Breakthrough: the ultimate treatment for cancer

Source: forbes.cn May 15, 2014 core tip: a new weapon for cancer has saved Emily Whitehead's life Using the modified HIV virus, scientists genetically engineered those white cells to attack cancer cells and then reinjected them into the body Novartis CEO Joseph Simmons may be making history For 85% of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, chemotherapy can cure this terrible cancer, but not for Emily Whitehead At the age of five, she was diagnosed with the disease, infected during the first round of chemotherapy and nearly lost her legs Later, she had a relapse and was treated for a side-by-side bone marrow transplant During the waiting period, the disease recurred again There was nothing doctors could do Except for a crazy experimental treatment that has never been used in children before: blood is drawn from Emily's six-year-old body, her white blood cells are extracted with a device, and then transfused back into her body At that time, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania used modified HIV to genetically modify white blood cells to attack cancer cells and then inject them back into the body But these cells also attacked her body Emily had a high fever for several days and had to be hospitalized She had a hallucination under the high fever and asked her father, "why is there a pond in my room?" she was taken to the intensive care unit and put on a ventilator A doctor told her family that her chances of surviving the night were only one in a thousand But there was a miracle: doctors used a rheumatoid arthritis drug to stop Emily's strong response to the immune system without protecting cancer cells Emily woke up on her 7th birthday and gradually recovered A week later, her bone marrow transplant was cancelled Emily's father, wire worker Tom Whitehead, recalled that Emily's doctor, Stephan grupp, called and said, "the treatment worked She's out of cancer " Two years later, she is still in good health, can learn piano, roll with her dog, or even go to school (she can't go to school during her illness) "I've been an oncologist for 20 years." "I've never seen anything like this," said grup Emily has become the signature of this new therapy Novartis, the third-largest pharmaceutical company on the Forbes Global 2000 list, is making this treatment a priority in its $9.9 billion R & D budget A new weapon for cancer saved Emily Whitehead's life I told the R & D team that human and financial resources are not a problem The key is speed " Joseph Jimenez, 54, CEO of Novartis, said, "I want to hear what's needed for the third phase of the trial and what's needed to get it to market Many patients are at stake The pain of having to shut the patient out forces us to act as soon as possible, not to let money become an obstacle " Since dinosaurs roamed the earth, life has been suffering from cancer In the fight against the disease, a successful experiment may be a milestone Coupled with a leap in the performance of DNA sequencing devices that unlock genetic code, recently developed drugs have achieved amazing results in the treatment of lung cancer, melanoma and other deadly tumors, sometimes even making them completely disappear - albeit temporarily Just last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved nine anti-cancer targeted drugs Cancer drugs are still a big business According to IMS Health, a data provider, sales of cancer drugs reached $91 billion last year, three times that of 2003 But progress at the University of Pennsylvania points to something more significant, something that will be a great milestone in human history: a real cure for cancer Of the 25 children and five adults who had the same disease with Emily, all 27 were completely cured and no more cancer cells were detected "This is an amazing breakthrough." Sally Church of Icarus consultants, a drug development consultancy, said "This is a real revolution," said crystal Mackall, who studies similar therapies at the National Cancer Institute This will open the door to cell and gene therapy for a variety of diseases, as it will prove economically viable " There are still huge obstacles ahead: Novartis has to conduct clinical trials of children and adults in hospitals around the world, set up a factory to provide personalized treatment for patients, and figure out how to limit the side effects that almost cost Emily her life Novartis expects all of this to be completed by 2016, when it will apply to the FDA Progress like this explains why Mr Simmons has allowed his pharmaceutical giants to focus on the simple mission of curing cancer Novartis' annual sales volume is 58 billion US dollars, of which 11.2 billion US dollars are contributed by anticancer drugs But he said he was "double betting" on the cancer business In April, he reached an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline, essentially to swap the unprofitable vaccine and consumer products division for GlaxoSmithKline's cancer drugs division with $9 billion in cash At the moment, the division's sales are $1.6 billion, but Mr Simmons says he can turn all three of the division's drugs into $1 billion worth of products On the same day, he sold animal health to Eli Lilly He calls it "precision M & a" - in exchange for the sector you want, rather than bidding $100bn for competitors, as Pfizer did with AstraZeneca Jefferies, the investment bank, said the move, which he called "the opposite of a mega merger," would reduce Novartis' sales by 5% in 2016, but increase earnings per share (excluding non current items) by 10% Himenez has competitors, including one of the most heavily funded start-ups ever: Juno therapeutics in Seattle, whose investor is Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos But this is expected, because the potential is so amazing and real "Anyone who has a connection to the technology and knows what it can do will think that they are participating in something epoch-making." "I looked at it and thought about the big breakthroughs it could bring," said Simmons In the next 20 to 30 years, you will see a revolution in cancer therapy " This is one of the most revolutionary medical breakthroughs any company has ever tried to achieve But on the face of it, it seems unlikely that Mr Simmons will become a supporter of the cause In terms of his career, he was a marketing professional Before joining Novartis in 2007, he managed brands such as Clorox and Peter Pan Peanut Butter, and then ran the North American business of Heinz, the tomato sauce manufacturer But when he became a director of AstraZeneca, he became interested in selling life-saving products He was recruited to Novartis, where he was first in charge of the $4 billion consumer products division, the children's cough patch triaminic and the cold medicine theraflu But he was quickly promoted, in charge of drug marketing, and later became CEO, which surprised everyone His predecessor, Daniel Vasella, thinks it will be a tough time for him to lead the company through After Simmons took office, factories in the consumer and animal health sectors were temporarily closed due to production problems Relying on Novartis, the world's second-largest generics division, and Alcon, the company's eye care division, Simmons managed to stabilize sales and profits of around $58 billion and $9 billion, respectively Novartis also benefited from a 33 per cent stake in rival Roche, which has $31 billion in anti-cancer drug sales Later, he successfully solved the problem of factory production Novartis' share price has greatly outperformed the S & P 500 index (176% vs 139%) and the pharmaceutical index of the US stock exchange in the past five years But his job is not to create data, but to preserve heritage Westler's proudest moment was when he decided to ignore his marketing staff and adopt the advice of Brian Druker, an Oregon oncologist At the time, Drucker pleaded with him to develop a cancer drug called Gleevec, and weisler even wrote a book about it As a breakthrough drug, Gleevec has helped almost all patients with chronic myeloid leukemia This is a very rare blood cancer Patients need to take Gleevec for many years, and the drug is so precious that Novartis has tripled its price from 24000 dollars a year in 2001 to more than 90000 dollars now Even the cheapest insurers pay, but some patients get it for free At that time, people in the marketing department thought that the sales of Gleevec was only $400 million, but now it has reached $4.6 billion, and it is the best-selling drug of Novartis The lesson is that focusing on sales, not on efficacy, is harmful to the company "We don't involve people in our operations in important decisions in the early stages of R & D." "And other companies may involve them in studying business opportunities or market size," said Simmons We have said that we do not want to do that " It's no exaggeration that Gleevec has changed the structure of Novartis' headquarters Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, the company is located on the Rhine River between Switzerland, France and Germany The monotonous production Park was rebuilt as a university, with roadside cafes and benches for people to talk to, and a glass building designed by Frank Gehry Weisler moved its R & D headquarters to a candy factory converted office building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a beautiful skylight and a six story atrium just a block from MIT It's unfortunate news for Novartis that the patent for Gleevec will expire in July 2015 Recently, Novartis R & D has lagged behind According to innothink, in the 10 years before he took over the scepter, the company launched 16 new drugs, more than any other company, but in the next four years, only one new drug came out every year, only half of Johnson & Johnson To make matters worse, he thinks Novartis has missed out on Bristol Myers Squibb's cutting-edge new drug that uses the immune system to fight tumors "We are behind the industry leaders in this area." Said Simmons He worries that Novartis scientists are taking another lesson from Greaves too seriously The lesson is that understanding the biochemistry behind drugs is crucial Sometimes, he points out