CSU Ventures

HAPPY 10th ANNIVERSARY to this long-standing session that has given platform to so many voices and inspired studies that have floodlighted an uncomfortable reality. The description for this session invites abstracts pertinent to many dimensions within the topic of equality, diversity, and inclusivity. Bravo to the convenors session description which includes the invitation: “Reports on situations that you may have experienced considering recent socio-political changes and attacks on EDI activities are encouraged.” One of our deepest holes and most challenging items within EDI is the courage to publicize personal experiences, and yet, this is one of the most powerful fronts available to us. The perpetrator is betting their victims will remain silent, based on fear of Revenge, Retaliation, Retribution, Requital and Reprisal, what we dub the R-Quintic factor. Telling the most recent chapter in my story puts fear where it belongs – on the perpetrator.We learn about a university department head, whose actions against a female scientist escalated from harassment to verbal and attempted physical abuse, to plotting and carrying out contamination of her lab facility, to ultimately firing her and her research team without cause. The latter action left another female professor without the lab facility she depended on for her research, thus forcing her departure, and left a new female assistant professor without the collaborating lab partnership she planned on. The university failed to act and protect. Three years later, a federal warrant was filed for the female scientist’s arrest by the university police. She was jailed on re-entering the US. She thought it must be something related to EDI, or perhaps the word “climate” in her publications. A criminal lawyer readily assembled the facts and proved unlawful arrest. The case was dismissed and sealed. Here we discuss how the university’s failure to act and protect served to further embolden a bully.

Based on extrapolation of similar clinical outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis to the originator infliximab (IFX) in randomized clinical trials, the first biosimilar antibody CT‐P13 was approved for the treatment of psoriasis. To evaluate the safety, efficacy, and drug survival of CT‐P13 for psoriasis in real‐world clinical practice, prospective post‐marketing surveillance was conducted in 165 Japanese psoriasis patients. During a 1‐year follow‐up period, adverse drug reactions (ADRs) occurred in 29 patients (17.6%). Infusion reaction was the most frequent ADR (6.7%), and mild pneumonia was reported as the only case of infection. Serious ADRs were reported in two patients (1.2%): acute cholecystitis and interstitial pneumonia. The interstitial pneumonia developed after a single infusion of CT‐P13 and the patient died of respiratory failure. In naive patients to biologic therapy (n = 44), the Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) decreased rapidly after the start of CT‐P13 treatment, and response rate achieving an absolute PASI score <1 was 55% at 30 weeks. The response rate was high (78%) in patients with psoriatic arthritis, and 40% and 20% in those in plaque psoriasis and pustular psoriasis, respectively. Of patients switched from IFX to CT‐P13 mainly for nonmedical reasons (n = 105), 57% had already reached PASI <1 by pretreatment with IFX and CT‐P13 maintained this status. The incidence of ADRs in this patient group was low and the drug survival rate was as high as 74%, even at 1 year, which was significantly higher than that in the naïve patient group (47%). Patients switched from other biologics for medical reasons (n = 16) responded similarly to biologic‐naïve patients, but drug survival was lower (24%). In conclusion, CT‐P13 showed excellent effectiveness as a first‐line therapy, no clinical difficulties in switching from IFX, and usefulness in patients who failed other biologics. CT‐P13 could be a cost‐effective alternative to IFX for the treatment of psoriasis.

A look at the global landscape of biofuel patenting shows that, after surging between 2004 and 2008, the invention of biofuel technologies slowed considerably, and in many countries went into decline. Global trends point to an uncertain future, in particular, for advanced biofuels.