How a Premier U.S. Drug Company Became a Virus 'Super Spreader'

一家美国顶级制药公司如何成为病毒“超级传播者”

Farah Stockman and Kim Barker Farah Stockman和Kim Barker

The New York Times 纽约时报April 13, 2020, 8:14 PM GMT+82020年4月13日，格林尼治标准时间晚上8:14 +8

BOSTON — On the first Monday in March, Michel Vounatsos, chief executive of the drug company Biogen, appeared in good spirits. The company’s new Alzheimer’s drug was showing promise after years of setbacks. Revenues had never been higher.

波士顿——3月的第一个星期一，百健健制药公司的首席执行官米歇尔·沃纳索斯看起来精神很好。该公司的新药阿尔茨海默病药物在多年的挫折后显示出希望。收入从未如此之高。

Onstage at an elite health care conference in Boston, Vounatsos touted the drug’s “remarkable journey.” Asked if the coronavirus that was ravaging China would disrupt supply chains and upend the company’s big plans, Vounatsos said no.

在波士顿举行的一次精英医疗保健会议上，沃纳索斯称赞这种药物的“非凡之旅”。当被问及肆虐中国的冠状病毒是否会扰乱供应链，打乱公司的大计划时，沃纳索斯说不会。

“So far, so good,” he said.

“到目前为止，一切都很好，”他说。

But even as he spoke, the virus was already silently spreading among Biogen’s senior executives, who did not know they had been infected days earlier at the company’s annual leadership meeting.

但就在他说话的时候，病毒已经悄悄在百健健的高管中传播，他们不知道几天前在公司的年度领导会议上自己已经被感染了。

Biogen employees, most feeling healthy, boarded planes full of passengers. They drove home to their families. And they carried the virus to at least six states, the District of Columbia and three countries, outstripping the ability of local public health officials to trace the spread.

生物原公司的员工大多感觉身体健康，他们登上了满载乘客的飞机。他们开车回家与家人团聚。他们将病毒传播到至少6个州、哥伦比亚特区和3个国家，超出了当地公共卫生官员追踪病毒传播的能力。

The Biogen meeting was one of the earliest examples in the U.S. of what epidemiologists call “superspreading events” of COVID-19, where a small gathering of people leads to a huge number of infections. Unlike the most infamous clusters of cases stemming from a nursing home outside Seattle or a 40th birthday party in Connecticut, the Biogen cluster happened at a meeting of top health care professionals whose job it was to fight disease, not spread it.

在美国，Biogen会议是被流行病学家称为COVID-19的“超级传播事件”的最早例子之一，在COVID-19中，一小群人聚集在一起就会导致大量的感染。与那些最臭名昭著的案例不同，这些案例要么来自西雅图郊外的疗养院，要么来自康涅狄格州的一个40岁生日聚会，而生物原集群则发生在一群顶级医疗专业人士的会议上，他们的工作是抗击疾病，而不是传播疾病。

“The smartest people in health care and drug development — and they were completely oblivious to the biggest thing that was about to shatter their world,” said John Carroll, editor of Endpoints News, which covers the biotech industry.

“那些在医疗保健和药物开发领域最聪明的人，他们完全没有意识到他们的世界即将被一件最重大的事情打破，”生物科技行业新闻网站终结点新闻(endpoint News)的编辑约翰·卡罗尔(John Carroll)说。

The official count of those sickened— 99, including employees and their contacts, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health — includes only those who live in that state. The true number across the United States is certainly higher. The first two cases in Indiana were Biogen executives. So was the first known case in Tennessee, and six of the earliest cases in North Carolina.

官方统计的患病人数为99人，包括员工和他们的联系人，根据马萨诸塞州公共卫生部的数据，这一数字只包括那些居住在该州的人。美国各地的真实数字当然更高。印第安纳州的头两个案例是Biogen的高管。田纳西州的第一个已知病例也是如此，北卡罗来纳州最早的六个病例也是如此。

All the people outside Massachusetts that The New York Times has connected to the cluster have recovered. But it’s impossible to say for certain whether anyone became gravely ill or died from the spread out of the conference.

《纽约时报》在麻萨诸塞州以外与该集群有联系的所有人都已康复。但无法确定是否有人得了重病或死于会议的蔓延。

In hindsight, many people have criticized Biogen’s decision to continue with its leadership meeting in late February, which was attended by vice presidents from European countries already hit by the virus. Others in the industry fault Biogen for being too tight-lipped about the outbreak.

事后来看，许多人批评百健健决定继续在2月下旬召开领导会议，参加会议的有来自已经感染病毒的欧洲国家的副总统。其他业内人士则指责Biogen对此次疫情守口如瓶。

At least two of the company’s senior executives have tested positive. Citing privacy concerns, the company has declined to name them, even as other chief executives in biotech have disclosed their positive tests.

该公司至少有两名高管的检测结果呈阳性。出于对隐私的担忧，该公司拒绝透露这些人的姓名，尽管其他生物科技公司的首席执行官已经透露了他们的阳性检测结果。

Responding to questions from The New York Times, Vounatsos refused to say even whether he had been tested for COVID-19.

在回答《纽约时报》的问题时，沃纳索斯甚至拒绝透露自己是否接受了COVID-19的检测。

“He is completely focused on employee safety, supplying medicines to patients, and leading the company,” said a Biogen spokesman, David Caouette. “This takes precedence over his personal health status.”

“他完全专注于员工的安全，为病人提供药物，并领导公司，”Biogen发言人大卫·考特(David Caouette)说。“这比他的个人健康状况更重要。”

The company has defended its handling of the leadership meeting and its aftermath, saying it made the best decisions it could with the information available at the time.

该公司为其对领导层会议及其后果的处理进行了辩护，称根据当时的信息，它做出了最好的决定。

“For a company whose mission is to save lives, it was very difficult to see our colleagues and community directly affected by this disease,” Vounatsos said in his first public comments about what happened at Biogen. “We would never have knowingly put anyone at risk.”

“作为一家以拯救生命为使命的公司，我们很难看到我们的同事和社区直接受到这种疾病的影响，”沃纳索斯在首次就百健健事件发表公开评论时表示。“我们绝不会故意让任何人处于危险之中。”

Founded in 1978 and based near Boston, Biogen helped pioneer the biotechnology industry, specializing in multiple sclerosis drugs. The company is best known now for its work on a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s.

百健公司成立于1978年，总部设在波士顿附近，帮助开创了生物技术行业，专门从事多发性硬化症药物。该公司目前最为人所知的是其在治疗阿尔茨海默症方面的研究成果。

Its experimental drug was seen as a potential holy grail — until the company announced about a year ago that the drug appeared to be a failure in large-scale trials. Patients were devastated. The company’s stock nose-dived.

该公司的实验药物曾被视为一个潜在的圣杯——直到大约一年前，该公司宣布，这种药物在大规模试验中似乎失败了。病人被摧毁了。这家公司的股票暴跌。

But last fall, in a stunning reversal, Biogen announced that further analysis of the data suggested the drug actually worked at higher doses. Vounatsos said the company planned to seek approval from the Food and Drug Administration “as soon as possible.” The stock soared; the company pulled in record annual revenues of about $14.4 billion.

但去年秋天，Biogen宣布，对数据的进一步分析表明，这种药物的实际作用剂量更高，这是一个惊人的逆转。沃纳索斯表示，公司计划“尽快”获得美国食品和药物管理局(Food and Drug Administration)的批准。“股价飙升;该公司获得了约144亿美元的创纪录年收入。

By the time of Biogen’s annual leadership meeting on Feb. 26 and 27, spirits were high. So was the pressure to deliver.

在2月26日和27日举行的百健健年度领导会议上，人们情绪高涨。交付的压力也是如此。

Although some other companies canceled international meetings around that time, Biogen never discussed doing so. The outbreak was raging in China but had not yet been declared a worldwide pandemic. As of Feb. 21, the Friday before the meeting, the United States had only 30 confirmed cases, according to data compiled by The Times. Biogen executives in Germany, Switzerland and Italy — where there were just 20 known cases — packed their bags.

尽管当时其他一些公司取消了国际会议，但百健健从未讨论过这样做。疫情在中国肆虐，但尚未被宣布为全球大流行。《纽约时报》收集的数据显示，截至2月21日，即会议前的周五，美国只有30例确诊病例。Biogen在德国、瑞士和意大利的高管收拾行囊，这些国家只有20例已知病例。

On the first night, about 175 executives gathered for a buffet dinner and cocktails at the Marriott Long Wharf overlooking Boston Harbor. Colleagues who hadn’t seen one another in a year shook hands and vied for face time with bosses. Europeans gave customary kisses on both cheeks.

第一天晚上，约175名高管在俯瞰波士顿港的万豪长码头(Marriott Long Wharf)共进自助晚餐和鸡尾酒会。一年没见过面的同事们互相握手，争着和老板见面。欧洲人习惯亲吻脸颊两侧。

“It’s unfortunately the perfect breeding ground for a virus,” said one former vice president, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his ties to Biogen.

“不幸的是，这是病毒的完美温床，”一名前副总统说。由于与Biogen有联系，他要求匿名。

Two days later, the senior executives returned to their offices. One drove to a manufacturing center in North Carolina. Others flew back to Europe.

两天后，高管们回到了自己的办公室。其中一辆车开到了北卡罗来纳州的一个制造中心。其他人飞回欧洲。

Peter Bergethon, the head of digital and quantitative medicine at Biogen, went home to his wife, an infectious-disease doctor.

Biogen的数字和定量医学主管彼得•伯格松(Peter Bergethon)回到家中，见到了他的妻子，她是一名传染病医生。

A Biogen vice president in the Alzheimer’s franchise and her husband attended a party the following Saturday night at a friend’s home in Princeton, New Jersey, with about 45 other people.

第二天晚上，百健健(Biogen)在新泽西州普林斯顿(Princeton)的一个朋友家举办了一场派对，约有45人参加。

They celebrated a holiday in the Greek Orthodox calendar, the end of the Carnival season, with special sweets and traditional dances that involved holding hands in a circle. Although celebrations in Greece had been canceled, the party in New Jersey went forward, since White House officials had just pronounced the virus in the United States to be under control.

他们用特殊的糖果和手拉手围成一圈的传统舞蹈来庆祝希腊东正教日历上的一个节日，即狂欢节的结束。尽管希腊的庆祝活动已被取消，但新泽西州的派对仍在继续，因为白宫官员刚刚宣布美国的疫情已得到控制。

That night, Allana Taranto, a photographer who covered the leadership meeting for Biogen, celebrated her 42nd birthday with her boyfriend and another couple.

那天晚上，报道Biogen领导层会议的摄影师阿拉娜·塔兰托(Allana Taranto)与男友和另一对夫妇一起庆祝了自己42岁的生日。

Over that weekend, though, some people in the company had already started feeling sick.

然而，在那个周末，公司里的一些人已经开始感到不舒服了。

Jie Li, a 37-year-old biostatistician who worked on the Alzheimer’s drug team, had chills, a cough and aches. She was too junior to attend the company’s leadership conference, but her boss went, and showed up at the office afterward.

37岁的生物统计学家李杰(音)曾在阿尔茨海默氏症药物研究小组工作，他感到发冷、咳嗽和疼痛。她的职位太低，不能参加公司的领导会议，但她的老板去了，后来还出现在了办公室。

On March 2, the following Monday, the company’s chief medical officer sent an email informing everyone who attended the leadership meeting that some people had fallen ill and telling them to contact a health care provider if they felt sick.

3月2日，也就是接下来的周一，公司的首席医疗官发了一封电子邮件，通知参加领导会议的每个人，有些人生病了，并告诉他们如果感觉不舒服就联系医疗服务人员。

“We moved quickly,” Caouette said.

“我们动作很快，”考埃特说。

Still, that same day, the company’s four top executives attended a huge health care conference hosted by the investment firm Cowen. At another Marriott in Boston, they held meetings in hotel rooms with potential investors. Another attendee who met some of the same investors said he heard that members of the Biogen team looked sick.

然而，就在同一天，该公司的四名高管参加了由投资公司Cowen主办的一个大型医疗保健会议。在波士顿的另一家万豪酒店，他们在酒店房间里与潜在投资者开会。另一位与这些投资者见过面的与会者说，他听说Biogen团队的成员看起来病了。

At the conference, concern about the coronavirus mounted as word spread that some companies, including Vertex and Seattle Genetics, had canceled their appearances. By Tuesday, the second day of the conference, many attendees had stopped shaking hands.

在会议上，对冠状病毒的担忧随着一些公司，包括Vertex和西雅图遗传学公司，取消他们的露面的消息的传播而增加。到周二，也就是大会的第二天，许多与会者已经停止了握手。

Later, investors were informed that two of the four Biogen executives at the conference tested positive for the virus.

后来，投资者被告知，参加会议的四名Biogen高管中有两名病毒检测呈阳性。

In defense of his company’s decision to attend the event, Vounatsos said, “When we learned a number of our colleagues were ill, we did not know the cause was COVID-19.”

沃纳索斯为公司参加活动的决定进行了辩护，他说，“当我们得知一些同事生病时，我们并不知道是covid19造成的。”

That Tuesday, Biogen contacted the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and reported that about 50 employees in the Boston area and overseas had flulike symptoms. Biogen employees began showing up at the emergency room of Massachusetts General Hospital, demanding tests. They were told their cases didn’t satisfy the testing criteria at the time, since none had traveled to a hot spot or had known exposure to someone who had tested positive for COVID-19.

周二，Biogen联系了马萨诸塞州公共卫生署(Massachusetts Department of Public Health)，报告说波士顿地区和海外大约有50名员工出现了流感样症状。Biogen的员工开始出现在马萨诸塞州总医院的急诊室，要求进行检测。他们被告知，他们的病例当时不符合检测标准，因为没有人去过热点地区，也没有人接触过被检测出COVID-19呈阳性的人。

The next day, confirmation of the worst arrived. Two Biogen executives who had returned home to Germany and Switzerland, where tests were more widely available, had tested positive.

第二天，最坏的情况得到了证实。Biogen的两名高管回到德国和瑞士后，检测结果呈阳性。

On Thursday, the company held a call with its staff and shared the news. All office-based employees were directed to work from home.

周四，该公司与员工举行了电话会议，并分享了这一消息。所有在办公室工作的员工都被要求在家工作。

Yet on that same day, a Biogen executive visited the Washington office of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, the industry’s top lobbying group. Soon after, that executive tested positive, prompting the group to close its headquarters for deep cleaning.

然而，就在同一天，Biogen的一位高管拜访了美国制药研究与制造商华盛顿办公室(PhRMA)。不久之后，那位高管的检测结果呈阳性，促使该集团关闭了总部进行深度清理。

The next few weeks turned into a blur of Biogen employees leaving casseroles on one another’s doorsteps and trading news about who had fallen ill.

接下来的几周里，Biogen的员工们一个接一个地离开门口的砂锅，互相交换谁生病的消息。

Bergethon infected his wife, the infectious-disease specialist. While their symptoms were manageable, the scariest part was the uncertainty, Bergethon recalled recently at a virtual event hosted by the University of Rochester.

贝尔格松感染了他的妻子，她是传染病专家。虽然他们的症状是可控的，但最可怕的是不确定性，贝格松最近在罗切斯特大学(University of Rochester)举办的一次虚拟活动中回忆道。

“We didn’t know we were going to recover,” he said. “We didn’t know what was coming next.”

“我们不知道我们会恢复，”他说。“我们不知道接下来会发生什么。”

Taranto, the photographer who had been at Biogen’s leadership conference, unknowingly gave the illness to a friend at her birthday dinner. She had felt healthy at the time.

参加过百健公司领导会议的摄影师塔兰托，在她的生日宴会上无意中把疾病传染给了她的一个朋友。当时她觉得自己很健康。

Of the four dozen people who attended the party in New Jersey, at least 15 later tested positive, according to public health authorities.

公共卫生当局称，在新泽西州参加派对的40多人中，至少有15人后来检测呈阳性。

A Biogen executive, Chris Baumgartner, became the first COVID case in Tennessee. “I was patient zero,” he wrote on Facebook. He added: “Imagine having to confront a virus so feared, it now has the entire world on the brink of mass hysteria.”

Biogen的执行官克里斯·鲍姆加特纳(Chris Baumgartner)成为田纳西州的第一个科维德案例。“我是‘零号病人’，”他在Facebook上写道。他补充道:“想象一下，面对一种如此令人恐惧的病毒，它现在让整个世界处于群体性歇斯底里的边缘。”

The earliest cases in Indiana and North Carolina were tied to the company. One Biogen employee even carried the virus back to China.

印第安纳州和北卡罗来纳州最早的案件与该公司有关。Biogen的一名员工甚至把病毒带回了中国。

After falling ill with flulike symptoms, Li called an ambulance and was given a coronavirus test, according to a public health official in Belmont, the upscale Boston suburb where she lived. But before she received the results, she booked a flight to Beijing, boarding a plane with her husband and son, leaving behind their house, a white BMW and other trappings of the life they had built in the United States over 15 years.

据她居住的波士顿郊区贝尔蒙特(Belmont)的一位公共卫生官员说，在出现流感样症状后，李叫了一辆救护车，并接受了冠状病毒检测。但在收到结果之前，她订了去北京的机票，和丈夫、儿子一起登机，留下了他们的房子、一辆白色宝马和其他一些他们在美国生活了15年的东西。

“They must have been desperate,” said Dr. William Q. Meeker, a statistics professor at Iowa State University who had worked closely with Li’s husband, Yili Hong, also a statistician. The couple worried most about their 2-year-old, who would be far from relatives if they both fell ill, according to a former graduate school classmate.

“他们一定很绝望，”爱荷华州立大学(Iowa State University)统计学教授威廉·q·米克(William Q. Meeker)博士说。这对夫妇最担心的是他们两岁大的孩子，据一名前研究生院同学说，如果他们都生病了，孩子就离亲戚很远了。

Li took medicine to conceal her symptoms, and revealed her health condition to flight attendants on board the flight, Air China and Beijing disease control officials said last month.

上个月，中国国际航空公司和北京疾病控制中心的官员说，李服用药物来掩盖症状，并向机上的空乘人员透露了自己的健康状况。

After she landed in China, authorities placed her under investigation for “obstructing the prevention of infectious diseases,” a crime that reportedly carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison.

她抵达中国后，当局以“妨碍预防传染病”的罪名对她进行了调查，据报道，这一罪名最高可判7年监禁。

In Beijing, the couple suffered from high fevers and lung infections and were hospitalized, Meeker said. He recently received an email from Hong that said they were recuperating, but that their lives “will be different in the future.”

米克说，在北京，这对夫妇发烧和肺部感染，住院治疗。他最近收到一封来自洪的电子邮件，说他们正在恢复，但他们的生活“将来会有所不同”。

It appears that all of Biogen’s employees who fell ill have recovered. Aside from Li, who was fired, all have returned to work, Caouette said.

看来，Biogen所有患病的员工都已康复。考埃特说，除了李被解雇外，所有人都已重返工作岗位。

Biogen has since joined the fight against the virus. The company donated $10 million to expand access to testing and to provide emergency food and protective gear for hospital workers.

此后，Biogen加入了对抗这种病毒的战斗。该公司捐赠了1000万美元，用于扩大检测范围，并为医院工作人员提供紧急食品和防护装备。

Company officials said its struggle against the pandemic is just beginning: Biogen, for instance, has also entered into talks with Vir Technology about manufacturing a potential treatment for COVID-19, another pharmaceutical holy grail that could make untold amounts of money.

该公司的官员说，它与大流行的斗争才刚刚开始:例如，Biogen公司也与Vir技术公司进行了谈判，讨论为COVID-19制造一种潜在的治疗方法，COVID-19是另一种可以挣到数不清的钱的制药圣杯。

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

这篇文章最初发表在《纽约时报》上。

© 2020 The New York Times Company

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