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| New Cure for TB Developed |
| 2004-12-10 |
| For the first time in nearly 40 years, scientists have produced a drug that in lab tests appears to cure tuberculosis, a disease that is one of the world's worst killers. The antibiotic, called R207910, was developed by a team of Johnson & Johnson scientists who worked quietly on the project for a decade in locales ranging from Raritan, N.J., to Beerse, Belgium. They unveiled the patented work last night in an electronic edition of Science magazine. The compound, which appears to work better and faster than existing treatments, acts like a switch to cut off the energy supply of the mycobacterium that causes tuberculosis. "This is dynamite stuff," said Lee Reichman, executive director of the New Jersey Medical School National Tuberculosis Center in Newark. In his 2002 book, "Timebomb," which details the early 1990s global resurgence of killer TB strains, Reichman castigated the pharmaceutical industry for ignoring the disease and failing to develop new treatments. "I admire J&J for doing this kind of research," Reichman said. "This has phenomenal potential." Tuberculosis, which kills 2 million people annually, is surpassed only by AIDS as the most lethal infectious disease. It is tied inextricably to the AIDS epidemic, erupting in immune-compromised AIDS patients and often killing them before the AIDS virus does. At least 11 million adults are infected with both pathogens, according to statistics maintained by the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, a nonprofit organization... "Dear Johnson & Johnson, Thank You." |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #15 Yep - an eventuality... accelerated when people don't follow the directions. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-10 8:21:25 PM |
| #14 PD - I only worry that it will be over-prescribed (as usual) leading to new strains resistant... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-10 7:55:38 PM |
| #13 I guess there are no RB bio-whizzes out there, today. Or, mebbe, they were scared off by the lawyer-talk, lol! Sigh. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-10 7:43:53 PM |
| #12 fair enough! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-10 7:02:50 PM |
| #11 I hear you. If Big John pulled a fast one, he should lose his license. I HATE attorneys who give my profession a bad name. Most of us work pretty hard to help our clients get fair results. |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-12-10 7:00:37 PM |
| #10 I'll acknowledge your legal expertise in product liability, and the case where the firm knows but doesn't convey to prescribing physicians is a good example for your argument. Those firms deserve to lose, big. But too often juries are swayed by disputable cases, with no clearcut foreknowledge by the Pharm firm...or as in what I cited before, in sympathy to a family surviving a victim of known and acknowledged side effects. Call it a "John Edwards" jury ;-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-10 6:36:03 PM |
| #9 No, thatâs not the law of product liability. Remember, lawyers donât win cases, facts win cases. And, in the case of a pharmaceutical product liability case, the factual testimony comes from biochemists, physicians, etc. -- who all testify under the penalty of perjury within a reasonable degree of probability for their profession. These experts are subject not only to court oversight, and the penalty of perjury, they also are subject to the oversight of their professions -- they can lose credentials and licenses if they arenât careful. A weak case doesnât win. Product liability law is highly developed, fair and complex. Some highlights that address your concerns would be the 1. Unavoidably dangerous product. If a product is needed, but unavoidably dangerous, the manufacturer is not liable for any subsequent harm -- as long as the product goes out with a reasonable warning.What happened with a lot of the prescription drugs in the news (e.g., Fen-Phen, Vioxx, Accutane, etc.) is that the physicians were deliberately kept in the dark by the pharmaceutical companies. The companies actually buried the bad research. IF THEY HAD JUST BEEN ABOVE BOARD AND COME CLEAN, THE COULD HAVE SOLD WHATEVER DANGEROUS DRUG THEY COULD GET PAST THE FDA -- with impunity. |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-12-10 6:24:10 PM |
| #8 fair enough Cingold, but my Mom retired last year from Pfizer clinical testing, and we've had these discussions. If a drug in testing can cure or otherwise remedy 99.2% of those with a life -style threatening disease or malady, but the 0.8% can suffer disastrous side effects, with the indication which are which unknown, is it a good drug? No. It won't go to market, and the 99.2% won't receive that help, because the 0.8% , even acknowledging they know the risk and freely choose the option, will only make parasitic attorneys rich. Not the family survivors, the Atty's. That drug will never see the light of day. What is an "acceptable" percentage? 99.99999%? Ask an atty, and they'll say NO side effects are acceptable |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-10 6:00:28 PM |
| #7 railing against Big Pharma's âobscene profitsâ Ok, OK, Iâm biting on this one. Pharmaceutical R & D is not profit, obscene or otherwise. Pharmaceutical R & D is a critical component of a vital industry. Also, I donât think most people criticizing the pharmacy industry begrudge the profit taking, at all. The complaint is when pharmaceutical companies deliberately market âprofit makersâ without disclosing known risks. THEY DO THAT BECAUSE DISCLOSING THE RISKS WOULD PREVENT FDA APPROVAL AND/OR LOWER PROFITS. Thatâs obscene profit taking. Put it in the context of any other product -- a Ford Pinto, for example. When you know you are marketing a dangerous product, but choose to hide the defects from the public eye so that your profits are enhanced, thatâs wrong. |
| Posted by: cingold 2004-12-10 5:38:13 PM |
| #6 Now, for all those idjets railing against Big Pharma's "obscene profits": do any of you seriously think this would have been funded other than through a corporate R&D budget of >$800M? |
| Posted by: lex 2004-12-10 2:55:27 PM |
| #5 B-a-R - The minute it's placed in the hands of people who can't operate a mechanical pencil? |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-10 2:55:09 PM |
| #4 rkb - Now that's truly awful - our first-line responders are always at such unfair risk. They are the reason we survive the myriad traumatic and potentially devastating events. I am truly impressed with what J&J has done - I hope it can be developed into a spectrum of replacements for our fading antibiotics. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-10 2:50:50 PM |
| #3 So how long will it be before widespread distribution of this medicine along with lax discipline in treatment regimens end up negating its effects? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-12-10 2:49:03 PM |
| #2 Don't know about the metabolic processes, .com, but TB *is* a problem in the US because immigrants and visitors have been bringing it back here. My mother had TB when it was prevalent here in the 1950s and it meant she had to give up nursing as a result, since she never tested fully clear of it thereafter. For years I had to have screening tests too, because of her case. |
| Posted by: rkb 2004-12-10 2:25:01 PM |
| #1 This is fantastic news... I recall an article some months ago heralding the research was looking very promising and might lead to this. Bravo!!! J&J is, indeed, to be commended because, as we all know, TB is not a major problem in the US (where they would recieve full payment for the medicine which funds such research), but is a true killer elsewhere, particularly in the third world (where they will be ripped off for the generic and won't receive dick for all their hard work and research funds expended). I need a biologist, heh... If I understand the "DARQs" function, it breaks the Krebs Cycle at the point where ATP becomes ADP - the mitochondrial energy source... How the mycobacteria are specifically targeted - leaving the surrounding cells unaffected - isn't described... but, as the provided link describes, this might be useful in all living things, animals, plants, and fungi. So, if I "get it", this process effectively turns off the cell's ability to receive nourishment, thus killing it. If the targetting mechanism is (or can be) isolated and tailored. Magic bullets become truly real... Can any RBer help me out, here? |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-10 2:19:45 PM |