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Biotech / Medical : QLT PhotoTherapeutics (QLTI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SC who wrote (296)	3/19/1998 11:37:00 AM
From: Ian@SI	Respond to of 1321

SC, Today's status quo is that 50% of people over age 50 will ultimately go blind. The QLT promise is that AMD can be arrested prior to debilitating vision loss. Adding a $1B market annually in the developed countries should be quite lucrative for QLT while they're the only game in town. Yes, the treatments would be required about 4 times annually for the rest of the patient's life. As I understood the article, the Phase IIIb trial was extending the scope to earlier onset of the disease. I believe the article indicated that they started with more advanced cases in case there were unwanted side effects from long term usage of the treatment. I'm not an expert on getting FDA approval. QLT is. They've already received approvals from regulators globally for the use of this family of drugs for various forms of cancer. ... which is another nice thing about the company. Rather than diluting our holdings to complete R&D and approvals, they do have a good source of income from sales. Ian

To: SC who wrote (296)	4/10/1998 9:29:00 PM
From: Daniel Martineau	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1321

Phototherapy is synonymous with killing cells that are involved in disease. For instance, in ovarian cancer, tumor cells that spread into the abdominal cavity and in AMD endothelial cells that grow disorderly in the retina. My impression is that repeated killing of endothelial cells (the cells that make up the blood vessels) will induce retinal scarring. Severe scarring of any organ involves loss of function. In the case ot the retina, loss of function involves blindness (but AMD also leads to blindness, so... this is why clinical trials exist!) DM