Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RJA_ who wrote (125544)	12/1/2016 1:22:28 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Respond to of 219862

There's a dizzying array of monoclonal-antibodies which target different things. For each target there are quickly 2 or 3 me-too antibodies brought to market by other drug companies. The minor differences between these 2 or 3 products are important to pharma company sales, but not so much to the patient's health. You have to find exactly the right targets for the antibody(s) to be effective. Some antibodies target growth mechanisms in a tumor cell, slowing it down - but it still needs to be killed with chemo, radiation or another type of antibody which identifies the cancer cell for the immune system. A class of antibodies like ipilimumab (Yervoy) or pembrolizumab (Keytruda), both nearly identical, are fairly effective for advanced melanoma, but are not effective if the melanoma has a BRAF genetic mutation. That requires pre-treatment with something else. Notice the generic name of all of the man-made antibody therapies always ends in ab so you know it's an infusion of antibodies. As an example cetuximab, sold as Erbitux, has been trialed in pancreatic cancer. These are just two out of date articles. Pancreatic cancer: nature.com --- Liver cancer: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Keep in mind though, the primary reason pancreatic and liver cancers are "difficult to treat" is because they're typically very advanced before you feel any symptoms. Spot pancreatic cancer early and some variation of a surgical Whipple operation removes it all. - en.wikipedia.org More typical was my Grandfather's brother had no symptoms at all - until he doubled over in pain while on his boat in Acapulco. He was flow back to Los Angeles and died of his very advanced and metastasized pancreatic cancer within the month. And often the longer a cancer goes unchecked, the more variations it develops. So the big advances are cheap diagnostic blood tests which use antibodies or other methods to spot unique chemicals which are produced by cancer cells. That type of research is far more important to public health than treatments are. As researchers learn what causes a monoclonal antibody target to be ineffective in a certain type of cancer, this inevitably leads to the discovery of the difference and identifies new targets for which they develop a new class of monoclonal antibodies.