My Brain Hurts
Posted on August 15, 2022 by Baron Bodissey
After I went through checkout at the grocery store this afternoon, I passed by the newsstand and glanced at the front pages of the papers, as is my wont. My eye was caught by the following headline from Investor’s Business Daily:
How These Biotech Players Could Help Treat Covid-Fueled Depression
I’m not sure why, but it brought to mind the old joke about the man who went on trial for murdering both his parents, and then begged the court for leniency due to his being an orphan.
Below are excerpts from the article:
As a microscopic virus brought the world to its knees in 2020, a long-simmering mental health crisis erupted. Skyrocketing rates of depression and anxiety exposed a glaring void: The current suite of depression treatments doesn’t fit many patients.
A group of biotech stocks including Biogen (BIIB) and Sage Therapeutics (SAGE) could change that as soon as this year.
Psychiatrists have noted the shortfall before, but the coronavirus pandemic put it front and center. By some accounts, rates of depression and anxiety climbed at least threefold as the world struggled to contain personal and societal risks. Some experts see the pandemic as a “triggering event” that ballooned the number of depression patients into the tens of millions. Meanwhile, too few doctors could take on the sudden influx of patients.
The seismic shift opened the window for biotech stocks that began testing new approaches to depression years ago. This group of mostly small companies includes behemoth Biogen, teamed up with Sage Therapeutics, on what could be the fastest-acting depression drug to hit the market. The effort has yet to boost Biogen stock or Sage stock, but the two expect to finish submitting their application for approval this year.
Lesser-known names are pursuing other approaches that could shake the decadeslong hold on the market by traditional depression treatments like Prozac and Zoloft. One company, Axsome Therapeutics (AXSM), already has submitted a new type of depression drug to regulators and could win approval any day.
“While depression and brain health issues were a problem prior to the Covid pandemic, Covid has certainly exacerbated the issue and has created a three(fold) to fourfold increase in the amount of depression in the world,” Sage Chief Executive Barry Greene told Investor’s Business Daily. “We really are in a brain health pandemic.”
Biotech stocks hope to make a difference. The company that gets it right could benefit with a piece of what Wedbush’s Chico sees as a $16 billion to $18 billion opportunity over the next five years. Research firm Emergen Research says the depression treatment market could hit $16.1 billion by 2027. [emphasis added]
So after the pharmaceutical industry partnered with Fauci et al. to help give the world a shove into the Covid ditch, it made untold billions from selling “vaccines” to world governments, which did untold damage to the vaxed in addition to the damage already wrought by the disease itself, and the insane official response to it.
And now the pharmaceutical industry stands to make billions and billions more by marketing new treatments for depression caused by the Coronamadness.
What a racket!
I wish I were skilled in the fine art of sussing out the ownership of corporations. I’d love to know who holds a controlling interest in Biogen and Sage Therapeutics and all the others. Do you have to track it all the way back to Vanguard and/or Blackrock? Or does Pfizer have its snout in there somewhere further down the chain?
Asking for a friend.
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