This Season’s Flu Vaccine Misses Marks
Posted by Marilyn Chase
February 13, 2008, 4:47 pm
Just because you got a flu shot this year, doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.
While this year’s flu season got off to a mild start, there’s disconcerting news lately about people coming down with classic flu symptoms, including fever, aches and coughs, despite being vaccinated.
No vaccine is perfect, of course, and some people have weaker immune systems than others. To boost the odds for success, flu vaccines contain a cocktail of antigens, or primers for the immune system, to guard against the expected varieties of flu.
This year, the CDC said it has found that most so–called influenza B viruses that are running around the country aren’t fazed by the current edition of the flu vaccine. That’s because two of three components in the vaccine were aiming for the wrong target.
You can’t tell the players without a program. So let us tell you that most of the influenza B virus now being passed around belongs to the “Yamagata” virus family. That’s an altogether different clan from the B strain in the vaccine, which is the B/Malaysia-like virus of the “Victoria” lineage. (See the CDC’s weekly flu roundup here.)
cdc.gov
Discovery of the mismatch follows earlier reports that the circulating influenza A strain – called “Brisbane” – also differs from the A strain in the vaccine known as “Wisconsin.” But despite the disparate geography of their names, those A strains are closely related, so the shot may offer partial protection against the influenza A that’s on the loose.
For now, given known gaps in this year’s vaccine, it makes more sense than ever to keep your hands clean, using alcohol based gels; keep your mouth covered when you cough, and staying home when you’re ill.
13, 2008, 4:30 pm
Amgen CEO: Bone Drug Started With a ‘Really Big Mouse’
Posted by Jacob Goldstein
On a visit to Health Blog HQ today, Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer spun a yarn that took denosumab — an experimental bone drug the company hopes will be its Next Big Thing — all the way back to a really big mouse.
Unlike many drugs in this era of rampant in-licensing, denosumab (aka D-mab) actually started in Amgen’s own labs. Like many other research shops, Amgen was busy in the 1990s creating knockout mice–disabling a gene at a time– to understand new biological pathways, Sharer said. Most of those experiments didn’t go anywhere.
But one group of knockout mice stood out. “We noticed, hey that’s a really big mouse,” he said. “It’s really got big bones.” That insight led to the development of the drug, which blocks the protein expressed by the gene that was knocked out in the big mice.
Sharer pointed out that Amgen’s early research in the area allowed the company to grab the relevant intellectual property. So if the drug makes it to market (and Amgen’s hoping D-mab will be a blockbuster), it would stand alone in a new class of osteoporosis medicines. The company is still working on some key studies it will need in order to apply for approval. The drug is also being tested for treatment of cancer that has spread to bones.
D-mab would, however, compete with generic versions of bone drugs such as Merck’s Fosamax. Those will be a lot cheaper than D-mab, which Sharer said be priced “a lot closer to $1,000 per year,” compared with other biotech drugs, which can cost $10,000 a year or more.
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