A
Atelfo
atelfo.github.io · Personal blog · on HN since 2023
Atelfo writes about biotech and pharmaceutical development, drug economics, and occasionally software engineering culture and LLMs.
What HN saysHN links it for its biotech writing; the one commenter who mentions it is the author, describing it as a blog mostly about biotech.
15HN people shared it
2linked it in comments
18stories submitted
39story points
10 months agolast shared
2023people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Why Drugs Got Harder to Develop and What Can Be Done About It5 people · 10 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 2Will all our drugs come from China?4 people · 15 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 3Pharmaceutical blockbusters: the past, present, and future(?)3 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 4Some Questions about Biotech1 people · 3 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 5LLMs won't save you from bad software engineering culture1 people · 3 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 6A New Breed of Biotech1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 7Going direct: notes on Eli Lilly at a trillion1 people · 2 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 8Intelligence as Efficient Model Building1 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 9Homepage1 people · first shared 2023
What HN people wrote when they linked it
Atelfo · 2023-07-04
I write about biotech mostly
https://atelfo.github.io/
jseliger · 2024-06-04
RCTs are fine but the obsession with them is overwrought and counterproductive. My own drum to beat on this is regarding clinical trials for fatal diagnoses like cancer: https://jakeseliger.com/2024/01/29/the-dead-and-dying-at-the-gates-of-… We have Kaplan-Meier curves for fatal diagnoses. We know what happens (the tumors grow and metastasize. One doesn't need elaborate phase 3 RCTs to figure out if there's a good shot that a treatment is working; one can see it in tumor response and comparison to known KMCs. The existing system raises costs and causes people to die while waiting a decade or more for exciting treatments: https://atelfo.github.io/2023/12/23/biopharma-from-janssen-to-today.ht…
Moderna's mRNA-4157 is a current example of this: https://jakeseliger.com/2024/04/12/moderna-mrna-4157-v90-news-for-head… although it may be held up by lack of manufacturing capacity as well.