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Biotech / Medical : XOMA. Bull or Bear? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bluegreen who wrote (16035)	9/4/2002 1:30:30 PM
From: aknahow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17367

No Bluegreen, no interest at all. <g> DR. BRETT GIROIR: What we became interested in is a compound called "BPI." This is not some artificial substance produced somewhere in someone's laboratory. This is an exact copy of a normal, natural protein found in your white blood cells, your infection fighting cells. Not only does BPI kill bacteria but it completely binds and neutralizes endotoxin, the primary toxin that we think is the bad player. NARRATOR: BPI was used experimentally for the first time on a child on the brink of death. DR. BRETT GIROIR: We gave it to a girl, a nine-year-old girl from east Texas, who actually had to have CPR and be revived twice before she actually came to our hospital. And she had a magnificent, wonderful outcome after treatment with BPI and all the care we gave her. NARRATOR: In a major trial for FDA approval, BPI seemed to reduce the number of limb amputations like Waneshia's by 68 percent, and increase survival by 25 percent. But many children died before they could experience the benefits of the drug. DR. BRETT GIROIR: It's easy to do a trial if you have a million people with heart disease on any given day. But it's very difficult to do a trial in a rapidly progressive disease like meningococcal disease, that by the time you get the patients many of them are dead, in a disease that's so rare, and in a disease where, I think, the rules are different. NARRATOR: In the end, the results of the study were not considered statistically significant, and further trials to get the drug to market may take another three to five years. DR. BRETT GIROIR: Right now the study is over and BPI is not yet approved. So if one of my children came into the hospital today with meningococcal sepsis, they couldn't get BPI, even though I know it works. There's no way to supply it. NARRATOR: But Brett Giroir and his fellow researchers aren't giving up hope that one day the drug will be approved. DR. BRETT GIROIR: We're going to make a difference in this disease. It may take a few years to do it because it's very complex, but this is the right point in time with the right amount of science--everything pointing in the direction that we're going to impact it. We're going to change it and--I'm sure we are. NARRATOR: Until the status of BPI changes, doctors at St Mary's in London have to treat patients like Faye Schrier as best they can.