{"id":25541,"date":"2014-05-07T15:30:57","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T20:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=25541"},"modified":"2014-05-07T15:30:57","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T20:30:57","slug":"ive-been-an-oncologist-for-20-years-and-i-have-never-ever-seen-anything-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/05\/07\/ive-been-an-oncologist-for-20-years-and-i-have-never-ever-seen-anything-like-this\/","title":{"rendered":"“I\u2019ve been an oncologist for 20 years, and I have never, ever seen anything like this.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Forbes<\/em>, Matthew Herper<\/a> looks at how Novartis is transforming itself in an attempt to conquer cancer:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been an oncologist for 20 years,\u201d says Grupp, \u201cand I have never, ever seen anything like this.\u201d Emily has become the poster child for a radical new treatment that Novartis, the third-biggest drug company on the Forbes<\/em> Global 2000, is making one of the top priorities in its $9.9 billion research and development budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve told the team that resources are not an issue. Speed is the issue,\u201d says Novartis Chief Executive Joseph Jimenez, 54. \u201cI want to hear what it takes to run this phase III trial and to get this to market. You\u2019re talking about patients who are about to die. The pain of having to turn patients away is such that we are going as fast as we can and not letting resources get in the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

A successful trial would prove a milestone in the fight against the demon that has plagued living things since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Coupled with the exploding capabilities of DNA-sequencing machines that can unlock the genetic code, recent drugs have delivered stunning results in lung cancer, melanoma and other deadly tumors, sometimes making them disappear entirely \u2013 albeit temporarily. Just last year the Food & Drug Administration approved nine targeted cancer drugs. It\u2019s big business, too. According to data provider IMS Health, spending on oncology drugs was $91 billion last year, triple what it was in 2003.<\/p>\n

But the developments at Penn point, tantalizingly, to something more, something that would rank among the great milestones in the history of mankind: a true cure. Of 25 children and 5 adults with Emily\u2019s disease, ALL, 27 had a complete remission, in which cancer becomes undetectable. \u201cIt\u2019s a stunning breakthrough,\u201d says Sally Church, of drug development advisor Icarus Consultants. Says Crystal Mackall, who is developing similar treatments at the National Cancer Institute: \u201cIt really is a revolution. This is going to open the door for all sorts of cell-based and gene therapy for all kinds of disease because it\u2019s going to demonstrate that it\u2019s economically viable.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Megan McArdle<\/a> for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Forbes, Matthew Herper looks at how Novartis is transforming itself in an attempt to conquer cancer: \u201cI\u2019ve been an oncologist for 20 years,\u201d says Grupp, \u201cand I have never, ever seen anything like this.\u201d Emily has become the poster child for a radical new treatment that Novartis, the third-biggest drug company on the Forbes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,66,16],"tags":[183,827,243,513],"class_list":["post-25541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-health-science","category-science","tag-dna","tag-genetics","tag-medicine","tag-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6DX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25542,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25541\/revisions\/25542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}