The Life Sciences in New York State

Keryx in the news

The Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium (MMRC) and Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Commence Multi-Center Combination Study for the Treatment of Multiple Myeloma

The Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium (MMRC) and Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: KERX) today announced the initiation of a multi-center Phase I clinical program to explore the convenient all-oral combination of KRX-0401 (perifosine), Revlimid (lenalidomide, Celgene Corporation) and dexamethasone for the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.

We love Bio

Good...we need more of this...

NYLB: New York Loves Bio

NY LOVES BIO is a statewide, broad-based marketing campaign and business partnering program promoting the research, development and commercialization strengths and opportunities in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, nutriceutical and personal care sectors of New York State's bioscience community.

Drug firms eye small biotechs

Interesting comment. This is certainly consistent with my observations stemming from working with big pharma scientists.

''You have excellent scientists in Big Pharma but they have tight schedules and missions that are very narrowly defined. They can't expand their science,'' said Donny Strosberg, an infectologist for Scripps Florida. ``It's like a big oil tanker. It can't move or change direction quickly.''

Drug firms eye small biotechs.

I've forgotten how many times I've heard this story

I started my first pharmacy job in 1984 while in high school. Back then, compliance was a huge problem, especially with so many cardiovascular medications being dosed 3 and 4 times a day.

Today, we have many more once-a-day medications. We also have various reminder gadgets, PDAs, beeping vials and caps, etc. Yet compliance is still a huge problem.

The blurb is a little misleading, and probably overstates the problem. But, compliance remains a huge problem.

Why?


New Survey Reveals That 74 Percent of Consumers Don't Take Prescription Drugs as Directed

The survey found that nearly three-fourths (74 percent) of respondents admitted to dangerous non-adherent behaviors including skipping doses, forgetting to take a medication, and taking less than the recommended dose.

Buffalo U in the News

Antibody Extends Life Of Mice With Breast Cancer

A monoclonal antibody developed by researchers at the University at Buffalo has been shown to extend significantly the survival of mice with human breast-cancer tumors and to inhibit the cancer's spread to the lungs in the animals by more than 50 percent.

On Oil, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia

I digress from my usual life science-related banter to post a few words on oil.

There’s an interesting article in today’s Falls Church News Press on how the Saudi’s can react to a US pull out of Iraq. The article discusses an earlier Op-Ed piece in last week’s Washington Post.

Take a look at the Washington Post piece, then the Falls Church News Press piece. Of interest is the claim that the Saudi’s could devastate Iran by flooding the market with oil, driving prices downward and devastating the Iranian economy. Quote:

If Saudi Arabia boosted production and cut the price of oil in half, the kingdom could still finance its current spending. But it would be devastating to Iran, which is facing economic difficulties even with today's high prices. The result would be to limit Tehran's ability to continue funneling hundreds of millions each year to Shiite militias in Iraq and elsewhere.

Anyone who follows these issues closely knows that this is rubbish. The Saudi's cannot increase production far beyond their 9 million barrels per day. If anything, cutting production would help give Ghawar and their other major fields some much needed rest. Cutting production, of course, would hurt the US and other oil importers, but it would remind the World that Saudi Arabia can still speak softly and carry an enormous stick. Quote:

Could a major cutback in Saudi oil production bring down America? Maybe not, but it sure could do a lot of harm. The most blatant action would be cut their oil production in half. Taking 4-5 million barrels a day off the world oil market would get everybody's attention very quickly. Oil prices would certainly go well over $100 per barrel. In short order, the US and world economies would suffer greatly.

 Thus:

• We are going to be in Iraq for a long long time. Our current situation will be the status quo.
• So long as we continue to drive our cars and trucks and refuse to invest in wind and solar, we will continue to be at the mercy of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, and other net oil exporters with unstable governments.

 What we also need to keep in mind is that conservation needs to be discussed in a geopolitical context. Too often, we hear about conservation as a way to conserve and protect the environment, i.e., the ozone layer, water pollution, etc. The reality is that we as a society have not responded to conservation in an environmental context. We still drive, we still pollute our air, and we still tolerate it. However, placing this discussion in a geopolitical context, where oil and gas prices visibly and quickly rise in response to events thousands of miles away, will, in my view, spur all of us to conserve much more than we have in the past.

 UPDATE: Extraordinarily interesting parallel drawn by Andrew Sullivan:

The major powers in the Middle East, in other words, are on the verge of behaving like the major powers in Europe centuries ago: they will act as expressions of national interest but also of sectarian theology...The difference between now and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe is that this regional war within a divided monotheism will take place in a time of vastly greater technological capacity for destruction…So what took Europe two centuries may take the Middle East a decade.

 

 

Initial reactions to torcetrapib failure

I always find it interesting to see how Wall Street yahoos react to announcements like the one from Pfizer:

1. Positive – Pfizer still has upside – Pfizer's Worst-Case Scenario

2. Negative – Pfizer and the rest of big pharma is too big for its britches – When Big Pharma gets too big

3. A borderline sensible reaction from Paul Kedrosky – Pfizer's Failure and the Future of Drug Development

 

Regarding Point 1, I have no idea if Pfizer stock is a good buy or not at this point. I am not an active stock trader, so I’ll leave that to the screaming professionals on CNBC. Caveat emptor.

Regarding Point 2, suggestions that pharma companies can “simply” pare down is overly simplistic, and ignores the fundamental (and yet unknown) reasons why torcetrapib disappointed. Point 2 makes no mention of the fact that this reaction by Pfizer is, in turn, likely a defensive reaction to push back from the FDA and the fear of lawsuits.

Regarding Point 3, Paul is correct in saying that the drug development process can stand to be improved. But, the entire point of research is to answer questions. Sometimes the answer you get is not the answer you want or expect. That’s the nature of research, especially when we’re talking about the first of a new class of compounds.

Novel mechanisms of action are more likely to fail versus established ones. It sounds rather obvious, but it’s a fact that’s rarely mentioned or appreciated by our friends on Wall Street.

Torcetrapib - This just about sums it all up...

End of Drug Trial Is a Big Loss for Pfizer

“Research is research,” Dr. Meyer said. “If you knew the answer, you wouldn’t be doing it.”

Torcetrapib...RIP

Wow...

I'm currently involved in a project looking at the cholesterol drug market, and this was supposed to be, at least by some projections, to be the next $5-10 billion drug product. Safety was only recently raised as an issue, and it appeared to be minor.

I wonder if Pfizer is literally giving up on torcetrapib completely, or will they develop this for a high risk population? My guess is that Pfizer will give up completely, and not want to risk Baycol-like lawsuits.

It will be interesting to see how the market reacts tomorrow (Monday) morning to this. Stay tuned...



Pfizer ends trials, development of torcetrapib cholesterol drug

Pfizer Inc. said it has halted clinical trials and development of its important new cholesterol drug torcetrapib because of deaths and cardiovascular problems in patients who used it. In a statement, the company said that the independent Data-Safety Monitoring Board urged the company to end the clinical trial "because of an imbalance of mortality and cardiovascular events." Pfizer was developing torcetrapib as a drug to help boost good cholesterol that was seen as a potential follow-up to its top-selling product, Lipitor.

Tarrytown-Based Cara scores $19 million Series C

Cara is making great strides in developing their novel pain candidates.

Cara Therapeutics Secures $19 Million in Series C Financing

TARRYTOWN, N.Y., Nov. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Cara Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that it had closed on $19 million of its Series C financing.