Posted on 08/23/2016 1:10:55 PM PDT by Red Badger
MELBOURNE, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- A tablet developed in Melbourne that "melts away" cancer cells has been approved for use in the United States.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday that venetoclax was approved for prescription outside of human trials for patients with chronic lymphotic leukemia (CLL).
Venetoclax, which overwhelms the BCL-2 protein that is vital to cancer cell survival, was developed in Melbourne in the 1980s after researchers at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) discovered the importance of BCL-2.
WEHI's head of clinical translation, Professor Andrew Roberts, said that 80 of 116 participants in a human trial of the drug in Melbourne have displayed a positive response.
"Most of the patients had failed to be controlled by all the other treatments we had available. This was a last line option for them," Roberts told News Limited on Tuesday.
"It truly does lead to the disease melting away in 20 percent of people."
Vic Blackwood, a 68-year old participant in a ventoclax trial for two years at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said he had exhausted all his options for treating CLL before being admitted to the trial.
"They said if we don't do anything you've got three weeks to live," Blackwood told News Limited. "I was so weak, I was in bed for 20 hours a day."
Blackwood had cancerous lumps the size of golf balls in the lymph nodes in his neck and those the size of grapefruits under his arms but is now cancer-free.
"The change in me has been more dramatic than in anyone else. I can do anything now. It saved my life," he said.
Roberts said that while it was "highly likely" Australia would follow the the United States in approving the drug, the treatment would require government subsidies to increase access to the drug which costs 100,000 U.S. dollars per year in the United States.
“Aussie drug melting cancer cells approved for human use in U.S.”
Corrected translation:
Aussie cancer cell melting drug ....
Must be a new treatment system.
Melt the drugs on the human and hope they seep in somewhere..............
Kudos to FDA for fast approval.
“the drug which costs 100,000 U.S. dollars per year in the United States”
If liberals get socialized medicine, your life will be weighed against how much it costs to treat you. If you are over 60, forget it. Obama will give you some Tylenol and send you home to die.
Lousy translation from Aussie to English.
WEHI's head of clinical translation, Professor Andrew Roberts, said that 80 of 116 participants in a human trial of the drug in Melbourne have displayed a positive response.
"It truly does lead to the disease melting away in 20 percent of people."
And it should be noted, there are positive responses in more than 40% of the rest of the trial group. Isn't that significant?
Vic Blackwood, a 68-year old participant in a ventoclax trial for two years at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said he had exhausted all his options for treating CLL before being admitted to the trial.
Blackwood had cancerous lumps the size of golf balls in the lymph nodes in his neck and those the size of grapefruits under his arms but is now cancer-free.
Just as I thought. These people were far enough along that they were way into the symptoms before this revolutionary treatment was started. Some who didn't react well were undoubtedly too far along to help.
Given to a person just after diagnosis, it would seem this would help an even larger percentage of patients. To that end...
In some instances the sales price of s medication is weighed against the cost of conventional treatment.
An oral medication that might end the necessity for an expensive surgery, might be priced at 75% of the cost of that surgery. I don’t like it, but this rule of thumb has been seen before on other medications.
IMO, there’s no way this med costs $100,000 per a routine year’s regimen. I’d sure have to have it explained to me before I bought in.
Two years after it goes off patent, it will be costing between $1,000 and $2,000 dollars per year.
Let’s see how things develop at Harvard,Yale,Columbia,Hopkins,Mayo,Stanford.Before long papers should be appearing in major Journals regarding *their* experiences.
$100K/yr? Good God!
It’s only money.................
cancer bkmk
Would be worth the course of treatment if it came with a 5-year money back guarantee. I don’t think that to be unreasonable.
A large part of the cost is due to the high cost of bringing the drug to market. I’ve read that amount is up to $200 million and the pharmaceutical companies hae only a few years to recoup their investment.
Ping
I have talked to pharmaceutical people about this. For every medication they bring to market, they investigate and spend varying amounts of money on 100 others. I am sympathetic to this problem.
What you didn’t calculate in, is how much money the pharmaceutical companies can make off one medication.
Around 1990 a well known pharmaceutical company brought over a medication it developed in Europe. It marketed the medication in the United States for about one year.
In that year they made over $100 million dollars. Don’t think of one bottle, think of multiple bottles in every hospital, pharmacy, and wholesaler in the United States, and thousands of people in every berg in the U. S. having a bottle or prescription in their home. It really adds up quick.
The price per bottle on this item was about $10.00.
Come to find out, it caused medical problems and the pharmaceutical company hid that from the FDA. Fine? As I recall it wound up being zero.
They were fined, but not required to pay. I don’t remember the full particulars now.
$100,000 a year treatment for one individual is way out of line.
Remember, we have other cancer fighters. None of them have even come close to that yearly fee. They always make money, believe me.
I defend pharmaceutical companies too, so I don’t just go after them.
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