Merck has agreed to help develop a cancer pill invented by tiny Ariad Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Mass., in a deal the little biotechnology says could be worth $1 billion.
The drug, AP23573, is being tested in bone and soft tissue sarcomas, a deadly but rare cancer that afflicts only 13,000 people a year worldwide. It could reach the market in late 2009 or 2010 if all goes well and has shown some potential with endometrial and lung cancer, which potentially represent much bigger markets.
Merck has been quietly building an anti-cancer franchise since it bought gene-chip maker Rosetta InPharmatics in 2001 for $600 million. Rosetta’s chief, oncologist Stephen Friend, now runs Merck’s cancer research effort. The $240-a-day Zolinza, Merck’s first cancer pill, was approved last year to treat a rare skin cancer, two years after Merck bought its tiny, unknown maker. As of February, Merck had disclosed eight cancer drugs in the early or middle stages of testing.
Friend, in an interview, said he likes that the Ariad drug works by a proven mechanism. (Another medicine that hits the same target is already marketed.) Existing data give clear evidence of how clinical trials to get the medicine approved should be designed.
Generally speaking, Friend said, the technology platforms he has built–including the one resulting from the purchase of RNA-therapeutics firm Sirna Therapeutics last year for $1.1 billion–will allow Merck to design clinical trials for new drugs that can monitor which patients benefit most from a particular medicine. Merck’s new technologies, including those from Rosetta and Sirna, give it unique ways of testing drugs. “In ideal world,” Friend said, “you can see what’s out there and where you can add value.”
Merck will pay Ariad $75 million upfront and up to $450 million as AP23573 is tested in various cancer types. Ariad will get $200 million more if the drug hits undisclosed sales levels, and Merck will cover half the cost of testing AP23573 in various cancers, an estimated outlay of $200 million. Merck is also willing to advance Ariad cash for paying the biotechnology’s part of the partnership. The two companies will split U.S. profits on the drug, and Ariad will get a “substantial” royalty on sales outside the U.S.
Ariad has been a controversial company because of lawsuits it filed based on a patent it licensed from MIT covering a broad array of drugs. The patent covers not a specific drug or disease but a basic chemical pathway that is affected by dozens of drugs.
Eli Lilly’s chief counsel compared this to patenting gravity; Lilly lost the first round of a legal battle against Ariad but will appeal. Ariad is also in the first round of legal fights with Amgen and Wyeth over the same patent. The battles have created ill will among some other drug firms, but Ariad CEO Harvey Berger says it has not been a distraction. He says the patent cases cost only $10 million over five years, and only three employees–including himself and the general counsel–ever think about them.
AP23573 is scientifically unrelated to the patent dispute. The drug hits a cell receptor that was discovered because it is the target of Rapamune, a Wyeth immune suppressant discovered on Easter Island decades ago. This receptor–dubbed “mammalian target of rapamycin,” or mTOR–turns on a host of cellular processes, including those that go haywire and cause some cancer cells to multiply madly.
Three years ago, as the first positive results emerged from Ariad’s trials, at least one analyst estimated AP23573 could hit the market as soon as 2008. But a big trial to prove AP23573 improves survival and increases the time it takes for cancer to worsen in very sick sarcoma patients won’t begin until this quarter. Last summer, Ariad shares dropped as low as $3.74; they currently sit around $6, giving the biotech a $400 million market value.
In the meantime, Wyeth has already received approval for another drug in the same class, Torisel. But Berger points out that that drug must be given through an IV, while AP23573 is a tablet. Ariad is not pursuing kidney cancer, the disease for which Torisel is approved. “In every other area, we’re either ahead or lined up with them,” Berger said. “Now, with the financial might, clinically and scientifically we see the opportunity to be ahead.“
Written by Health on July 17th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Health Care.
A crying researcher woke Gunnar Riemann, the head of Bayer’s $10 billion drug business, from his bed Feb. 9. They were tears of joy: A study had found that Nexavar, a drug Bayer invented and developed with tiny biotechnology Onyx Pharmaceuticals of Emeryville, Calif., extended the lives of patients with advanced liver cancer, the first time a treatment has been demonstrated to be effective for the hard to treat disease.
Over the past 30 years, doctors have conducted about a 100 studies on various treatments to help these very sick patients, to no avail.
However, in the case of Nexavar, Phase III clinical trials with 602 patients showed that it extended the life of the average patient by 2.8 months to 10.7 months, as compared to patients who received a placebo. Side effects were benign for a cancer drug, with the most common being severe diarrhea and rashes on the hands and feet.
The data were set to be presented here Monday morning at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
“The results are a breakthrough,” says Josep Llovet, a liver specialist with the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York who helped organize and conduct the trial for Bayer. “The difference in survival is completely unprecedented. You are freezing the tumor and delaying the progression of the disease.”
Liver cancer is one of the deadliest of cancers. It afflicts 19,000 people in the U.S. each year, killing the vast majority. For many patients with the advanced form of the disease, Nexavar will now become the standard treatment, eventually generating hundreds of millions in sales for the partners.
Liver cancer is far more prevalent overseas, with 600,000 new cases a year worldwide. The highest rates are in Asia, where hepatitis B and C are common. Nexavar is still being tested there.
Bayer and Onyx have been working toward this victory for 13 years. Bayer chemists developed Nexavar based on proteins Onyx identified that showed promise for halting tumor growth. The drug has already been approved and marketed for treating kidney tumors, and the two companies last year spent $160 million testing it in new diseases.
While the promising results for Nexavar may bring tears to the eyes of Bayer researchers and hope to cancer patients, doctors have lately become used to such breakthroughs, with pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca testing dozens of new targeted cancer pills. Bayer recently bought German rival Schering AG[orgid partly to get its hands on that company’s cancer drug pipeline.
This year’s meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is a “building year,” says David Parkinson, head of oncology at Biogen Idec. David Schenkein, a Genentech vice president, says the advances are “incremental.”
Pfizer’s kidney cancer drug Sutent has been out pacing Nexavar, with sales of $102 million versus $60 million for Nexavar in the first quarter of 2007. But study results for Sutent on liver cancer look less promising, and an abstract already presented here seems to point to a far worse side-effect profile for Sutent than Nexavar in treating that form of the disease. Reduced white blood cell and platelet counts were common, and there were five patients who developed very serious problems, including liver problems and bleeding. Pfizer notes that the study is small and early.
Pfizer is still aiming to be a cancer powerhouse. Its goods: a pill called axitinib that starves tumors of blood and has shown promise in pancreatic and thyroid cancer; an antibody for the insulin-like growth factor one that shows promise in lung cancer; and an antibody that helps the immune system attack cancer cells and seems to work in melanoma. A trial testing Sutent in breast cancer is currently recruiting patients.
“Pfizer has one of strongest pipelines in oncology in the industry,” wrote Geoffrey Porges, the biotech analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, in a note to investors.
Charles Baum, who heads Pfizer’s oncology development program, says cancer drugs now account for 20% of the money Pfizer is spending on drug testing. While the company as a whole is cutting jobs, his group is adding them. He says that Pfizer’s top brass “see the potential” of the new anti-cancer drugs.
They’re not alone. Astra is touting two anticancer pills at this year’s ASCO meeting, which runs from June 1-5, and biotechs like Genentech and Biogen-Idec have also showed off experimental medicines. Genentech has two potential follow-ups to its breast cancer drug Herceptin, one of which delivers tiny bits of poison to cancer cells. Biogen Idec has a new drug for chronic lymphatics leukemia, which causes 20% of leukemia deaths.
Written by Health on June 4th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Health Care.
The following procedural steps are used for the diagnosis of Malignant Mesothelioma:
1. First of all, the doctor needs to study the patient’s medical history. A history with asbestos exposure should be taken seriously.
2. The doctor may physically examine the patient for visible symptoms.
3. X-ray of the chest or abdomen may reveal fluid built up. Sometimes pleural thickening or pleural based masses can be observed in X-rays. 4. The doctor may recommend other imaging techniques such as CT, MRI or PET scans.
5. If pleural mesothelioma is suspected, the doctor may use Thoracoscopy. This procedure involves making a cut in the chest wall and a “thoracoscope” is inserted in the cavity for examination. Sometimes fluid accumulated in the chest is drained by using a needle. This is known as thoracentesis.
6. In case of suspected peritoneal mesothelioma, the doctor may use a special tool - the Peritoneoscope, to examine the abdomen. This is known as Peritoneoscopy. Paracentesis procedure is used to drain fluids from the abdomen. Both Peritoneoscopy and Thoracoscopy are done under a local anesthetic.
7. Any abnormal tissues found in the patient’s body can be examined under a microscope. This is known as biopsy. Biopsy is necessary for confirmation of Mesothelioma. It is usually done during Peritoneoscopy or Thoracoscopy.
If Mesothelioma is diagnosed, other advanced tests may be used to determine details like the stage of disease etc.
Written by Health on May 10th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Mesothelioma.
What is Mesothelioma?
Mesothelioma (cancer of the mesothelium) is a disease in which cells of the mesothelium become abnormal and divide without control or order. They can invade and damage nearby tissues and organs. Cancer cells can also metastasize (spread) from their original site to other parts of the body. Most cases of mesothelioma begin in the pleura or peritoneum.
Mesothelioma can be manifested as benign (non cancerous) or malign mesothelioma (cancerous) tumor affecting the lining of the chest (medical term abdomen). Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that involves the mesothelium or any cells that line an organ, abdominal organs, usually the lungs and heart. Exposure of asbestos in the air increases the risk of developing a malign mesothelioma.
The most common of mesothelioma is pleural mesothelioma, the malignant tumor of the pleura, the sac that protects the lungs and lines the chest cavity.
Mesothelioma usually is caused by asbestos exposure in air. Asbestos is a fibrous known carcinogenic material. People that are exposed to or work with asbestos fibers even for a short time (few weeks) are in high risk to develop mesothelioma, the risk is also exposed to the members of the family (of the person that works with asbestos fibers).
There is a long latency period between initial exposure to asbestos and the development of malignant tumors. On average, 35-40 years elapse before the onset of disease. The early symptoms of mesothelioma resemble as shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, persistent cough, chest and abdominal pain. Often, there is fluid buildup between the pleura and chest cavity (called pleural effusions), which leads to dyspnea (shortness of breath) and sometimes pain. Some people may not have any symptoms.
Treatment of mesothelioma cancer can be surgery to remove the tumors, radiation, chemotherapy or a combination of the three in one. Depending on the person’s health, time of diagnosis, and other factors, the survival rate is about four to 12 months from the onset of symptoms. However, occasionally people may live longer.
Written by Health on May 8th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Mesothelioma.
Hello everyone and welcome to Get Complete Health blog, a blog that has intentions to share the latest news in the medicine field and health care, I will dedicate a lot of time to this blog with the only purpose to share advices to the others, and to make a good informative health care web site blog.
Informations about the latest curing medicines, improvements in the research of creating a new cure for cancer and all the forms of cancer. I will also try to highly collaborate and interview medicals, hypnotists to best give informations to the one that needs them.
This is a blog that i am starting from my own initiative and alone, there for the contribute of anyone to share informations or any other informative contribute will be welcome. Feel free to register it takes only 2 seconds of your time.
Written by Health on May 8th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.
