"Weekly Dose of Optimism #195" — Packy McCormick

Why this is in the vault

Friday curation issue, part of the standing Not Boring Weekly Dose series RDCO tracks. This issue is heavily biotech-led: two of the five items (Eli Lilly LDL gene therapy, GLP-1s slowing cancer) sit directly on top of an active RDCO investing thesis ([[2026-05-21-lilly-glp1-longevity-thesis]]) and the founder's personal health tracking ([[user-health-clinical]], [[README]] health-and-longevity). The remaining three (supersonic flight, nanotech mechanosynthesis, Moon Base) are general science/tech optimism with no RDCO business hook. Filed for thesis-corroboration and longevity-tracking value, not for the aerospace/nanotech content.

⚠️ Sponsorship

This issue is sponsored by Deel — explicitly disclosed ("Today's Not Boring is brought to you by… Deel"). The placement promotes Deel's free Employer-of-Record (EOR) guide for hiring globally. Standard ad slot, clearly fenced from the editorial five items.

Positioning note (Not Boring gotcha): Packy's framing across the issue is investor-optimism, not neutral analysis. The first two items lean hard on Eli Lilly ("we're not done with Eli Lily") and item 1 quotes a buy-side source — Braidwell Managing Partner Alex Karnal on a recent Invest Like the Best episode — calling PCSK9 medicines "pretty much a free lunch." No explicit Not Boring Capital portfolio disclosure appears in this issue, but read the Eli Lilly enthusiasm and the cited investor as advocacy, not independent evaluation.

Issue contents

1. Eli Lilly LDL cholesterol gene therapy (VERVE-102) — Phase 1, open-label, single-ascending-dose study, n=35, targeting PCSK9. Single dose reduced PCSK9 levels (51% to 88% across dose tiers) and LDL (9% to 62%). Frame: edits your gene to mimic the rare natural PCSK9-loss mutation, a potential one-and-done replacement for lifelong PCSK9 inhibitors. Packy cites ~4.4M annual deaths attributable to high LDL. Also flags the harder cousin, Lp(a) — almost entirely genetic, currently untreatable, with Novartis/Amgen/Lilly late-stage trials (Novartis pelacarsen Phase 3 results expected this year).
2. GLP-1s may stall cancer — WSJ report on four new studies (UT MD Anderson, UPenn, Cleveland Clinic) suggesting GLP-1 users (Ozempic, Mounjaro) saw reduced tumor progression and lower death risk. Lung-cancer progression-to-advanced cut roughly in half ("10% in GLP-1 users versus 22%"); breast cancer similar. Mechanism not yet understood.
3. Hermeus Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 first supersonic flight — billed as the first privately developed unmanned supersonic jet, hit Mach 1.21 unmanned. Defense Innovation Unit expanded its contract by $159M to $219M; Hermeus now targeting hypersonic.
4. Atomically precise mechanosynthesis — Merkle, Freitas et al. paper demonstrating spatial + chemical control over carbon-structure fabrication via "inverted-mode STM" (C₂ dimers donated onto patterned Si(100) sites; single-site, multi-site, then polyyne assembly). Packy frames it as the long-theorized "dimer placement tool" finally shown experimentally — a primitive, with a huge throughput/dimensionality gap remaining to a real nanofactory.
5. Moon Base — NASA (Administrator Jared Isaacman) press conference + new Moon Base website under Artemis. Three initial missions: Moon Base I (no earlier than fall 2026, Blue Origin Blue Moon Mk 1 lander), Moon Base II (later 2026, Astrobotic Griffin, 500kg+ cargo incl. Astrolab FLIP rover), Moon Base III (science payloads).

Extra doses: Science Breakthroughs roundup (genetic architecture of complex traits, hallmarks of aging/mortality, homing-pigeon magnetoreception, armadillo-inspired morphing robot skeletons) plus Telescope Ranchers and an Encyclical mention. Mostly paywalled subscriber promo.

Mapping against Ray Data Co

Overall: medium-low. The aerospace, nanotech, and Moon Base items map to nothing in RDCO's data-engineering / AI-agent / automated-investing / content focus — do not manufacture relevance for those three. The value is concentrated in the two biotech items:

• Items 1 + 2 (Eli Lilly LDL gene therapy, GLP-1/cancer) → genuine, two-track relevance. RDCO holds an active investing thesis on Eli Lilly's GLP-1/longevity franchise ([[2026-05-21-lilly-glp1-longevity-thesis]]). This issue is incremental corroboration: a second consecutive Lilly-led Dose (last week's #194 carried the Reta Phase 3 results), the LDL gene-therapy expanding Lilly's cardiometabolic story, and the GLP-1-as-cancer-adjuvant studies widening the addressable surface for the drug class. This is exactly the kind of running-positive-signal a thesis watch wants — but note the positioning caveat above; Packy is an enthusiast, treat as one data point, not validation.
• GLP-1 / LDL items → founder personal-health tie-in. Founder tracks retatrutide and has MASLD/weight context ([[user-health-clinical]], health-and-longevity [[README]]). The LDL gene-therapy and GLP-1/cancer findings are directly relevant to the founder's own longevity/health interest, same as #194's Reta coverage.

No deep-fetches were performed. Nothing in this issue crosses the RDCO business relevance threshold (no data, AI-agent, or content angle), and the health/investing relevance is already fully captured by the blurbs above — chasing the primary papers would be gold-plating for a curation note. The honest read: file it, harvest the two Lilly data points for the thesis watch, skip the rest.

Related

• [[2026-05-22-not-boring-dose-of-optimism-194]] — immediately prior Weekly Dose; led with the same Eli Lilly thread (Reta Phase 3), explicitly referenced in this issue ("Just as the ink was drying on last week's Dose")
• [[2026-05-21-lilly-glp1-longevity-thesis]] — active RDCO investing thesis the biotech items corroborate
• [[user-health-clinical]] — founder health context (retatrutide tracking, MASLD, weight) that the GLP-1 / LDL items connect to
• [[2026-05-15-not-boring-wdoo-193-cerebras-ipo-contradiction]] — earlier Weekly Dose in the series for cadence reference