4 replies to this topic

[hannibellemo]

Interesting news, this was on the NEWCMLDRUG site this morning.

http://www.boston.co...n_cancer_drugs/

Pat

[MACELPatient]

Very cool.  The stuff going on in an around the Boston area is exciting.

[valiantchong]

Looks like interesting, but does that implies, CML could be cured by a personalized medication pathway ?, which means harder to access by everyone....?

[Happycat]

IMO, anyway.  I just read an article by Nick Lydon last night, that he wrote for Nature Medicine in 2009, discussing the discovery of Gleevec.  At the end, he mentioned the possibility of personalizing cancer drugs, so that they can target the therapy for the specific mutation(s) YOU have that are causing the cells to go haywire.

If you think about it, it might make sense from a drug company and insurance company perspective.  Insurance companies don't want to spend hundreds of thousands or, more likely, millions of dollars treating cancer patients if the therapy won't really work anyway.

Drug companies would really like to know and understand the gene and their expressed protein targets.  They've got huge libraries of compounds to screen against.  If there is some understanding of the protein kinase structure, mode of binding, etc., they have a good chance of taking the hits from their libraries and optimizing them for those particular cancer targets.   They would have a better chance of getting the drug approved if it selectively targets the cancer (rather than all cells, as in most cancer therapies).

I do believe in rational drug design.  Not "let's try it and hope it works".  The more you know about the disease target, the easier it is to design the drug.  Drug companies have millions of compounds in their libraries.  If they know something about the binding site, it helps them to optimize the lead from whatever hits they get in screening.  They get the drug out faster, which should cut down on their costs and our costs.  Gleevec costs - what - $100/pill or thereabouts?  That's because they need to recoup their development costs - and make a profit, too ; )   At the time they were developing Gleevec, they had no clue how it bound to the active site, or what was important about it.  They just tried adding one group here, taking away another group there.  That kind of blind approach has got to be more expensive.

My two cents,

Traci

[CallMeLucky]

Along same lines, Christopher Hitchens has cancer of the oesophagus, a cancer not generally associated with Gleevec.  After they sequenced his entire genome they found reason to treat him with Gleevec based on the type of generic mutations he has.

Christopher Hitchens takes on new drug regime in hope of cancer cure

By  Ephraim Hardcastle
Last updated at 12:17 AM on 26th January 2011

Buoyed by a visit by his friend, playwright Sir Tom Stoppard - and a  note of encouragement from ex-President George W Bush whom he's often  mocked - British-born, Washington-based Christopher Hitchens has  embarked on a promising new drugs regime which he hopes will cure his  cancer of the oesophagus.

Says Hitch, 61: 'I had 6billion DNA matches run - twice! - one each on my tumour and on my blood sample.

'So I am one of the first primates to have had his entire genome "sequenced".

'They  found a "match" that is specific for my condition, and are using a  targeted drug called Gleevec which doesn't have so many of the awful  side-effects that nearly checked me out earlier this month. So after  some hellish months I hope to find that the hanging-on was worth it.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz1JLEpkzWH