Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Ennaid's Harrison on Developing Cure for the Zika Virus (Audio)

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Ennaid's Harrison on Developing Cure for the Zika Virus (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: of healthcare. The giessue of drug pricing has been at
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  Speaker 1: the forefront, certainly in the political realm for the last
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  Speaker 1: few months. We're living in a very special time in
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  Speaker 1: the history of the pharmaceutical industry. Only three percent of
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  Speaker 1: all biotechs that start actually get a drug approved. It's
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  Speaker 1: a very hard thing to do. Bloomberg taking stock Healthcaren
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  Speaker 1: focus on Bloomberg Radio. The Zica virus has been one
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  Speaker 1: of the dark clouds hanging over the Olympics in Rio
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  Speaker 1: de jan Narrow. In fact, the virus emerged there back
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  Speaker 1: in probably introduced in the country, uh in the latter
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  Speaker 1: half of according to our Bloomberg intelligence team, and of
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  Speaker 1: course now there are concerns that it will spread further
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  Speaker 1: across North America and continue to show up in Europe.
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  Speaker 1: Enter Darnish Darnisia Grant Harrison. She's president and CEO of
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  Speaker 1: an aid therapeutic She's based in Alfaretta, Georgia, joining us
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  Speaker 1: in our studio today. Uh. She is the CEO of
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  Speaker 1: a global pharmaceutical company that is developing anti viral drugs
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  Speaker 1: to treat this Zeka virus. Not a moment too soon, Darnisia,
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. So, uh,
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  Speaker 1: what are you developing in particular? So we are actually
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  Speaker 1: developing anti viral treatments. So these are actually drugs. Um.
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  Speaker 1: We love to use one analogy. If your households on fire,
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  Speaker 1: what do you want the fire department to come or
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  Speaker 1: a fire inspector to come? I bet you'd want to
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  Speaker 1: fire the fire department. So we are like the fire department.
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  Speaker 1: When you get zekea virus, we would then put it out.
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  Speaker 1: M vaccines, on the other hand, are much like fire inspectors. UM.
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  Speaker 1: It sort of prevents you, um from getting Zeka virus.
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  Speaker 1: What we have come to realize in the infectious diseases
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  Speaker 1: world is that therapeutics, so drugs such as that we're
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  Speaker 1: developing and vaccines really play a complimentary role in helping
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  Speaker 1: to control and ultimately eradicate diseases such as zeca. Now
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  Speaker 1: I need some help with a little science because I
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  Speaker 1: need to know in order to understand more what is
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  Speaker 1: a peptide inhibitor and connect the zekra virus to what
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  Speaker 1: we know about dan gay fever, because I understand that
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  Speaker 1: there is a connection. Yes, there is. So I'll start
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  Speaker 1: with the ladder um. Both Ezeka and dengie, as well
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  Speaker 1: as less nile virus and many others, are from the
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  Speaker 1: same family of viruses called the flavor Veridae family. Even
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  Speaker 1: furthermore closely related there from the same genus of this family,
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  Speaker 1: the flavor virus genus, And each of these viruses that
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  Speaker 1: you've just mentioned had the same mechanism of action of
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  Speaker 1: infecting healthy cells within the body. Okay, So that answers
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  Speaker 1: that question. Now the first question, what's a peptide and
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  Speaker 1: what does it mean? Um? It's essentially a protein. Okay. Um,
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  Speaker 1: We're all very very familiar with um insulin. Okay. Insulin
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  Speaker 1: is a protein very similar okay to to put it
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  Speaker 1: simply um and the peptide inhibitors are drugs that stop
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  Speaker 1: the peptide in our case, from buying ding to the
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  Speaker 1: healthy hostel. If it can't bind, then it theoretically should
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  Speaker 1: not be able to infect healthy cell. So that's what
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  Speaker 1: we are developing in particular, peptide binding inhibitors. Journey. So
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  Speaker 1: you're normally a woman heading up a very exciting pharmaceutical company.
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  Speaker 1: You're also the first African American woman in the world
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  Speaker 1: to be founder, president, CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Microbiologist, scientist,
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  Speaker 1: business development in a nutshell, how did you get here?
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for asking, um, And I will qualify that
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  Speaker 1: I'm one of the first African American I have to
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  Speaker 1: be politically correct here, but UM, you know, I majored
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  Speaker 1: UM and became a microbiologist and a chemist and really
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed being a scientist. But I didn't want an advanced degree.
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  Speaker 1: I had a Bachelor of Science in both and so
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  Speaker 1: I was working in pharma at am Gen at the
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  Speaker 1: time many moons ago, and I said, you know, what
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  Speaker 1: would I want to do with my career that could
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  Speaker 1: really marry both my scientific acumen, but then I could
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  Speaker 1: learn the business side, and that's what I segued into
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  Speaker 1: business development and licensing, but in the niche area of
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  Speaker 1: pharmaceutical research and development, and I stayed there for about
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  Speaker 1: fifteen years, but five years in I just had this
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  Speaker 1: really deep passionate desire to have my own pharmaceutical company
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  Speaker 1: and focus on early stage, promising science. It's a known
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  Speaker 1: fact that there is about a twenty year backlog of
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  Speaker 1: good scientific discoveries that could be used in human health
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  Speaker 1: and animal health, but most companies don't focus there, and
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  Speaker 1: that's where we differ. And eight Therapeutics is privately held.
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  Speaker 1: Tell us a little quickly about funding and also the pipeline.
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  Speaker 1: Where are you in the testing of this work? Absolutely
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  Speaker 1: so funding. We are essentially what we would call a
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  Speaker 1: self funded company and that I am our largest investor.
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  Speaker 1: And we've done a very successful family and friends round
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  Speaker 1: of funding UM having utilized with our rays right at
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  Speaker 1: about one million dollars okay, and we've got some other
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  Speaker 1: very aggressive activities going with funding now UM and we
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  Speaker 1: are in the pre clinical stages finishing up the animals
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  Speaker 1: studies and on track to be in first time in
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  Speaker 1: man human trials by Q one. Thank you very much
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  Speaker 1: for coming in and sharing all this information with us.
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  Speaker 1: Darnisia Grant Harrison, the president and the chief executive of
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  Speaker 1: an Aid Therapeutics. They're based in Alpharetta, Georgia. This is Bloomberg.
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