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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Andreas Helke who wrote (20884)	5/15/1998 10:28:00 PM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32384

Here's what Reuter's had to say about ASCO: U.S. cancer meeting to highlight new advances Reuters, Thursday, May 14, 1998 at 21:29 By Mark Egan LOS ANGELES, May 14 (Reuters) - The world's largest cancer conference starts this weekend with close to 20,000 doctors discussing breakthroughs they hope will lead to a cure for the killer disease. Cancer treatments have made big news recently as a new drugs and vaccines have offered new hope doctors may be close to curing the disease second only to heart attacks as a cause of death in the United States. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) expects doctors from all over the world to attend its 34th annual meeting in Los Angeles where 2,000 presentations are planned over the four days starting from Saturday through Tuesday. Topics expected to take center stage include potential new treatments for the prevention of breast and prostate cancer. About 180,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed annually, according to ASCO. New approaches to treating cancer will be discussed including widely publicized anti-angiogenesis drugs, which kill tumors by depriving them of blood supply, as well as using monoclonal antibodies to enable the body's immune system to attack cancer cells. The Los Angeles meeting will also discuss doctors' views on the controversial issue of physician-aided suicide. Results from human trials of new cancer drugs seeking regulatory approval will be presented at the conference including data on lung cancer and colorectal cancer. About half of those diagnosed with cancer do not survive. In 1998 about 1.2 million patients in the United States are expected to be diagnosed with cancer with about 565,000 people expected to die of the disease this year, ASCO said. The most prevalent form of cancer in women is breast cancer with about 44,000 deaths per year in the United States. Results will be presented on the potential prevention of breast cancer through the use of the drugs raloxifene and tamoxifen. Tamoxifen, marketed by Zeneca Group Plc (ISEL:ZEN) as Nolvadex, is already widely used in early and late-stage breast cancer and is seeking approval to be used as a preventive drug. Trials in the United States of tamoxifen as a drug to prevent breast cancer were called off early when successful results were reported. Results of that trial will be discussed in detail at the meeting as will a two-year trial of raloxifene. Raloxifene is marketed by Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY) as Evista to treat osteoporosis. Data will be produced on the drugs' potential for preventing breast cancer in post-menopausal women. In recent weeks anti-angiogenesis drugs have been hailed in some quarters as a potential "miracle cure" for cancer. The drugs, which kill cancer by starving tumors of their blood supply, have been a talking point since it was revealed that EntreMed Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ENMD) drugs, angiostatin and endostatin, had cured cancer in mice. Since then a number of other companies have announced similar drugs that have cured cancer in mice. Many experts have played down this potential cure by noting the drugs have been known for years and it is much more difficult to cure cancer in humans than mice. In order to grow larger than a pinpoint, tumors need to form new blood vessels. At ASCO's meeting presentations will be made showing encouraging early results on the safety of anti-angiogenesis drugs on human patients. Data on new vaccines that fight cancer by stimulating the immune system will be publicized as well as new information on gene therapy, which tries to fix damaged DNA or add new DNA in an attempt to mend faulty genes.