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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (29987)	1/9/2000 12:10:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32384

Speaking of miracles, several years ago a poster on the AOL LGND board indicated that he had bought some LGND because his mother or grandmother had CTCL and treatment with Targretin produced results similar to those described in the testimonials. About the same time there were two newspaper reports on head and neck patients treated with a new drug by LGND (tumors were huge, had not responded to prior treatments, and melted away when treated with Ligand's drug). I had always assume that it was Targretin (one patient was at MD Anderson and the other was at the Lombardi Cancer Center). There wasn't much follow-up and a small head & neck study using Targretin did not produce objective tumor responses. Now that Targretin has been approved, it might be worth dusting off those old reports and revisit use of Targretin for Head & Neck. A few more pieces of anecdotal evidence may go a long way toward off label use of a "newly approved cancer pill".

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (29987)	1/9/2000 12:16:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

Along the lines of anecdotal evidence, it will only take a couple of breast cancer patients responding, as the Rats did to Targretin, to get the off label use really rolling. The testimonials show that Targretin does work in humans for CTCL, and it even works for diabetes, although LLY found the side effects for treating a manageable chronic disease unacceptable. Once it has been shown to work well in humans, its not as difficult to extrapolate animal data to humans. Tamoxifen works quite well in humans and the rat breast cancer model and Targretin works exceeding well in rat breast cancer and human CTCL. Robinson said 2000 would be a very good year for LGND, and I suspect he will be proven correct on this issue.

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (29987)	1/9/2000 1:17:00 PM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

Since we are on the subject of miraculous results by Targretin, I decided that it be worth revisiting Targretin and Head & Neck tumors. As I recalled earlier, I believe that there are at least two reports on patients with Head & Neck tumors who responded most positively to Targretin treatment. Two years ago, MD had an abstract at ASCO asco.infostreet.com indicating that they had treated 26 Head & Neck patients without an objective response. I re-read the abstract and noticed that the dose ranged from 10 mg to 300 mg/m2. Unfortunately, the number of patients treated at each dose (and the number of doses in the 10-300 mg range were not given). I suspect that the frequency of responses in advanced Head and Neck tumors may be low and may be exceedingly low at low dosage levels. If a high percentage of the Head & Neck patients at MD Anderson were treated at these lower doses, that might explain the lack of objective responses. However, now that Targretin has been approved, the number of advanced head and neck patients being offered Targretin should increase and a few additional anecdotal reports could have a significant impact.