Nipping the Cancer Drug Counterfeit Problem in the Bud

The problem faced by cancer patients in the western countries is that of shortages and not counterfeit.  However, there was a recent scare of counterfeit Avastin almost entering the supply chain through Canada.  

Yesterday's passing of a bill co-sponsored by Senators Michael Bennet (R-CO), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is designed to nip this problem by toughening up penalties.

Top Cancer News Stories of 2011

(posted Dec 23rd, 2011)


Today's is the 40th anniversary of Pres. Nixon's War on Cancer (pbs, wsj).  It must be one of the longest running battles in the US history.  But, now Harold Varmus, Director of the National Cancer Institute, thinks that it is time to change the metaphor: Cancer is neither a single enemy nor a war (wsjblog).  While this "war" has consumed trillions of dollars and changed the face of cancer into a "chronic" and manageable condition, somehow, the word "cancer" did not make it to the top ten searched terms this year.  Google Zeitgeist (US) 2011  lists Steve Jobs and two of Apple's creations, iPhone5 and iPad2 among the top ten.  The rest is showbiz.  Just five years ago, "cancer" was number three on the Google News top searches (see here). 


For those who think about cancer, here are the top cancer news stories of the year 2011

San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2011: Clinical Trials Report

San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium is one of the largest gatherings of breast cancer clinicians, scientists and those with a stake in breast cancer treatment. There are over 8,000

A glass of CABERNET or MERLOT for a leaky case of AMD

Extract of my guest post at maiBlog, a radiology-focused blog.

"Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of vision loss and blindness in adults over 50 years age. While 90% of AMD patients have the dry-type AMD (atrophic), it is the wet AMD (exudative), driven by choroidal neovascularization (CNV), which is responsible for severe and acute vision loss in over 90% of the patients. Famous people, like the artist Georgia O’Keefe, entertainer Bob Hope and the author Henry Grunwald have coped with AMD. There are over 1.6 million people with AMD in the United States and about 200,000 people are diagnosed with wet AMD every year. 


One promising approach in late-stage clinical development is the use of beta-radiation to selectively target the proliferating cells in the macular lesion. A small company 40-miles south of San Francisco called NeoVista in Newark, Calif., is at the forefront of testing an epimacular brachytherapy device in the pivotal CABERNET (CNV Secondary AMD Treated with BEta RadiatioN Epiretinal Therapy) Study. ..."

Click here to read full post at maiBlog.

(Find this post at InternetArchive here.)


Related Post:

Mining aminoacyl tRNA synthases (aaRSs) for anti-angiogenic factors.  November 22, 2010

Helping Win Steve Jobs' Pancreatic Cancer Fight For All of US Because iPads Are Not the Only Things That Matter

Yesterday, Steve Jobs once again returned to the world stage to introduce Apple's new iPad2 and once again the spotlight was also put on his ongoing battle with pancreatic cancer. 

Friday Grand Rounds: Russ Altman Introduces Pharmacogenomics Database PharmGKB

Every human cell, with two sets of 23 chromosomes, contains six-billion basepairs of DNA (or three-billion per haploid genome).  Of these three-billion genomic basepairs, each individual shares 99.7% with the rest of the humanity.  It is the three-tenths of a percent that determines the differences between all of us.  This tiny percent, nevertheless, comprises of about a million positions that not only make us unique individuals, but also determine how we respond to environment, succumb to certain diseases, or respond (or not) to certain drugs.  These single nucleotide changes, scattered all over the genome, are called single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, pronounced snip) - for example, I may have Adenine at position X, you may have C and my friend may have G at the same position.  Since the complete sequencing of human genome in 2003, the post-genomic goal has been, to answer how this 0.3% of genome determines phenotype.  Pharmacogenomics/Pharmacogenetics (PGx) is the study of how genetic makeup correlates to responses to various drugs.  

Oncology Focused Pharmacogenomic "predictive" Biomarkers

Pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics (abbreviated together as PGx) are key to the future of personalized medicine.  Pharmacogenomic biomarkers provide tools to predict (a) drug response or (b) adverse drug reactions.  Such biomarkers help to maximize efficacy and minimize toxicity.