Many of the employees behind GSK’s late-stage investigational drug for chronic cough will be let go at the end of March.

“After having completed the transition activities linked to the GSK acquisition, most Bellus Health employees will be wrapping up their involvement with the company on March 31,” Roberto Bellini, the longtime CEO of Bellus, wrote Thursday on LinkedIn.

A year ago, GSK bought the Canadian biotech for $2 billion for Bellus’ Phase 3 chronic cough candidate, which was expected to compete with Merck’s P2X3 antagonist. That drug was rejected by the FDA for a second time in December.

In his LinkedIn post, Bellini said it was the “end of an era.” He’s now a managing partner at life sciences investor BSquared Capital.

“We’re excited to see GSK complete the last legs of the journey and fulfill our mission of getting this important product to the chronic cough patient community,” Bellini wrote.

GSK, which completed the deal in June, did not disclose the number of roles impacted. In his LinkedIn post, Bellini tagged about 40 people whose profiles list them as Bellus employees.

“During the GSK-Bellus acquisition, we retained employees to a predetermined date to ensure the successful integration of the business,” a GSK spokesperson told Endpoints News. “As often is the case during this process, redundancies may occur.”

GSK is currently running two Phase 3 trials for its lead drug from Bellus, a P2X3 antagonist known as camlipixant or BLU-5937. Data are expected next year, the drugmaker has said.

“We look forward to continuing to drive the CALM Phase 3 clinical development program forward to address the unmet needs of patients living with refractory chronic cough,” the spokesperson wrote.

GSK has described camlipixant as one of its top clinical prospects, and chief commercial officer Luke Miels has said the company projects peak sales in the “single billion dollar” range.

Chronic cough can interrupt daily activities, impair people’s ability to work and disrupt social experiences as some say the condition has been stigmatized due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The pharma has estimated about 10 million people in the US and EU experience refractory chronic cough for more than a year.

Merck has said it’s going through feedback from the FDA’s latest no-go for gefapixant, its chronic cough candidate. The treatment is approved in the EU, Switzerland and Japan.

Other companies in the category include startup Nocion Therapeutics, which this month reeled in $62 million for a Phase 2b this year testing whether its alternative approach to treatment can work. Aldeyra Therapeutics, meanwhile, “deprioritized” its mid-stage treatment candidate in January.

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Since its astronomical rise in popularity during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, TikTok has played an increasing role in all aspects of American life, including politics, from the White House briefing key TikTok creators on the war in Ukraine to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign launching a TikTok account.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on March 13, 2024, seeking to force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the app or face a ban in the U.S. Even if this legislation passes the Senate and Biden signs it into law, it’s unlikely TikTok will go away before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Any law banning TikTok is likely to be challenged in court, and the app won’t simply disappear from people’s phones overnight.

Given that TikTok is almost certain to play a role in the 2024 election, it’s important to examine how TikTok helps shape political expression and discussion. With communications scholar Mackenzie Quick, I recently published a journal article exploring how American TikTok users use the app’s stitch, duet and green screen features to stoke partisan conflict.

Getting together

TikTok says its mission is to “inspire creativity and bring joy.” In 2019, it introduced several features to help bolster that mission: duet, green screen and stitch. Duet allows you to post your video side by side with a video from another TikTok user. Green screen allows you to superimpose your video on a video from another TikTok user. Stitch allows you to append your video to the end of a short clip from a video from another TikTok user.

TikTok describes these features as giving users “the most creative tools available” and providing a way for users “to engage with the world of content that’s made … by the ever-creative TikTok community.” Given these descriptions, it appears that these tools were designed to increase creativity, interaction and connections.

They can be used in playful ways or used by subject matter experts to convey information. For example, some veterinarians use TikTok to convey pet health information.

However, a platform’s statements about how it intends its features to be used and how people actually use them can be quite different. While these features are often used in TikTok’s preferred ways, our research found that in political tiktoks, people often used the tools to double down on their political positions and attack those who don’t agree with them. In a time of volatile political divisiveness, these features can function as outlets for people to express their strongly held political views.

Scoring points

Reinforcement and insults were recurring themes in our study. For instance, the green screen feature was often used to incorporate “evidence” in the background to support the creator’s claims. With this feature, “evidence” was often presented in the form of news articles or posts from other social media platforms.

One post from a conservative-leaning creator features a screenshot of the Apple iTunes music store charts to show the popularity of a song called “Let’s Go Brandon,” a conservative rallying cry and coded insult against Biden. This creator presents the song’s position at No. 1 in the music store as proof that the conservative viewpoint is popular. “Evidence” is a loose term and could be anything that supported the creator’s viewpoint.

We found the duet feature was often used to communicate nonverbally, often to poke fun at someone with opposing political views. Eye rolling, smirking and head shaking were common gestures. In one video, a conservative creator starts a chain – an extended succession of duets – of women who support former President Donald Trump. A liberal-leaning creator uses the duet feature to join the chain with video of themselves holding a clothes iron out to the side to make it appear as though the iron is burning the original creator’s hand.

Stitches functioned similarly to duets, but people tended to use the feature as a chance to verbally respond and refute the previous creator’s point. These uses show that on political TikTok, personal feelings and proving others wrong matter more than constructive debate.

The who and why of political TikTok

While regulation of the app is a political issue, understanding how political conversations occur across TikTok remains important for understanding an increasingly polarized American electorate. When considering political discussions on TikTok, however, it’s important to remember that the app’s features don’t force users to do anything. Users actively shape their experiences in digital spaces.

Also, as political communication scholars Daniel Kreiss and Shannon McGregor note, it’s important to proceed with caution when discussing the effects of technology on polarization because not all groups experience polarization the same way. For instance, the Black Lives Matter movement may be seen as polarizing for disrupting existing power structures, but its goal is to fight for equality, and it’s important to consider that context when looking at the group’s use of technology.

The lesson is to consider who is engaging in polarizing content and why they are doing so. While some users expressing themselves via these TikTok features aim to simply prove others wrong, akin to petty arguments, others may be critiquing and challenging the powerful.

Jessica Maddox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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