consultingteam. Yajie Li recently served as Head of Compound Strategy and Pipeline Management Function at Xuanzhu Pharma. Prior to that, she served at Janssen as the Regulatory Affairs Therapeutic Area Director for Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, China Companion Diagnostic Team Leader and the China Compound Team Leader.

Jorge Camarero served at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in The Netherlands as an alternate member of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) and as a member the Oncology Working Party. Prior to his tenure at the EMA, he was Head of the Oncology Area for the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices, a Pharmaceutical Inspector for the Spanish Governments Health Department delegation; and a Regulatory Clinical Assessor in Oncology for Spanish Agency for the AEMPS. Lucas Kempf held multiple positions at the FDAs Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Replimune Group Andrea Pirzkall will assume the role of CMO on Aug. 31 at Replimune Group. Pirzkall will lead clinical development of Replimunes pipeline of next-generation oncolytic immuno-gene therapies for the treatment of cancer. Prior to joiningReplimune, Pirzkall served as Executive Director of Clinical Development at BeiGene. She served also as the global clinical development lead on the BeiGene/Celgene joint development committee. Prior to BeiGene, Pirzkall was a Principal Medical Director atGenentech.

ZIOPHARM Oncology James Huang was named to the companys board of directors. Huang is currently a Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) China and has founded and financed several innovative life sciences companies, including GenScript, Legend Biotech and Zai Lab. He is also Founding Partner of Panacea Venture, which formed TriArm Therapeutics, the funding partner for Ziopharms joint venture, Eden BioCell.

Adaptate Biotherapeutics -- Adaptate Biotherapeutics formed its Scientific Advisory Board.Adrian Hayday will chair the expert team with other key appointments including Gillian Griffiths, John Haurum, Jessica Strid and Sally Ward.

Xilio Therapeutics Paul J. Clancy was named to the Xilio Therapeutics Board of Directors. He currently serves on the boards of Agios Pharmaceuticals and Incyte Corporation. Clancy was CFO for Alexion Pharmaceuticals from July 2017 to October 2019. Prior to that, Clancy was CFO of Biogen.

Cradle Genomics Cradle Genomics expanded its executive team with the additions of Tanya Moreno, as vice president of Development and Sue Gross, as CMO. Moreno has over 13 years of experience in diagnostics development and the commercialization of genomic tests. As the head of clinical sciences, in multiple clinical laboratories, she has led development programs across a broad range of advanced genomic tools to empower patients and physicians with precision medicine. Gross has had a distinguished clinical career with roles at Montefiore Einstein where she was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics and Genetics and most recently at Mount Sinai Hospital and Sema4 where she was the Medical Director for the Reproductive Lab and Clinical Analysis Division.

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From rare diseases to Covid-19: charting the history of Genomics England – Pharmaceutical Technology

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

]]]]]]>]]]]>]]> How can genomics help tackle the Covid-19 pandemic? Credit: Shutterstock.

In 2003, after 13 years of work and more than 2bn spent, scientists involved in the Human Genome Project mapped the first complete genetic code, or genome, of a human being. This was a huge scientific breakthrough and taught genetics researchers a lot about human genes, the genome and how they interact with health and disease.

As further genomics work was undertaken over the next decade or so, it became evident that genome sequences are most useful when combined with other data about the person who donated their sequence, such as physiological measurements and their past medical records of previous illness and prescribed medication.

By joining up these dots, genomic medicine has the potential to improve understanding about the underlying causes of genetic diseases and predict how a person could respond to certain treatments, helping to find personalised approaches for each individual patient, as well as determining what diseases people are at risk of developing in the future.

With this in mind, the UK Government created Genomics England to coordinate work in the field. Having a centralised approach also mitigates some security concerns around the storage and use of patients incredibly private health data. The UK is an excellent location to push genomics forward. Not only does the country have a strong genetics heritage two British scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, discovered the double helix structure of DNA in the 1950s but it has a unique resource in the National Health Service (NHS), one of the worlds largest single-payer healthcare systems in the world.

Initially focused on cancer and rare diseases known to have genetic elements, Genomics England has now diversified to look at how genomics can help track the spread of infectious disease. The organisation has joined a national consortium looking to leverage genomics to better tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. The UK has been hit extremely hard by the pandemic so far according toJohn Hopkins Covid-19 map, the UK has the second-highest number of deaths globally.

Before looking at the latest project, its important to reflect on Genomics Englands foundation and mission.

Genomics England was established in 2013 by the Department of Health and Social Care to deliver the 100,000 Genomes Project, which was launched by former Prime Minister David Cameron in late 2012.

Backed by more than 300m in government funding, the 100,000 Genomes Project aimed to create a foundation for a new era of personalised medicine within the NHS by sequencing 100,000 whole genomes from 70,000 patients with rare diseases and cancers.

To support Genomics England with recruitment for the project, NHS England set up 11 Genomic Medicines Centres (GMCs); now there are 13 in England as well as a few more in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as they got on board with the project in the mid-2010s. The GMCs also helped with finding the clinical information needed to inform better interpretation of each persons genome sequence.

From the outset, Genomics England was very aware that it would need to build its own technology to complete the 100,000 Genomes Project. The company decided the best way to do this was to work with innovators in the genomics and sequencing space.

Genomics Englands first partnership was signed with California-headquartered Illumina to develop a sequencing infrastructure. As part of the deal, Illumina invested 162m in this work in the UK over the next four years.

In addition, as part of its 1bn commitment to the UKs genomics industry, the Wellcome Trust agreed to spend 27m on a world-class sequencing hub just outside Cambridge to house Genomics Englands operations. This gave the 100,000 Genomes Project easy access to world leaders in the genomics space, such as the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Sanger Institute.

Within two years of the launch, ten companies moved to collaborate with Genomics England to support and further accelerate the 100,000 Genomes Project. These companies, which included GSK, AstraZeneca, UCB, AbbVie, Roche and Takeda, established the Genomics Expert Network for Enterprises (GENE) Consortium; Big Pharma had to contribute 250,000 to the project in funding to collaborate. The aim was to carry out a year-long industry trial of select whole-genome sequences to establish how industry could leverage the learnings from the 100,000 Genomes Project into drug discovery and development. This initiative was renamed the Discovery Forum in 2017.

Simultaneously, Genomics England launched its Clinical Interpretation Partnership (GeCIP) to find ways to work with clinicians and researchers to directly bring the benefit of the 100,000 Genomes Project to drive diagnosis.

As part of a pilot scheme under the 100,000 Genomes Project, Newcastle University and Hospitals used whole-genome sequencing to reveal that a patients kidney failure was due to a rare genetic variant; this explains why his father, brother and uncle had all died of the same condition.

This diagnosis using genome sequencing meant that the patient could receive personalised treatment for this specific condition. Also, his family members could be tested to find out if they were affected by the same rare genetic kidney disease, rather than face a lifetime of uncertainty.

Hot on the heels of the first patients diagnosed, two children became the first to be genetically diagnosed through the 100,000 Genomes Project via Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Both have rare, undiagnosed and unknown medical conditions, but due to whole-genome sequencing doctors now know the genetic changes responsible for their conditions.

NHS chief scientific officer Professor Dame Sue Hill said: This is an excellent example of how whole-genome sequencing can finally provide the answers that families have been seeking out for years. This new insight sets them free to make decisions about the treatment options for their child and how they move forward with future plans for their family.

One of the biggest challenges facing delivery of the 100,000 Genomes Project early on was to create a bioinformatics pipeline to analyse and interpret the genomics data. To this end, Genomics England decided to expand its sequencing partnership with Illumina to create informatics tools for use at the NHS GMCs and GeCIP.

This was followed later in 2016 by a deal signed with Ohio-based GenomOncology to improve clinical reporting, particularly in clinical trials, for the 100,000 Genomes Project cancer programme.

In early 2018, Genomics England and the Department of Health and Social Care announced 50,000 whole genomes had been sequenced.

This put Genomics England on track to finish recruitment and scale up operations so the full project could be completed on time by the end of 2018.

As the 100,000 Genomes Project came closer to completion, the newly appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock announced a roadmap for honouring its legacy through continuing work on genomics medicine in the NHS.

Hancock committed to sequencing five million whole genomes by 2024 and bringing access to genetic and genomic testing into mainstream clinical practice through theNHS Genomic Medicine Service. Initially it will focus on cancer and rare diseases, like the 100,000 Genomes Project, but it is expected to evolve and expand to other therapeutic areas as the technology becomes more advanced.

At the same time, Genomics England signed a research agreement with life sciences technology vendor IQVIA. This partnership involves the pair running analytics on patient-consented, de-identified data from the 100,000 Genomes Project to drive more efficient drug research and development, particularly in the field of personalised medicine. These insights could be used by IQVIAs life science customers in parallel with their clinical development programmes.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock announced in mid-December 2018 that the 100,000 Genome Project had been completed.

Genomics England chair Sir John Chisholm noted: At launch the 100,000 Genomes Project was a bold ambition to corral the UKs renowned skills in genomic science and combine them with the strengths of a truly national health service to propel the UK into a global leadership position in population genomics.

With this announcement, that ambition has been achieved. The results of this will be felt for many generations to come as the benefits of genomic medicine in the UK unfold.

This project led to one in four participants with rare diseases receiving a diagnosis for the first time, while transforming treatment for up to half of cancer patients who participated.

Although launched at the end of 2018, the NHS Genomic Medicine Service was only expected to be operational in mid-2020.

To allow the new service to hit the ground running, Genomics England expanded its sequencing partnership with Illumina to focus on the next 300,000 whole genomes. All clinical samples for the collaboration will be provided through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service.

This follows the late-2018 deal with Congenica to support clinicians to make informed medical decisions based on insights from whole-genome sequencing. Congenica had previously provided similar sequencing services to the 100,000 Genomes Project.

Although Genomics England has primarily focused on cancer and rare diseases, it is clear that insights from genomics also have a role to play in tackling infectious disease.

In the context of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 40,000 people in the UK to date, Genomics England is carrying out a whole-genome study of 35,000 people with either severe, moderate or mild Covid-19 symptoms to try and discover why this viral disease has such a varied impact on patients.

Genomics England will read the data from entire genomes of those who have been most severely impacted by Covid-19 and compare them to those who only experienced mild symptoms; this genomics data will also be enriched by clinical insights into participants.

The company is working with the GenOMICC consortium, Illumina, the NHS and the University of Edinburgh to carry out this study. The project is backed by 28m in funding from UK Research and Innovation, the Department of Health and Social Care and the National Institute for Health Research.

The aim is for this human genomic data to be linked to the virus genome data being sequenced by the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK), which is led by the NHS and the Sanger Institute. This would help to improve insights into how the two genomes interact and affect how the patient responds to the infection, which can feed into better knowledge about promising treatments for clinical trials and practice.

From rare diseases to Covid-19: charting the history of Genomics England - Pharmaceutical Technology

These Companies Are Seeking a Cure for Sickle Cell. And Its Just the Beginning for Some Gene Therapy Stocks. – Barron’s

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Victoria Gray, a 34-year-old mother of four in Forest, Miss., had been going to the hospital seven times a year for transfusions to help with the severe pain brought on by her sickle cell disease. In July 2019, she volunteered for a radical new technology known as gene editing. She has been free of the pain and suffering since.

I chose to participate in this trial because of hopehope that it would change my life, Gray tells Barrons. And it has already in so many ways.

Her successful treatment gives hope to the 100,000 other Americans who suffer from sickle cell. It also illuminates the enormous potential for the companies that are pioneering genetic medicine to cure diseases with a one-time treatment.

Sickle cell is among their first targets. The companies include the sponsors of Victoria Grays clinical trial Crispr Therapeutics (ticker: CRSP) and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX)as well as biotechs like bluebird bio (BLUE), whose gene therapy for sickle cell is further along in testing and could be introduced by 2022.

For these companies, genetic therapies for sickle cell could fetch annual revenue of several billion dollars apiece. A recent Bank of America Securities report predicts that new treatments for sickle cell will surpass $6 billion in sales by 2028. That is meaningful for a company of any size, but particularly so for these biotechs. Crispr doesnt yet have sales. Bluebirds revenue last year was $45 million, and Vertexs, $4 billion.

More important, the sickle cell therapies will demonstrate how such genetic technology could open the door to curing dozens of other diseases.

Investors seem persuaded. They have lifted Crispr stock threefold since March to a recent high of $97, which values the development-stage company above $6 billion. Hitting a record high of $306, Vertexs value has topped $75 billion, while bluebirdwhose investors have waited nearly a decade for their paydaytrades at a more modest market cap of $4.2 billion. Biotech valuations may be hard to rationalize these days, but that reflects the radical changes that new technologies are bringing to the health-care business. One need look only at this years fourfold rise of the messenger RNA vaccine leader Moderna (MRNA).

The focus on sickle cell is a turnaround for the pharmaceutical industry, which had long ignored the inherited disorder. Sickle cell mainly afflicts Black Americans and residents of poor African nations. It is the most commonly diagnosed genetic disorder among newborn Americans. Yet it has not had as much funding as some less-common inherited conditions. Cystic fibrosis, for example, affects one-third as many Americans, but researchers at Duke University have shown that it has historically received more than seven times the federal and foundation research funding per patient.

This year, two new sickle cell drugs came on the market. And sometime next year, bluebird will ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve its sickle cell gene therapy. Crispr and Vertex hope that they will not be not far behind.

The starting prices of the new sickle cell treatments are expected to range from $100,000 to over $1 million. It will be a challenge to make them accessible to the millions of people in poor countries who have sickle cell.

The disease is caused by a single variation in a gene for hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in our red blood cells. The genetic trait is prevalent among those whose descent traces to sub-Saharan Africa, because a single copy of the sickle cell gene protects you from developing malaria. Inherit a copy from each parent, however, and you become one of 300,000 babies born in the world each year with sickle cell disease. It causes hemoglobin molecules to form long chains that warp red blood cells into sickle shapes that get stuck in blood vessels and block the flow to vital organs.

The result is terrible pain, organ damage, infections, andwhen left untreateddeath before age 5, on average. In the U.S., where the disease occurs in one of every 365 Black babies, available treatments still leave many with a life of pain, disability, and death before age 50.

The first sickle cell treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was hydroxyurea, in 1998. For the half of sickle cell patients with moderate disease, treatment with hydroxyurea, antibiotics, and transfusions can allow productive lives. Hydroxyurea is off-patent and costs less than a dollar a day. But even that price is beyond reach of those who live in resource-poor countries, says Russell Ware, a pediatric hematology professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Ware is working with medical colleagues in Uganda to get more children there on hydroxyurea.

Data as of 7/22/20

Bloomberg; company filings

The beauty is that its off-patent, says Ware, but its also a curse, because no one can make money off it.

Novartis (NVS) is supporting hydroxyurea availability in collaboration with the government of Ghana. The Swiss drug giant is also planning clinical trials in Ghana and Kenya for Adakveo, a monoclonal antibody approved by the FDA last November as one of the first novel treatments in decades for sickle cell disease. Adakveo dampens the inflammatory process that makes sickle cells clog blood vessels in cases that send some 50,000 Americans to the emergency room every year.

The intravenous drugs initial sales in the years first half were $36 million, but analysts hope that by the middle of this decade, Adakveos annual sales could reach $1 billion to $2 billion in the U.S. and Europe.

Just days after approving the Novartis drug, the FDA approved another sickle cell drug called Oxbryta, from Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT). Oxbryta is a pill that prevents defective hemoglobin from forming chains within red blood cells. The product is GBTs first, and it produced $14 million in sales for the March quarter, with a loss of $73 million.

But analysts like Yatin Suneja of Guggenheim Securities say that Oxbryta can hit sales of $1.7 billion in a few years, yielding some $13 a share in earnings for GBT. That makes Suneja think that GBT stock can rise from its current level of $72 to $115.

Successful sickle cell treatments could lift a number of biotech companies.

GBT CEO Ted Love says that Oxbrytas benign safety profile gives the company confidence that it will win approval to market the product for children, and in higher doses for adults. If other sickle cell treatments in the companys pipeline pan out, he imagines that sickle cell might one day become as well managed a disease as HIV.

Love is aware of the potentially curative gene therapies being tested by others, but he thinks that patients with milder cases of sickle cell might say, Just give me a pill.

For several decades, it has been possible to cure sickle cell with a bone-marrow transplant from a related donor. But the scarcity of matched donors and the risk of serious immune reactions have limited the number of such procedures to about 1,000. Recent breakthroughs in genetic technology promise to overcome those limitations by extracting a patients own cells, manipulating the cells genetic code, and then replacing the patients marrow with the amended cells.

The Cambridge, Mass.based bluebird bio is already in Phase 3 clinical trials of its beti-cel gene therapy for another inherited disorder of red blood cells called beta-thalassemia. Less common than sickle cell, thalassemia leaves patients with so few red blood cells that they can need more than a dozen transfusions a year. At a recent online gathering of hematologists, bluebird said that 60 children and adults with thalassemia had gone through its beti-cel procedure. About 90% had gone a year without needing a single transfusion.

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With a similar treatment for sickle cell, which bluebird calls LentiGlobin, more than two dozen patients have been infused with their own modified cells. Among the 14 patients who were six months past their treatment, there has been a 99.5% decrease in the blood vessel jam-ups that the patients previously suffered.

That is fundamentally transformative, says bluebird CEO Nick Leschly, and far exceeds any and all expectations weve ever had, any of our investigators have ever had, or the patients that have been treated.

These potentially curative cell therapies are complex procedures that are expected to be priced at about $1 million a patient. The thalassemia treatment is already approved in Europe. After the patients in bluebirds U.S. trials for thalassemia and sickle cell have been followed up for 18 months, the company will seek FDA approvalhopefully next year.

RBC Capital Markets believes that the companys sickle cell treatment could reach sales of $2 billion a year and help lift bluebird stock from its recent price of $66 to $100.

It took bluebird a decade to get to this point, and its shares have sunk as low as $17 and soared as high as $236, as investors reacted to the companys dramatic successes against refractory cancers. With Buy recommendations all along Wall Street, bluebird will get the capital it needs to cross the finish line.

Hard on the heels of bluebird are companies that believe they have better genetic treatments. One of them is Crispr Therapeutics. The company takes its name from CRISPR, shorthand for a Nobel Prizewinning technology that homes in on a targeted stretch of DNA and snips the double-stranded molecular code with a kind of chemical scissors.

The way I describe it to my patients, says patient Grays doctor Haydar Frangoul, at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville, is that you have a book with 500 pages of thousands of words, and we are finding one word and correcting it.

Crispr Therapeutics CEO Sam Kulkarni says that CRISPR technology should provide more durable and uniform results than earlier generation treatments like bluebirds. When Crispr reported Grays healthy progress last month, it said that a second patient with sickle cell has also been treated, as well as five patients with thalassemia. Kulkarni hopes to reach the market with his treatments not too far behind bluebird.

This years surge in Crispr Therapeutics stock allowed it to raise about $450 million in a June stock offering. Jefferies analyst Maury Raycroft has estimated that a successful sickle cell treatment could contribute a third of the $5 billion in annual revenue he projects for Crispr by 2030, with earnings above $30 a share. The stock has blasted through his last price target of $82.

Behind Crispr are still other gene-editing companies working on treatments for thalassemia and sickle cell, including Sangamo Therapeutics (SGMO), Editas Medicine (EDIT), and Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA).

One of this years most successful initial public offerings was the February debut of Beam Therapeutics (BEAM), which is in preclinical testing of sickle and thalassemia treatments that would use a next-generation editing technology that CEO John Evans believes will be even more effective than CRISPR.

If these other companies sickle cell treatments pan out, they may be scrapping for market share after bluebird and Crispr have established products. Still, as the pharmaceutical giants shop for gene-editing know-how, there may be buyouts.

Sickle cell has been a long-neglected illness, but many companies are now competing with treatments that each hopes will be best-in-class. This should be a dogfight, says bluebird CEO Leschly, because thats in the interest of patients.

Write to Bill Alpert at william.alpert@barrons.com

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These Companies Are Seeking a Cure for Sickle Cell. And Its Just the Beginning for Some Gene Therapy Stocks. - Barron's

Sarepta Therapeutics to Announce Second Quarter 2020 Financial Results and Recent Corporate Developments on August 5, 2020 – Yahoo Finance

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SRPT), the leader in precision genetic medicine for rare diseases, will report second quarter 2020 financial results after the Nasdaq Global Market closes on Wednesday, August 5, 2020. Subsequently, at 4:30 p.m. E.T., the Company will host a conference call to discuss its second quarter 2020 financial results and to provide a corporate update.

The conference call may be accessed by dialing (844) 534-7313 for domestic callers and (574) 990-1451 for international callers. The passcode for the call is 1585717. Please specify to the operator that you would like to join the "Sarepta Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Call." The conference call will be webcast live under the investor relations section of Sarepta's website at http://www.sarepta.com and will be archived there following the call for 90 days. Please connect to Sarepta's website several minutes prior to the start of the broadcast to ensure adequate time for any software download that may be necessary.

AboutSarepta TherapeuticsAt Sarepta, we are leading a revolution in precision genetic medicine and every day is an opportunity to change the lives of people living with rare disease. The Company has built an impressive position in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and in gene therapies for limb-girdle muscular dystrophies (LGMDs), mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIA, Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT), and other CNS-related disorders, with more than 40 programs in various stages of development. The Companys programs and research focus span several therapeutic modalities, including RNA, gene therapy and gene editing. For more information, please visitwww.sarepta.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Internet Posting of Information

We routinely post information that may be important to investors in the 'For Investors' section of our website atwww.sarepta.com. We encourage investors and potential investors to consult our website regularly for important information about us.

Source: Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc.

Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc.

Investors:Ian Estepan, 617-274-4052iestepan@sarepta.com

Media:Tracy Sorrentino, 617-301-8566tsorrentino@sarepta.com

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Sarepta Therapeutics to Announce Second Quarter 2020 Financial Results and Recent Corporate Developments on August 5, 2020 - Yahoo Finance

How genetic mutations in healthy young men made them susceptible to severe Covid-19 – Health24

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Compiled by Zakiyah Ebrahim | Health24

31 Jul 2020, 08:45

When two pairs of generally healthy young brothers with no immune-related disease required mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit (ICU), doctors and researchers at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands considered whether genetic factors may have played a role in compromising their immunity.

Although the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, can affect people of all ages, studies have highlightedtwo groups of peoplethat are at a higher risk of getting severe Covid-19: older people, and those with underlying medical conditions.

In the case of the first pair of brothers, one of them died due to infection, while the other recovered.

Curiosity about patients' genes

This rare occurrence triggered the curiosity of a physician from the MUMC+ (Maastricht University Medical Centre+) department of clinical genetics. She alerted her colleagues in Nijmegen who then followed up with an investigation.

"In such a case, you immediately wonder whether genetic factors could play a role," said geneticist Alexander Hoischen.

"Getting sick from an infection is always an interplay between, in this case, the virus and the human immune system. It may be a mere coincidence that two brothers from the same family became so severely ill. But it is also possible that an inborn error of the immune system played an important role. We investigated this possibility, together with our multidisciplinary team at Radboudumc."

The team found that the gene TLR7 (toll-like receptor 7) played a key role in the brothers immune response to the virus a finding that potentially has huge consequences for understanding and treating Covid-19.

Their research paper is published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Genes and the immune system

All genes (collectively known as the "exome") of both brothers were sequenced. The team then followed this with a search for a possible link between their genes and Covid-19.

"We mainly looked at genes that play a role in the immune system, said Cas van der Made, a PhD student and resident at the Department of Internal Medicine, adding:

We know that several of these genes are located on the X-chromosome, and with two brother pairs affected X-chromosomal genes were the most suspicious. Women carry two X-chromosomes, while men possess a Y-chromosome apart from the X. Therefore, men have only one copy of the X-chromosomal genes. In case men have a defect in such a gene, there is no second gene that can take over that role, as in women."

The role of TLR7

TLR7 is a protein of the immune system that is encoded by the TLR7 gene. There are multiple TLR-genes which belong to a family of receptors, and these play a significant role in the recognition of pathogens (such as bacteria and viruses) and the activation of the immune system.

In this case, the researchers found mutations in the gene encoding for TLR7. Hoischen explained: "A few letters were missing in the genetic code of the TLR7 gene. As a result, the code cannot be read properly and hardly any TLR7 protein is produced.

Hoischen also explained that TLR7 function has thus far never been associated with an inborn error of immunity, and that scientists now have an indication that TLR7 is actually essential for protection against the new coronavirus.

It seems that the virus can replicate undisturbed because the immune system does not get a message that the virus has invaded. Because TLR7, which must identify the intruder and subsequently activate the defence, is hardly present. That could be the reason for the severity of the disease in these brothers," said Hoischen.

Second pair of brothers infected

When the researchers came across another pair of brothers who suffered severe Covid-19 and were both put on mechanical ventilation in the ICU, the researchers wanted to dig deeper, so they proceeded to investigate the genetic code of these two brothers as well.

They found that these two men also do not make sufficient functional TLR7 protein. Suddenly we had four young people with a defect in the same gene, all of whom had fallen seriously ill from the SARS-CoV-2 virus," said Hoischen.

Van der Made explained that their results show that SARS-CoV-2 appears to have free rein in people who do not have properly functioning TLR7, because the virus is not recognised by their immune system.

Very specific abnormality

According to Frank van de Veerdonk, immunologist and infectologist, and co-author of the study, the condition seems to be a very specific abnormality, an immunodeficiency, which is mainly related to this coronavirus, and added that this is the first time scientists have been able to connect a clinical phenomenon so strongly with TLR7.

Apart from providing new insight into the intricacies behind the operation of the immune system, the teams findings may also have critical consequences for the treatment of patients with severe Covid-19. Van de Veerdonk said that the substance "interferon" is currently being investigated for treating patients with this condition.

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How genetic mutations in healthy young men made them susceptible to severe Covid-19 - Health24

Caught in the act microscopy reveals key detail in retrovirus replication – Newswise

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

Newswise A protein that is critical for retrovirus replication may select viral genetic material for packaging within the nuclei of host cells, rather than in the cytoplasm, as was previously believed. The research, led by a team at Penn State College of Medicine, could have implications for the development of therapeutics that target this protein.

Retroviruses are a type of virus that use cells asmachines to make more virus particles that are spread fromcell to cell. There are three major infectious human retroviruses, including human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) the cause of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The lab of Dr. Leslie Parent, vice dean for research and graduate studies and professor of medicine, studies the avian retrovirus Rous sarcoma virus, which replicates similarly to HIV and causes tumors in domestic fowl.

Their research focuses on the role of a special protein called Gag that acts as an escort for genetic material in viral replication. It forms a complex by binding to the viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) to package it into an infectious virus particle. According to Parent, a professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology, their latest discovery puts scientists one step closer to developing therapeutics that can stop this complex from forming.

Our primary goal has been to understand where the initial interaction between the Gag protein and viral RNA occurs, said Parent. Other drugs and approaches have targeted viral replication after these complexes form. Our hope is that if we can better understand this interaction, early intervention strategies could be developed.

For years, scientists who studied retroviruses believed that Gag protein and viral RNA interacted only in the cytoplasm of the cell. But prior work by the Parent lab revealed that Gag proteins entered the nucleus of the cell as well. Based on that finding, they hypothesized that Gag protein might select viral RNA for packaging in the nucleus, where the RNA is made.

With so much activity going on in a cell, Parent and her colleagues put fluorescent labels on the Gag protein and viral RNA so they could watch their interactions in live cells using confocal microscopy. The images and videos of this process were captured and published with their data in mBio, a journal of The American Society for Microbiology.

As they hypothesized, they observed that Gag does bind viral RNA in the nucleus, and the complex traffics out of the nucleus. They propose that the viral Gag-RNA complex ultimately travels to the outer membrane of the cell where the viral particle is released to infect new cells. According to Parent, advances in technology have made this finding possible.

Visualizing a live cell in real time allows you see the intricate dynamics of its functions, Parent said. She noted the College of Medicines core facilities, including leading-edge live-cell microscopy, were integral to carrying out this project that has been years in the making. When you observe a cell over time, you can see the start, end and speed of various processes. It allows you to witness how a live cell deals with a viral infection.

Rebecca Kaddis Maldonado and Breanna Rice, postdoctoral scholars at the College of Medicine and coauthors on the publication, said knowing that Gag protein selects viral RNA in the nucleus opens up more questions that will be explored in future studies. They want to understand more about the kinetics of the interaction between Gag protein and viral RNA in the nucleus, mechanisms for how the complex moves outside the nucleus, and what other elements of the host cell may play a role in the process.

This observation is just the first of a series of investigations we need to carry out in order to understand this interaction, Maldonado said. The more we know about the details of this process, the better suited well be to propose or develop therapeutic targets.

Coauthors include Eunice Chen, Kevin Tuffy and Estelle Chiari of Penn State College of Medicine and Kelly Fahrbach and Thomas Hope of Northwestern University. Eunice Chen is a student in the College of Medicines MD/PhD Medical Scientist Training Program.

This research was supported by grants from the Pennsylvania Department of Health using Tobacco Settlement CURE Funds and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH or the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

About Penn State College of Medicine Located on the campus of Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa., Penn State College of Medicine boasts a portfolio of nearly $100 million in funded research. Projects range from development of artificial organs and advanced diagnostics to groundbreaking cancer treatments and understanding the fundamental causes of disease. Enrolling its first students in 1967, the College of Medicine has more than 1,700 students and trainees in medicine, nursing, the health professions and biomedical research on its two campuses.

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Caught in the act microscopy reveals key detail in retrovirus replication - Newswise

AAIC 2020: Multi-omics and Biomarkers Emerge as Key Elements in the Future of Alzheimer’s Research – BioSpace

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

A multi-omics, multi-algorithm approach will unleash a new wave of understanding around Alzheimers disease and diagnosis, that in time, will make precision diagnostics practical, speakers predicted at the Alzheimers Association International Conference 2020 virtual event, held July 27-31. At least a part of that understanding will be based on the biomarkers identified during this meeting.

For analytics, a multi-tool approach is moving the emphasis from determining which algorithm is better to how to put the tools together (to get the most accurate information possible), Christos Davatzilos, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said during a live chat. That enables researchers to be less focused on the engineering aspects and thus to work as translational scientists as more is learned about the brain and neurological diseases.

There are different criteria for performance than for triaging individuals based on biomarkers, Duygu Tosun-Turgut, Ph.D., University of California San Francisco, said. We need to be very mindful of the algorithms and how they are meant to be used for clinical practice of translational trials.

Therefore, as Davatzilos said, Its difficult to say any one algorithm is the best, but you can say this is best under certain conditions or for certain problems. Ultimately, AI wont be very different from biostatistics now, in that there are many options and many criteria researchers need to consider when choosing their tools.

So far, vetting various algorithms and approaches has received a good deal of attention.

We need such a diversity of means of discovery. With a multi-omics approach, researchers have independent sources of validation they can use to verify (their results) using a separate approach, said Paul M. Thompson, Ph.D., University of Southern California.

Initially, Thompson recalled, We learned a lot from the psychiatric researchers. They advised against using physical self-maintenance (PSM) scores, as criteria during the first round of analysis because of the high percentage of false positives those scored could generate. Now that more computing power is available and machine learning can be applied to the research, that advice becomes less valid because researchers have the means of sorting through the data.

There will be a new wave of discovery when people accept machine learning, Dr. Thompson added.

Machine learning opens the door to increasingly predictive approaches. For example, Andrew Saykin, Psy.D., director of the Indiana Alzheimer Disease Center, pointed out, Were being so stringent that were filtering out things that may be important in our concern to eliminate noise.

As an example, Thompson mentioned an MRI study of 11,000 young to middle-aged people.

We didnt find apolipoprotein E (APOE), the strongest known genetic risk factor for developing Alzheimers disease. That study shows that subjects ages matter, because APOE becomes more prevalent in people after age 60. It also suggests that, as Thompson said, If you build in interactions or other conditions, such as druggable characteristics, there may be better filters than the statistical sledgehammer that is being used today.

One possibility is a better understanding of the effects of various risk factors on cognitive trajectories in early- and late-onset Alzheimers disease. A team from South Koreas Sungkyunkwan University, the Samsung Medical Center, Samsung Alzheimer Research Medical Center, and in the US, from Harvard Medical School and Indiana University found that conventional risk factors accelerated cognitive decline in late-onset Alzheimers but slowed the decline among early-onset patients.

In studying the effects of APOE4, they found that outcomes varied based upon whether the patients carried that protein. Specifically, early-onset patients who did not carry APEO4 had a more rapid cognitive decline, but not those with late-onset Alzheimers disease. Likewise, higher levels of education accelerated cognitive decline in both early- and late-onset patients, but the most pronounced effects were among those with early-onset Alzheimers disease.

This research team also found that hypertension and obesity slowed cognitive decline in early-onset Alzheimers patients, but not in late-onset patients. Not surprisingly, the team noted that additional research is needed to determine the genetic and environmental factors behind declines in early-onset patients who lack any known risk factors.

In other meeting highlights, a poster presented Tuesday by Xiaohui Yao, Ph.D., and Li Shen, PhD., both of the University of Pennsylvania, predicted tissue-specific gene targets for Alzheimers disease. The researchers combined genome-wide association studies and data from expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) to identify several genes in various tissues that have multiple associations (pleiotrophy) between their expression levels and the diagnosis of Alzheimers disease.

Fourteen genes and 13 brain tissues showed 64 significant associations. The gene CTB-171A8.1 exhibited the highest level of associations, with log p values typically beyond 10m and, for specific tissues, often above 12.5. The highest levels were associated with the cortex, cerebellum, and caudate basal ganglia, although activity was exhibited in all 13 brain tissues. The next most active gene was CEACAM19, which was involved in 10 of the tissues. Yao and Shen plan to continue investigating these genes as targets for functional validation.

AAIC 2020: Multi-omics and Biomarkers Emerge as Key Elements in the Future of Alzheimer's Research - BioSpace

TAGRISSO Granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation in the US for the Adjuvant Treatment of Patients With Stage IB-IIIA EGFR-mutated Lung Cancer -…

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Danzig

WILMINGTON, Del.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AstraZenecas TAGRISSO (osimertinib) has been granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) in the US for the adjuvant treatment of patients with early-stage (IB, II and IIIA) epidermal growth factor receptor-mutated (EGFRm) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after complete tumor resection with curative intent.

The Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) BTD is designed to accelerate the development and regulatory review of potential new medicines that are intended to treat a serious condition and address a significant unmet medical need. The new medicine needs to have shown encouraging early clinical results that demonstrate substantial improvement on a clinically significant endpoint over available medicines.

While up to 30% of patients with NSCLC may be diagnosed early enough to have potentially curative surgery, disease recurrence is common in early-stage disease and nearly half of patients diagnosed in Stage IB, and over three quarters of patients diagnosed in Stage IIIA, experience recurrence within five years.1-6

Jos Baselga, Executive Vice President, Oncology R&D said: Patients with early-stage EGFRm lung cancer often experience recurrence even after successful surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy, yet there are currently no approved targeted treatments to improve outcomes. The Phase III ADAURA trial with TAGRISSO demonstrated an unprecedented level of clinical benefit in these patients, and we are working closely with the FDA to deliver this potentially curative treatment to patients as quickly as possible.

The FDA granted the BTD based on data from the Phase III ADAURA trial, which were also recently presented during the plenary session of the American Society of Clinical Oncology ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program.

In the trial, TAGRISSO demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in disease-free survival (DFS) in the adjuvant treatment of Stage IB-IIIA EGFRm NSCLC patients, reducing the risk of disease recurrence or death by 79% (HR 0.21; 95% CI 0.16-0.28; p<0.0001) in a key secondary endpoint. In April 2020, an Independent Data Monitoring Committee recommended the trial to be unblinded two years early based on its determination of overwhelming efficacy.

TAGRISSO is approved for the 1st-line treatment of patients with metastatic EGFRm NSCLC and for the treatment of metastatic EGFR T790M mutation-positive NSCLC in the US, Japan, China, the EU and many other countries around the world.

TAGRISSO IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

INDICATIONS

Please see complete Prescribing Information, including Patient Information.

NOTES TO EDITORS

About lung cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women, accounting for about one-fifth of all cancer deaths.7 Lung cancer is broadly split into NSCLC and small cell lung cancer, with 80-85% classified as NSCLC.8 The majority of all NSCLC patients are diagnosed with advanced disease while approximately 25-30% present with resectable disease at diagnosis.1-3 A significant portion of patients with resectable NSCLC eventually develop recurrence despite complete tumor resection and adjuvant chemotherapy. Approximately 10-15% of NSCLC patients in the US and Europe, and 30-40% of patients in Asia have EGFRm NSCLC.9-11 These patients are particularly sensitive to treatment with EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) which block the cell-signaling pathways that drive the growth of tumor cells.12

About ADAURA

ADAURA is a randomized, double-blinded, global, placebo-controlled Phase III trial in the adjuvant treatment of 682 patients with Stage IB, II, and IIIA EGFRm NSCLC with complete tumor resection and adjuvant chemotherapy as indicated. In the experimental arm, patients were treated with TAGRISSO 80 mg once-daily oral tablets for three years or until disease recurrence. The trial enrolled in more than 200 centers across more than 20 countries, including the US, in Europe, South America, Asia and the Middle East. The primary endpoint is DFS in Stage II and IIIA patients and a key secondary endpoint is DFS in Stage IB, II and IIIA patients. The data readout was originally anticipated in 2022. The trial will continue to assess OS.

About TAGRISSO

TAGRISSO (osimertinib) is a third-generation, irreversible EGFR-TKI with clinical activity against CNS metastases. TAGRISSO 40 mg and 80 mg once-daily oral tablets have received approval in the US, Japan, China, the EU and many countries around the world for 1st-line EGFRm advanced NSCLC. TAGRISSO is also being developed in the Stage III, unresectable setting (LAURA), in the neoadjuvant resectable setting (NeoADAURA), in combination with chemotherapy (FLAURA2) and in combination with potential new medicines to address resistance to EGFR-TKIs (SAVANNAH, ORCHARD).

AstraZeneca in lung cancer

AstraZeneca has a comprehensive portfolio of approved and potential new medicines in late-stage development for the treatment of different forms of lung cancer spanning different histologies, several stages of disease, lines of therapy and modes of action. AstraZeneca aims to address the unmet needs of patients with EGFRm tumors as a genetic driver of disease, which occur in 10-15% of NSCLC patients in the US and EU and 30-40% of NSCLC patients in Asia, with the approved medicines gefitinib and TAGRISSO, and its ongoing Phase III trials LAURA, NeoADAURA, and FLAURA2.9-11

AstraZeneca is committed to addressing tumor mechanisms of resistance through the ongoing Phase II trials SAVANNAH and ORCHARD, which test TAGRISSO in combination with savolitinib, a selective inhibitor of c-MET receptor tyrosine kinase, along with other potential new medicines. Trastuzumab deruxtecan, a HER2-directed antibody drug conjugate (ADC), is in development for metastatic non-squamous HER2-overexpressing or HER2-mutated NSCLC, including trials in combination with other anticancer treatments. In addition, DS-1062, a trophoblast cell-surface antigen 2 (TROP2)-directed ADC, is in early development for advanced NSCLC where TROP2 is overexpressed in the majority of patients.13

An extensive, late-stage, Immuno-Oncology program focuses on lung cancer patients without a targetable genetic mutation which represents up to three-quarters of all patients with lung cancer.14 Durvalumab, an anti-PDL1 antibody, is in development for patients with advanced disease (Phase III trials POSEIDON and PEARL) and for patients in earlier stages of disease including potentially curative settings (Phase III trials MERMAID-1, AEGEAN, ADJUVANT BR.31, PACIFIC-2, PACIFIC-4, PACIFIC-5, and ADRIATIC) both as monotherapy and in combination with tremelimumab and/or chemotherapy. Durvalumab is also in development in the Phase II trials NeoCOAST, COAST and HUDSON in combination with potential new medicines from the early-stage pipeline including trastuzumab deruxtecan.

AstraZeneca in Oncology

AstraZeneca has a deep-rooted heritage in oncology and offers a quickly growing portfolio of new medicines that has the potential to transform patients' lives and the Company's future. With seven new medicines launched between 2014 and 2020, and a broad pipeline of small molecules and biologics in development, the Company is committed to advance oncology as a key growth driver for AstraZeneca focusing on lung, ovarian, breast and blood cancers.

By harnessing the power of four scientific platforms - Immuno-Oncology, Tumor Drivers and Resistance, DNA Damage Response and Antibody Drug Conjugates - and by championing the development of personalized combinations, AstraZeneca has the vision to redefine cancer treatment and one day eliminate cancer as a cause of death.

About AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of diseases in three therapy areas - Oncology, Cardiovascular, Renal & Metabolism, and Respiratory & Immunology. AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries and its innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide. Please visit http://www.astrazeneca-us.com and follow the Company on Twitter @AstraZenecaUS.

References 1. Cagle P, et al. Lung Cancer Biomarkers: Present Status and Future Developments. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2013;137:11911198.2. Le Chevalier T. Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Resectable Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: Where is it Going? Ann Oncol. 2010;21:196198.3. Datta D, et al. Preoperative Evaluation of Patients Undergoing Lung Resection Surgery. Chest. 2003;123: 20962103.4. Sasaki H, et al. Prognosis of Recurrent NonSmall Cell Lung Cancer Following Complete Resection. Oncol Lett. 2014:7;1300-1304.5. Fink-Neuboeck N, et al. Hazards of Recurrence, Second Primary, or Other Tumor at Ten Years After Surgery for NonSmall-Cell Lung Cancer. Clinical Lung Cancer. Accessed February 25 2020. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.cllc.2020.02.011.6. Pignon JP, et al. Lung Adjuvant Cisplatin Evaluation: A Pooled Analysis by the LACE Collaborative Group. J Clin Oncol. 2008;26:35523559.7. World Health Organization. International Agency for Research on Cancer. Lung Fact Sheet. http://www.gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/cancers/15-Lung-fact-sheet.pdf. Accessed July 2020.8. LUNGevity Foundation. Types of Lung Cancer. https://www.lungevity.org/about-lung-cancer/lung-cancer-101/types-of-lung-cancer. Accessed July 2020.9. Szumera-Ciekiewicz A, et al. EGFR Mutation Testing on Cytological and Histological Samples in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: a Polish, Single Institution Study and Systematic Review of European Incidence. Int J Clin Exp Pathol. 2013:6;2800-12.10. Keedy VL, et al. American Society of Clinical Oncology Provisional Clinical Opinion: Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) Mutation Testing for Patients with Advanced Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Considering First-Line EGFR Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Therapy. J Clin Oncol. 2011:29;2121-2127.11. Ellison G, et al. EGFR Mutation Testing in Lung Cancer: a Review of Available Methods and Their Use for Analysis of Tumour Tissue and Cytology Samples. J Clin Pathol. 2013:66;79-89.12. Cross DA, et al. AZD9291, an Irreversible EGFR TKI, Overcomes T790M-Mediated Resistance to EGFR Inhibitors in Lung Cancer. Cancer Discov. 2014;4(9):1046-1061.13. Zaman S, et al. Targeting Trop-2 in solid tumors: future prospects. Onco Targets Ther. 2019; 12: 1781-1790.14. Pakkala S, et al. Personalized Therapy for Lung Cancer: Striking a Moving Target. JCI Insight. 2018;3(15):e120858.

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