Drugs that cure cancer, are shelved
Bottom line: The market is so small, lives are sacrificed for profits. The following is a transcript of the segment from CNN... (CNN makes news, but nobody notices!)
- - - - - - - - - -
GUPTA: Immther, the drug that apparently saved her life, is still available as part of the Dr. Kleinerman's ongoing clinical trial, but after that, it disappears.
(on camera): So there was a drug out there that, as far as you could tell, at least seemed to be working?
EUGENIE KLEINERMAN, CHIEF, PEDIATRIC DIVISION: Correct.
GUPTA: And then you got a phone call saying that they weren't going to manufacture the drug anymore.
KLEINERMAN: Correct. Basically, I was getting the message that our marketing people have done research and we're never going to be able to recoup our research and development costs. And it doesn't matter who we're going to help and who we're not going to help, the marketing people have made the decision that we're not putting any more resources in this.
GUPTA: And the outcome?
KLEINERMAN: The outcome is we still have only a certain amount of drug.
GUPTA (voice-over): Just enough to treat 60 kids, or about one- third of the kids that get Ewing's Sarcoma each year.
(on camera): This isn't the kind of story people want to hear. If a drug works, why wouldn't they make more of it?
KLEINERMAN: Because sarcomas are a very rare tumor, and you have to understand that drug companies, pharmaceutical companies, have to report to their stockholders, and they're interested in their financials, and this will never be a money-maker.
GUPTA: This really does keep you up, doesn't it?
KLEINERMAN: Oh, yes, of course.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Really remarkable, Carol. You know, Allie remains cancer free, and she is doing well. But no one knows what's going to happen for another patient that comes in with Ewing's Sarcoma after these drugs run out.
COSTELLO: Well, this makes me really angry. My brother died of Ewing's Sarcoma when he was 25. So when you talk about how rare it is...
GUPTA: Sorry, Carol.
COSTELLO: It doesn't really matter when you have a family member who has it. So I have a couple of questions. Is there anything you can do? Because, you know, the drug -- it just seems cruel.
GUPTA: Yes. You know, and we -- I think everybody feels the same way. It's really one of these things that sort of boggles the mind. Couple things. There is something called the Orphan Drug Act. This was actually from federal government to try and create drugs for diseases that affect less than 200,000 people in the United States.
But what we found as we sort of explored this was the pharmaceutical companies, even with these federal incentives, don't always want to make these drug. So maybe there needs to be improvements and amendments to the Orphan Drug Act.
But, you know, I'm sorry to hear about your brother, but this is the reality right now with some of these medications.
COSTELLO: I mean, I'm shaking I'm so mad. Another thing, clinical trials. We had no idea that these drugs existed. So how do you find out something like that? Because he may have been saved.
GUPTA: And there is better ways of doing that now, Carol. There is a Web site, for example -- this is pretty simple. It's called cancer.gov/clinicaltrials. You can go to this Web site, you can punch in the kind of cancer that you have and you can find out about clinical trials that are going on at places like M.D. Anderson or places that are, perhaps, closer to you as well.
And it's important for people to know about this because, when you're given a diagnosis of terminal cancer, this is an option for you if you're someone who wants to fight.
COSTELLO: All right. You're going to have a special on, too, this weekend that I hope will get the message out to a lot of people.
GUPTA: Carol, we're going to tell stories of people like your brother. We're going to honor them, I think, with this special and talk about where we've come in this fight against cancer. You know, it was 35 years ago they declared war. Where are we? I think the stories are going to be uplifting, optimistic, more so than people think -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Thank you, Sanjay. Appreciate it.
GUPTA: Thank you.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/12/ltm.02.html
- - - - - - - - - -
GUPTA: Immther, the drug that apparently saved her life, is still available as part of the Dr. Kleinerman's ongoing clinical trial, but after that, it disappears.
(on camera): So there was a drug out there that, as far as you could tell, at least seemed to be working?
EUGENIE KLEINERMAN, CHIEF, PEDIATRIC DIVISION: Correct.
GUPTA: And then you got a phone call saying that they weren't going to manufacture the drug anymore.
KLEINERMAN: Correct. Basically, I was getting the message that our marketing people have done research and we're never going to be able to recoup our research and development costs. And it doesn't matter who we're going to help and who we're not going to help, the marketing people have made the decision that we're not putting any more resources in this.
GUPTA: And the outcome?
KLEINERMAN: The outcome is we still have only a certain amount of drug.
GUPTA (voice-over): Just enough to treat 60 kids, or about one- third of the kids that get Ewing's Sarcoma each year.
(on camera): This isn't the kind of story people want to hear. If a drug works, why wouldn't they make more of it?
KLEINERMAN: Because sarcomas are a very rare tumor, and you have to understand that drug companies, pharmaceutical companies, have to report to their stockholders, and they're interested in their financials, and this will never be a money-maker.
GUPTA: This really does keep you up, doesn't it?
KLEINERMAN: Oh, yes, of course.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Really remarkable, Carol. You know, Allie remains cancer free, and she is doing well. But no one knows what's going to happen for another patient that comes in with Ewing's Sarcoma after these drugs run out.
COSTELLO: Well, this makes me really angry. My brother died of Ewing's Sarcoma when he was 25. So when you talk about how rare it is...
GUPTA: Sorry, Carol.
COSTELLO: It doesn't really matter when you have a family member who has it. So I have a couple of questions. Is there anything you can do? Because, you know, the drug -- it just seems cruel.
GUPTA: Yes. You know, and we -- I think everybody feels the same way. It's really one of these things that sort of boggles the mind. Couple things. There is something called the Orphan Drug Act. This was actually from federal government to try and create drugs for diseases that affect less than 200,000 people in the United States.
But what we found as we sort of explored this was the pharmaceutical companies, even with these federal incentives, don't always want to make these drug. So maybe there needs to be improvements and amendments to the Orphan Drug Act.
But, you know, I'm sorry to hear about your brother, but this is the reality right now with some of these medications.
COSTELLO: I mean, I'm shaking I'm so mad. Another thing, clinical trials. We had no idea that these drugs existed. So how do you find out something like that? Because he may have been saved.
GUPTA: And there is better ways of doing that now, Carol. There is a Web site, for example -- this is pretty simple. It's called cancer.gov/clinicaltrials. You can go to this Web site, you can punch in the kind of cancer that you have and you can find out about clinical trials that are going on at places like M.D. Anderson or places that are, perhaps, closer to you as well.
And it's important for people to know about this because, when you're given a diagnosis of terminal cancer, this is an option for you if you're someone who wants to fight.
COSTELLO: All right. You're going to have a special on, too, this weekend that I hope will get the message out to a lot of people.
GUPTA: Carol, we're going to tell stories of people like your brother. We're going to honor them, I think, with this special and talk about where we've come in this fight against cancer. You know, it was 35 years ago they declared war. Where are we? I think the stories are going to be uplifting, optimistic, more so than people think -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Thank you, Sanjay. Appreciate it.
GUPTA: Thank you.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/12/ltm.02.html
posted by impresario | 10:25 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home