 |
 |
350 new biotechnology drugs reportedly being developed WASHINGTON (April 10, 1998 10:25 a.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) - More than 300 different biotechnology medicines, including vaccines against cancer and drugs to treat a whole range of diseases, are in development, U.S. drug makers said Friday. Nearly half the drugs in development, 151 out of 350, are meant to fight cancer, the annual report by Pharmaceutical Research and and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) found. It said 140 different pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies were working on the drugs. "This is a whole new era that we are moving into, and people aren't even noticing," Dr. John Siegfried, deputy vice president for science and regulatory affairs at PhRMA, said in a telephone interview. "It's an incredibly exciting time to see disease begin to be attacked at the genetic level, at the chromosome level. My god, when I started to practice, that was unheard of. It was Buck Rogers stuff, and now it's happening." Biotechnology medicines in development include a flu vaccine being developed by Protein Sciences of Meriden, Connecticut, Chiron Corp's Proleukin skin cancer drug and Biomira Inc's cancer vaccine. Proleukin, already licensed for treating renal cell cancer that has spread throughout the body, is a genetically engineered version of interleukin-2 (IL-2), a naturally occurring immune system signaling chemical. It stimulates the body to destroy abnormal cancer cells. Biomira's vaccine alerts the body's immune system to the presence of MUC-1, a protein found on the surface of 90 percent of common solid tumors including breast, ovarian and lung cancer. It is being tested in non-small cell lung cancer, of which there are an estimated 149,000 new cases in North America each year, killing 133,000 people. "We used to think that vaccines were only for diphtheria, pertussis for kids. and all of a sudden you have tons of vaccines for cancer, as a preventive in AIDS," said Siegfried. The whole point of biotechnology is to tweak the body's own defenses, Siegfried said. "If you look at it holistically, that's really what the body's been doing all along anyway," he said. The road ahead is not all rosy, PhRMA warns. For instance, patent battles loom, such as a fight over who owns the rights to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer genes and a lawsuit over genetically altered seeds that Mycogen Plant Sciences lost against Monsanto in February. "Patent protection is really the basis of our industry and my guess is if there is a conflict in patents, which is almost inevitable in the genetic business, they are going to be very hard fought," Siegfried said. There were also ethical issues, he said. "The whole concept of messing around with genes -- people may say 'I don't want to do it but if you tell me that messing around with his genes will save my son then I am going to want to do it'," he said. There were plenty of new targets to choose from, the report, which lists all 350 new medicines, said. With an estimated 100,000 genes in the human body, and new ones being mapped daily, companies had their work laid out. "The modern tools of biotechnology, coupled with computer technology's ability to analyze massive amounts of data quickly -- help scientists determine which genes or proteins are defective," it said. "We can accomplish in the lab now in a couple of hours what used to take a year," Siegfried said. By Maggie Fox, Reuters Health and Science Correspondent Copyright 1998 Nando.net Copyright 1998 Reuters News Service janet paterson 51/10 - sinemet/selegiline/prozac almonte/ontario/canada - [log in to unmask]