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A new drug against leukemia
The European Commission and the European Patent Organisation (EPO)
recently revealed some of the nominees for the 2009 edition of the European
Inventor of the Year. In the category ‘Industry’, the winners are
Jürg Zimmermann and Brian Druker, two medical researchers from Novartis, for
their work on a new drug to fight Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML).
Leukemia is a cancer of the bone marrow and blood that affects
around 66,000 people in Europe every year. CML is a form of this cancer that is
extremely painful and can strike anybody at any age. 95% of patients with CML
have an abnormally short ‘Philadelphia’ chromosome, which is
responsible for the overproduction of white blood cells in the body as a result
of the fusion of two proteins called BCR-ABL.
The path to a treatment for this life threatening disease was a long
one: identification of the Philadelphia chromosome started in the 60s, with the
first clinical trials for a new drug in the late 90s. The new drug developed by
Zimmermann and Druker (Imatinib / Glivec®) is crucial to stabilising patient blood
formula and fighting CML. Moreover, it has the advantage of targeting diseased
cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed. As Zimmermann explains, a good drug
molecule is one that is the key that opens and locks a door but does not close
or open other doors, therefore diminishing a lot of the side effects for the
patient. A patent application (Pyrimidin derivatives and process for their
preparation) was made for the molecule structures offering an appropriate
‘key’ effect for the treatment of cancers, among other things.
They allow the ‘locking’ of the inhibitor (Imatinib) on the
BCR-ABL proteins to stop their activity. Whereas previous treatments were very
aggressive and didn’t guarantee recovery, the new drug allows the
stabilisation of the blood formula and contributes to a very high rate of
remission with less than 5% of patients experiencing negative side
effects.
Patent
Application on Esp@cenet
European
Patent Office press release
IPR-Helpdesk
related news
Crystal structure of the c-abl kinase domain (in green) in complex
with the imatinib (in red).
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