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

To: sim1 who wrote (2545)	4/12/1999 9:52:00 PM
From: TomOrt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4676

all; Unable to locate "frontiers in medicine" prog. #113 as mentioned at Isis home page. Did find the following, but no local listing or date of airing... frontiers of medicine Show #13- Transcript #3 Hosted By: LouisW. Sullivan, M.D. Isis & Crohn's Disease Narrator: Crohn's disease currently affects approximately 200,000 people in the USA alone, and for those suffering from the disease, it can be the source of excruciating pain. Although the cause of the disease is unknown, a new drug called Isis 2302 appears to stop the symptoms before they ever occur. Liam Youngsworth is just one of thousands of people affected by the chronic inflammatory bowel disease. Once it begins, it tends to be a recurrent condition. Anke Dannernann (Crohn's Sufferer): "A lot of people with Crohn's are teased; when they go travelling, they don't go travelling from city to city, they go travelling from bathroom to bathroom. And the biggest problems are diarrhea, stomach cramps, some have constipation… not only cramps from your stomach from all the medication you take, but you also have spasms in your intestine." Narrator: Dr. Bruce Yankerston, head of an independent research team at the University of Alberta in Canada, has spent a year treating patients with Crohn's disease; using Isis 2302. Dr. Bruce Yankerstorn: "The results to date have been very promising. We've had a number of patients that have responded favorably to the drug, and one of the more important aspects of this therapy is that in the patients that received the drug, we've not identified any serious side effects or complications of the medication." Narrator: Liam was one of the patients who took part in the trials, and noticed some positive changes. Liam Youngworth: "I had more energy. I got to eat a lot of foods that I wasn't supposed to eat." Narrator: Isis, the pharmaceutical company that developed this new drug, believes that the success of the trials was due to the new approach they have adopted for fighting diseases such as Crohn's; and this could be only the beginning. Dr. Stanley T. Crooke (Chairman & CEO): "We will have technology that will allow us to design drugs that are much more specific and therefore safer and therefore can work in diseases where we have drugs that do not work today." Narrator: The new drugs being developed at Isis, are known as Antisense drugs. They have the potential to target more selectively and, as a result, be more effective and less toxic than traditional drugs. The technology works at the genetic level to interrupt the process by which disease- causing proteins are produced, even before a protein is formed. They are effectively one step ahead of traditional drug treatments, which are designed to interact with the protein molecules after the disease-causing protein's formation. Isis 2302 would stop the Crohn's inflammation earlier, rather than later. Dr.Daniel Kisner (President & COO): "We've shown that in, patients that are refractory to standard agents in this disease have therapeutic responses to Isis 2302 injected systemically. So, we've gone away from just a local injection into the site of the disease, to a drug that is systemically injected into a vein, and shown that the drug has therapeutic utility." Narrator: If the results of Canadian clinical trials are anything to go by, Isis 2302 could make a big difference to Crohn's disease sufferers. Dr. Bruce Yankerstorn: "They have improved in well being, their energy levels have improved, pain has diminished. These people have extreme abdominal pain, their pain dissipates, they're able to sleep at nights, they're able to eat regular food, they're able to gain weight, their energy level improved." Narrator: Between 5 and 10,000 new cases of Crohn's disease are reported in the USA each year. About 70% of these cases will require surgery in their lifetime, and 55% of them within the first ten years of their diagnosis. The scientists at Isis believe that if the success of the clinical trials continue, Isis 2302 could be presented for FDA approval toward the end of this year, and these statistics might become a thing of the past.