Monsieur Le Peu,
>>It resembles me well, but I know three skunks?<<
Note the article "un," meaning "one." I know one skunk, Pepe.
OK, time to give up on my linguistic skills, also rusting since high school. They were good for a laugh, and now the world will be a duller place. C'est larvae.
"It looks good to me, but I know a very little."
Must be Chicken Little, since I keep thinking the sky is falling (see Biotech Short Candidate thread), but it hasn't yet. As you said, Pepe, "hunker down" is not the place to be -- until it is.
>>AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Introgen Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: INGN - news) announced today Genetic Engineering News has published an interview with David L. Parker, J.D., Ph.D., Introgen's vice president for intellectual property in which he discusses Introgen's portfolio of patents which deal with combination therapy for the treatment of cancer.
The complete article is entitled ``Viral Vectors Move Closer to Therapeutic Use,'' and is published in the current issue of Genetic Engineering News, Volume 21, Number 20.
The article examines various viral delivery systems currently in clinical testing for gene therapeutics, including adenovirus, the vector Introgen employs for its lead product, INGN 201, currently in two Phase 3 clinical trials for the treatment of head and neck cancer. Dr. Parker discusses patents controlled by Introgen in which gene therapy is used in combination with conventional treatments such as chemotherapy to achieve an enhanced therapeutic effect. Also discussed in the article is Introgen's large safety database with adenovirus and the numerous routes of administration with which Introgen has tested its products.
Dr. Parker explains, ``Virtually all cancer patients at some time receive DNA-damaging radiation or chemotherapy. Introgen's patents are based on the finding that treatment regimens which include DNA-damaging agents actually may enhance the expression of all therapeutic genes. For example INGN 201, Adenoviral-p53, has demonstrated a synergistic effect in inducing cancer cell death when combined with chemotherapy and has produced dramatic results in lung cancer.''
Introgen controls a number of U.S. patents that relate to adenoviral p53 as well as p53 combination therapy. Three patents cover gene therapy of cancer using a p53 tumor suppressor gene in combination with one or more chemotherapeutic drugs, radiation therapies, or other agents that have a damaging effect on the DNA of cancer cells. Two of these patents cover the clinical use of the p53 gene before, during or after treatment with chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and the third covers therapy using the p53 gene in combination with a class of chemotherapy agents called DNA repair inhibitors. An additional patent covers the treatment of cancer with adenoviral p53 to kill tumor cells and promote tumor regression. Finally, Introgen has a patent that covers administration of chemotherapeutic drugs, radiation therapies, or other agents that have a damaging effect on the DNA of cancer cells, to a cancer patient, followed by the administration of gene therapy, regardless of the gene used in the therapy.<<
snip
Head & Neck cancer is a toughie, no? Has any drug made it through PIII in that indication?
Cheers, Tuck |
