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Biotech / Medical : Biotech Lock-Up Expiration Hell Portfolio -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tuck who wrote (547)	12/13/2001 1:29:37 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1005

tuck, That does look encouraging. I'd like to see the underlying abstracts though - just what does "most patients" mean? The duration results are significant. My prediction is still that doctors are going to remain pretty cautious until they see some longer term (at least 2-3 year) results, looking not just for control of reflux but also for side-effects like dysphagia. Long term the overall market is growing rapidly. The growth of their procedure is going to be based on the number of patients that are happy to just pop a Prilosec every day versus the number that want to go for surgery. Certainly this procedure seems to compare favorably with the standard surgery for this condition (Nissen fundoplication), which is pretty major surgery even though it is now done laparoscopically. The surgery is known to be generally durable in the long-term though, while the Stretta procedure is still an unknown. Let's see if we get any year-end tax selling. Peter

To: tuck who wrote (547)	12/13/2001 3:27:46 PM
From: tuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1005

>>SAN DIEGO, Dec. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Introgen Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: INGN - news) announced today that it has shown in preclinical studies that INGN 241, its mda-7 gene drug, suppresses the growth of lung cancer tumors. These data were presented at the 10th International Conference on Gene Therapy of Cancer in San Diego, Calif. by Introgen's collaborator Rajagopal Ramesh, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Ramesh commented, ``Because Adenoviral-mda7 was so effective at killing lung cancer cells in culture, we wanted to test this exciting new agent in animal studies. We found that Adenoviral-mda7 produced a profound inhibition of lung tumor growth in mouse models. The tumors were not only smaller, they appeared to be starved of nutrients. This suggested that INGN 241 might also play a role in controlling angiogenesis. When we completed the angiogenic studies, we were pleased to find that INGN 241 is also a very potent angiogenic inhibitor.'' While previous in vitro studies have shown that treatment with INGN 241 suppresses lung tumor cell proliferation, the current study demonstrates the in vivo tumor suppressing and anti-angiogenic activity of INGN 241. In this study, treatment of xenograft human non-small cell lung carcinoma tumors with INGN 241 in vivo resulted in significant suppression of tumor growth. Further analysis of the INGN 241 treated tumor cells showed a treatment-specific decrease in the expression of certain angiogenic factors generally associated with tumor growth. ``This study expands our growing database on mda-7 as a critical growth control molecule. The ability to starve a tumor of nutrients by blocking angiogenesis, coupled with the established apoptotic activity of mda-7 provide a key advantage in the fight against cancer,'' said Sunil Chada, Ph.D., director of research and development at Introgen. INGN 241 is a modified adenoviral vector that carries the cancer cell killing mda-7 gene. Previous studies indicated that INGN 241 treatment results in targeted destruction of breast, lung and colon cancer cells, while sparing normal cells. INGN 241 is currently being studied in a Phase 1 study in cancer patients with various solid tumors. The mda-7 gene was discovered by the laboratory of Dr. Paul B. Fisher, Professor of Clinical Pathology and the Michael and Stella Chernow Urological Cancer Research Scientist in the Departments of Neurological Surgery, Pathology and Urology at Columbia University. Introgen holds an exclusive worldwide license to the gene for all gene therapy applications from the Corixa Corporation. Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in the United States, with an estimated 164,000 new cases diagnosed annually. An estimated 157,000 deaths occurred in 2000, accounting for 28% of all cancer deaths. The five-year survival rate for patients diagnosed with lung cancer is 14%. Non-small cell, or NSC lung cancer, comprises approximately 80% of all lung cancer cases.<< snip Am I going to be sorry I didn't give in to temptation? Cheers, Tuck