US Citizens With Hantavirus Isolated in Nebraska

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]You know, I said to Dani, like, this isn't gonna become a global pandemic. Right? It isn't. Right? No. No. But, Pat, can I just first say, I wish I was covering AI stocks? You only call on me when there's misery and pain in the world. So I guess it goes with the territory of being a pharma analyst. So no. I think pandemic would be a very far stretch for this. You can never say no with a 100% certainty. Viruses do mutate. And, you know, look at this group of hantaviruses. This one's called Andes virus. It is the only one that transmits from human to human. So somehow it has gained that ability or has developed that ability. So it is possible that they would mutate, but the it this has happened before. We've had 1993, the the four corner states. And in isolated cases, it happens. You deal with it with exactly what the world's doing now, quarantine. I'm not convinced you need a vaccine. Always good to be prepared. Always good to be Moderna doing altruistic things. But from a commercial perspective, I'm not convinced.

[00:01:04]Sam, is there something bigger for Moderna, though? Because it's rallying a lot. Is there some idea that it proves the efficacy or use case for the type of vaccines they have, the mRNA that you can quickly turn them around to address any of these types of threats?

[00:01:19]Yeah. I wish I wish the governments in the world, particularly The US, also saw that because otherwise, we wouldn't have had all this backlash against mRNA vaccines or this push against vaccines. Vaccines are one of the best things that science has developed, and we we we I've been saying the same thing over and over again. And these companies that have got the mRNA capability are the ones to focus on for pandemic preparedness, for situations where you may need something to turn on very quickly. Other vaccine technologies can't do that. But that's been the case for ages. So maybe some people have suddenly remembered that, but, you know, you would have thought, therefore, that BioNTech will have the same result or or or at least attraction. And is also in the or GSK, sorry, is also in the mRNA vaccines and some and so are some others. So I I hope that's the case, but I'm just worried that this is a little reaction to perhaps retail driven. I doubt this is driven by institutional investors.

[00:02:24]Sam, I just gotta throw this in because I feel bad we're not asking you about AI stuff because you do kinda cover AI companies now. Like, all these pharmaceutical companies are using the technology, aren't they, and have been for some time?

[00:02:35]They are. They are. And I talked to quite a few people who lead some other companies that are using AI in terms of the biotech size companies and helping and working with pharma companies, Insilica being one of them. There are a whole bunch of private companies that are doing it. Recursion is another one that are helping speed drug development up. That productivity gain, which I remember you were just talking about with Caroline, that takes a little bit more time to come because a lot of that comes through time savings and drug development process, but we need a few years to see the fruit of that.