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Biotech / Medical : Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Perry who wrote (1898)	4/7/1998 1:42:00 AM
From: tom jones	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4676

To all: Can someone explain this part of the Fomivirsen press release? "Results from trials in both newly-diagnosed patients and patients with advanced disease showed that fomivirsen produced prolonged delay in progression of CMV retinitis, with similar median times to progression (71 days in newly-diagnosed patients, 90 days in patients with advanced disease)." Does CMV retinitis progress even if fomivirsen is used? Does it progress to blindness when fomivirsen is used? I thought fomivirsen stopped the progression of CMV retintis from earlier press releases I read on this drug. Comments? Tom

To: Perry who wrote (1898)	4/7/1998 2:53:00 AM
From: SnowShredder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4676

Perry, Cancer cells form due to a number of mutations affecting the same cell. Anti-sense as an oncogene product suppressor is a viable option, but I think that a continuous supply of anti-sense would be necessary to prevent the tumor from growing out of control. This can be obtained invivo by delivering and integrating a anti-sense gene into the target cells (retroviral vectors). An alternative to this would be to give periodic direct injections into the tumor. Although there would be no guarantee that the anti-sense would reach all of the cells...if one cell is left unaffected...the tumor still grows. I think that the limiting factor with these approaches is the delivery of the anti-sense/gene to the cancer cells...since the outer cells are dividing, yet the middle of the tumor is more necrotic...thus I don't think there is a efficient delivery system currently available to deliver the antisense invivo. Another strategy using anti-sense is an exvivo immunological approach to tumor destruction. They transfer the IGF-1 gene into tumor cells...which blocks production of IGF-1. When these modified tumor cells are re-implanted invivo, & an immune response is provoked against the non modified tumors...leading to their destruction. The exact mechanism is not know. (Human Molecular Genetics, Strachen/Read) It is a very interesting approach, but I don't know who is testing it. Best of Luck, Where'd He Go?