Frank S. David

MENA Science | LinkedIn I want to delve into and highlight high-impact research coming out of Arab and North African countries.

Hey, folks -- please show some love/encouragement to a recent Bio MS grad (on the job market!) who's blogging about biomedical research in the Mideast and North Africa: www.linkedin.com/newsletters/...

Hi, folks! I just posted another "links list" of biopharma-relevant stuff that caught my attention (incl. "AI and Alzheimer's cures" -- color me skeptical). mailchi.mp/pharmagellan...

Measuring Biopharmaceutical Innovation in the Modern Era | The Incidental Economist As the Inflation Reduction Act empowers Medicare to negotiate drug prices based in part on clinical benefit, and as the FDA more closely scrutinizes accelerated approvals, a fundamental question has b...

New essay on measuring biopharma innovation in The Incidental Economist -- led by @sukhunkang.bsky.social; I pitched in: theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/me...

Great curated list, @franksdavid.bsky.social -and would have expected no less!

My latest "link list": mailchi.mp/pharmagellan...

How the FDA can score quick wins on transparency Improving how the FDA disseminates already-public information about approved drugs may be unsexy, but it would be a big step toward the era of “radical transparency.”

My unsexy but easy suggestion for Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H. on boosting "radical transparency" at the FDA: www.statnews.com/2025/07/29/f...

You should start a biotech blog A lot of students and young professionals ask me how to get into biotech strategy, consulting, or investing (esp. venture capital).

New (from me): blogging advice for folks who want to get into biotech strategy or finance, incl. resources, examples, and tips to get started: www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-sh...

AMA: Saloni Dattani by Toby Tremlett🔹, salonium Jul 2 1 min read 1 13 Ask Me Anything Frontpage + Add topic AMA: Saloni Dattani Question ideas: 1 comment Saloni will answer the questions in this AMA between 6-8pm BST on July 8th. Leave your questions as comments, and upvote other questions you’d like to see answered. If you’ve been around EA for a while, and you’re interested in global health, you’ve probably read Saloni Dattani before. Saloni writes about global health at Our World In Data and is a co-founder and editor of Works in Progress magazine. She’s also recently started a podcast, Hard Drugs, with Jacob Trefethen. She also (somehow) finds time to write a great blog, Scientific Discovery. She’s recently written on: The decline in cancer mortality, and how it’s not all down to decline in smoking. How we calculate fertility rates, and why just calculating the total fertility rate leads us astray. And she delivered a talk at EA Global London on the data that shapes global health.

Ask me anything!

If you have questions about writing, podcasting, global health, medical innovation, data, or anything else, I'll be doing an AMA on the EA Forum next week.

It's between 6-8pm BST on July 8th but you can also leave qs here in advance: forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i2DtGA...

Hi, folks -- here's my inaugural "links list" of recent items that caught my eye in biotech R&D and other areas. Please let me know what you think! eepurl.com/jih0E2

Begs the (serious) question: where do “blog posts” fit on that list? Or do they?

Generics FTW.

Also, anyone even mildly interested in drug pricing should read Peter Kolchinsky’s “Great American Drug Deal”.

Good resource for biotech entrepreneurs (HT @wilbanks.bsky.social)

Apparently hope *is* a strategy after all.

endpoints.news/roche-moves-... by @leileiwu.bsky.social of Endpoints

Good piece —>

Great thread — bookmarking for my drug dev class. HT @thewonkologist.bsky.social

Love this — I’ve sent it to many Tufts Bio students. (So far only 1 has started a blog, but I’m not giving up.)

Me: “FIVE hours?”

Also me: <hits the “subscribe” button>

“Frontiers” and MDPI-pub’d journals are the most common crap citations in my classes (& I explicitly ban them), but I’ll be on the lookout in case Springer’s “Discovery” rears its ugly head.

I don’t follow the generics market closely, let alone international Gx — so I found this piece by @dereklowe.bsky.social particularly bananas! Go read it. www.science.org/content/blog...

Science writing from the last two years that stuck with me This list consists of writing that ticked two boxes: 1) did I think about the article again more than a week after reading it?, and 2) was it written for a popular audience? So, academic papers, inclu...

Good reading recs here from Jacob Trefethen of Open Phil: blog.jacobtrefethen.com/science-writ...

Valid point

Really interesting post from new Ch Med Ofc of Oura Ring pointing to next steps for device: integration w traditional patient care systems (presumably Epic etc), impact on health behavior… (in previous role at Apple his expertise included health data interoperability…) cc @franksdavid.bsky.social

Or simply: Get lucky: pick winners.

Awesome. Followed closely by the BD strategy of “buy de-risked late-stage assets, ideally at a bargain price”.

Good template for a clear paper abstract — HT @johnholbein1.bsky.social (who credits @fgilardi.bsky.social)

New paper on pharma revenue drivers by IDEA Pharma — here’s the TL;DR (w/apologies to Michael Pollan; IYKYK):

“Spend on R&D. Not too much. Mostly Phase 3 trials.”

www.ideapharma.com/insights/rev...

“Evidence-inspired” — love that! Will def use in future.

New “Healthspan” whitepaper by the folks at Whoop. I’m skeptical of these sorts of things but I haven’t read it yet and this isn’t my expertise. Curious to hear thoughts from @dshaywitz.bsky.social and others who follow this area.

www.whoop.com/us/en/theloc...