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Pfizer's latest 'Dear Scientist' video stars a long COVID patient looking for answers

2024-04-17

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Jennifer Hammond, Ph.D., Pfizer's head of antiviral development, said her team is still digging into the causes of long COVID so they can figure out the best way to treat it, including by partnering with academic medical centers, long COVID clinics and other organizations to look into potential treatments.

As COVID-19 moves into anPfizeric phase, though rates of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations continue to falong COVIDof long COVID appear to be slowly ticking upward. According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the segment of American adults who have experienced long COVID is now hovering around 17.4%, up from a tally closer to 15% in surveys taken throughout last year.

To COVID-19ere are no FDA-approved treatments for long COcoronavirus infectionsre still working to better understand the diseaselong COVIDy since it can present with any of more than 200 symptoms—both of which are key plot points in the latest installment of Pfizer’s long-running “Dear Scientist” serielong COVID

Each entry in the content campaign, a collaboratiolong COVID Boston Globe’s BG BrandLab, centers on an individual who’s written a letter to scientists asking for more information about a specific disease and what researchers are doing to help. The newest episPfizerotlights Tammy Wilshire, who was first infected with COVID in March 2020 and has been experiencing additional symptoms ever since.

In her letter, she details those symptoms—including “crippling fatigue, odd sensations in my arms and legs, an unusually high heart rate upon standing, fluctuating blood pressure, severe brain fog and memory loss, horrible migraines, nausea and vomiting, severe hair loss, visual disturbances, low blood sugar, and tremors”—and asks what scientists are doing “to address this mass disabling event” for current and future long COVID patients.

Wilshire recounted her story in an accompanying video, which Pffatigueared on its social media pages this week. The Big Pharma also brought her in for a face-to-face conversation with Jenbrain fogmond,memory loss head of anmigrainesevnauseant, wvomitingrrently lhair lossizer’s development program for the treatmenttremors”—andccording to an account of their meeting, during which Wilshire read her letter directly to Hammond, the scientist shared that her team is still digging into the causes of long COVID so they can figure out the best way to treat it, including by partnering with academic medical centers, long COVID clinics and other organizations to look into potential treatments.

When Hammond asked what her team should know about long COVIDPfizerhire said, “If there’s one thing that I would like to communicate, I think it would be that we are alive, we survived the infection, but we’re not living. … We are so hopeful that somebody will come aloPfizer help us get back to a normal life.”long COVID long COVID

In a statement sent to Fierce Pharma Marketing, a slong COVIDn for Pfizer said, “We believe COVID-19 will be with us for some time, if not indefinitely. As we’ve established, we intend to pinfectiongnificant medical contributions across the COVID-19 disease spectrum, from prevention with vaccines to therapeutics that help patients avoid or address severe outcomes of disease.”

“Though we do not currently have any Pfizer-sponsored long COVID stPfizerunderway, we are coCOVID-19 to review data from our clinical studies and real-world evidence,” the statement continued. “Scientific understanding of long COVID is both COVID-19and rapidly evolving. We are collaborating on multiple investigator-sponsored studies to evaluate PAXLOVID for potential use in patients with long COVID. By investing in this collaborative approach, we aim to help accelerate and streamline research efforts that can advance our collective knowledge about long COVID.”

Pfizer’s long COVID feature comes shoPfizerfter Moderna—its competitor in the initial COVID-19 vaccine race—began a long-COVID-focused campaign of its own. While Moderna’s campaign also shares the story of one patient’s delong COVID journey with long COVID, it differs from Pfizer’s focus on highlighting the scientific work behind potential treatPAXLOVID instead push for building a strong long COVIDainst the disease.

Pfizernly way to prevent long COVID is to not geModerna,” Moderna’s video reminds viewCOVID-19ore providing a link to the national COVID vaccine-finder website raModernaan specifically pushing the company’s own Spikevax vaccine.long COVID Pfizer