Daily Business Report-Oct. 6, 2020
False color scanning electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. Photo credit: NIAID.
UC San Diego Health joins international
clinical trial to test coronavirus vaccine
UC San Diego Health will be a test site for a third, major Phase III clinical trial to assess a vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Sponsored by Janssen Pharmaceuticals Companies of Johnson & Johnson, the trial will recruit up to 60,000 participants at sites in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Philippines, South Africa and Ukraine to test a single-dose investigational vaccine injection. Dubbed ENSEMBLE, the trial in San Diego officially launches on Wednesday.
Like the Moderna and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine trials already underway at UC San Diego Health and elsewhere, the Janssen trial will be a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. It will assess the efficacy, safety and immunogenicity (the ability to provoke an immune response) of the investigational drug Ad.26-COV2.S.
The Janssen trial employs an older, well-tested vaccine development approach: A deactivated common cold virus is modified to carry the SARS-CoV-2’s characteristic spike protein, which the virus uses to enter host cells. This vaccine “vector” is injected, and the presence of the spike protein prompts the human immune system to create neutralizing antibodies to block the targeted pathogen, essentially rendering subsequent exposures to the coronavirus as non-infectious.
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AEVEX Aerospace acquires IKHANA
Services and Geodetics Inc.
Solana Beach-based AEVEX Aerospace announced the acquisition of IKHANA Aircraft Services and Geodetics Inc., based in Murrieta. IKHANA is a full-service provider of aircraft engineering, modification, and maintenance solutions. Geodetics Inc., headquartered in San Diego, designs, develops, and manufactures commercial high-precision positioning and assured navigation products and solutions.
IKHANA has a long history of engineering, modification, and certification of both jet and turboprop aircraft with extensive experience on a variety of commercial and special-mission aircraft. Geodetics builds a suite of low size, weight, and power (SWaP) products for high-precision, assured positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) that are readily adaptable to any system requiring high-fidelity solutions. Additionally, Geodetics produces application-specific LiDAR mapping and photogrammetry solutions.
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Mail ballots go out to registered
voters for the Nov. 3 election
More than 1.9 million mail ballots are on their way to San Diego County registered voters for the Nov. 3 Presidential General Election. You may find yours in your mailbox as early as today. You will also find your “I Voted” sticker inside your official mail ballot packet.
The Registrar of Voters office in Kearny Mesa is also now open for early voting from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. However, the Registrar urges voters to take advantage of their mail ballots.
While polling places will open for in-person voting, all California voters are receiving mail ballots for this election to help them avoid contact with others during the COVID-19 pandemic.
You can return your marked ballot in the pre-paid postage envelope to any U.S. Postal Service office or collection box. Starting today, you’ll also have the option to drop off your ballot at one of 126 mail ballot drop-off locations around the county. Find a drop-off location near you with this locator tool.
You can now track your mail ballot by signing up for Where’s My Ballot? Find out how at sdvote.com and receive automatic notifications on the status of your ballot.
If you haven’t received your mail ballot by Wednesday, Oct. 14, call the Registrar’s office at (858) 565-5800.
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Killing cancer by blocking cell doors
Cancer cells survive and proliferate with the help of nutrients and other materials that reach the cell nucleus via the “nuclear pore complex”—a door of sorts that’s vital for tumor survival. But what if that door could be blocked or, better yet, prevented from forming in the first place?
That’s the hypothesis behind research at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. A team there is working on methods for preventing cells from building nuclear pore channels. Now, they have preliminary evidence that the approach works in animals.
The Sanford Burnham Prebys researchers started with human tumor cells that couldn’t form nuclear pore complexes. The cells came from melanoma, leukemia and colorectal cancer—three cancer types that are known to be especially dependent on the complexes for their survival.
When the cells were transplanted into mice, the tumors remained small and slow-growing. The research was published in the journal Cancer Discovery.
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Vigilance Risk Solutions changes
name to CommSafe [ai]
Vigilance Risk Solutions, Inc., a first-of-its-kind technology company that specializes in conflict and violence prevention, has completed a rebranding effort in response to accelerated market potential in a pandemic era. At the heart of this rebranding is a change of the company name to CommSafe [ai] – matching the name of its new AI software platform – and an update to the corporate logo.
The new name and product reflects the increasing recognition of companies large and small that emerging threats will continue to plague the workplace as employees go back to work post-COVID-19.
CommSafe [ai] analyzes communication in real time and flags toxic messages – similar to the algorithm of an email spam filter – that would threaten the integrity of a safe communication space or violate shared company values. The software tracks tone, meaning that the algorithms can semantically tell if the tone of a message is insulting by analyzing word choice and word patterns.
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Update on the Employment Development Department
CalMatters
California’s beleaguered unemployment department was to resume accepting new claims on Monday after a two-week pause intended to give it time to implement a new automatic identity-verification tool and reduce a backlog of nearly 1.6 million claims.
EDD appears to have cleared 146,513 claims from Sept. 24-30, the last week for which data is available. Whether the new tool can handle what is sure to be a sizable influx of pent-up claims from the past two weeks remains to be seen. We’ll likely hear more at an Assembly hearing on Wednesday.
The California state auditor was also slated to begin an emergency audit of the department by the end of September.
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Why do people respond differently to the same drug?
Scientists at Scripps Research have comprehensively mapped how a key class of proteins within cells regulates signals coming in from cell surface receptors.
The study reveals, among other things, that people commonly have variants in these proteins that cause their cells to respond differently when the same cell receptor is stimulated—offering a plausible explanation for why people’s responses to the same drugs can vary widely.
The findings, published October 1 in Cell, set the stage for a better understanding of the complex roles these proteins, known as RGS proteins, play in health and disease. That in turn could lead to new treatment approaches for a range of conditions.
“Before you can fix things, you need to know how they’re broken and how they work normally, and in this study that’s essentially what we’ve done for these important regulatory proteins,” says study senior author Kirill Martemyanov, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Neuroscience at Scripps Research’s Florida campus.
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Agencies sponsor computer drive to help
families with kids in distance learning
A computer drive is being held to meet the needs of families without computers for distance learning during the pandemic. Ongoing until October 31, this drive is hosted by Cox Communications, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the San Diego County Office of Education, and San Diego Councilman Chris Cate.
San Diego County residents and businesses of all sizes are encouraged to donate their used computers, laptops, and tablets so they can be refurbished for families in need. Since the pandemic spurred distance learning, Computers 2 Kids (C2K) has fulfilled more than 19,000 requests for refurbished computers to families struggling to navigate their children’s education from home.
Despite the fulfillment, there are many more orders to fill. “Students are our future workforce, they are our next generation of entrepreneurs, our elected leaders, our first responders,” said Jerry Sanders, Chamber president and CEO. “We want to give all of San Diego’s students the best opportunity to reach their goals and that starts with ensuring they have the technology tools to access their education. Together, we can all help meet the need in our community and make a big difference in a young person’s educational future.” Computers can be dropped off at the C2K warehouse, or large donations can request a scheduled pick-up. To donate your computer or electronics, or pledge a future donation, click here.
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Zach Holderman joins CBRE
as a senior vice president
Zack Holderman has joined CBRE’s Healthcare and Life Science Capital Markets team as a senior vice president. Based at the firm’s San Diego office, Holderman will focus on the placement of debt and equity for health care and life sciences clients nationwide.
Holderman will join Chris Bodnar and Lee Asher, vice chairmen and co-leaders of CBRE’s Healthcare & Life Sciences Capital Markets team, and will partner with Sabrina Solomiany to enhance the team’s debt and equity placement offering nationally. He will work closely with the local Debt & Structured Finance team comprised of Bill Chiles, Scott Peterson and Mark McGovern.
An accomplished commercial real estate finance executive with more than 17 years of experience, Holderman has an extensive background in structuring financing strategies and negotiating with lenders and equity providers to achieve capital solutions for institutional investors and developer clients across all healthcare and life science asset types.
Holderman spent the last 14 years at HFF, which was acquired by JLL last year, most recently as a senior director for the firm’s Healthcare Capital Markets division. Over the course of his career, he has been involved in more than $6.4 billion of debt, equity placement and investment advisory transactions.
