Does Pharma want to hook you for life on a CLL drug?

[Guest guest]

Well, I think this is sort of a silly post, and I'll tell you why.

Years ago, we had only bias-belted tires. You'd be lucky to get 15,000 miles on

them. The tire companies should have stopped there. Instead, they developed

radial, steel-belted tires that can easily take you more than 50,000 miles.

Are they stupid? They had you over a barrel!

Well, the human mind is never content. Companies saw a way of selling more

tires; giving a better product at a competitive price (that's called

capitalism). So they did. And, believe it or not, we still have tire

companies! Hard to believe!

Here's another example. A huge breakthrough in diabetes treatment happened when

insulin was developed. The pharmaceutical companies had you over a barrel! A

daily shot was necessary to keep you alive. They should have stopped then!

But no, these silly companies were competing with one another (that pesky

capitalism again). They developed oral drugs, insulin pumps, and even now are

stupidly continuing research on islet cell transplants.

What are they thinking? If they are successful, they will put themselves out of

the insulin business!

And now onto CLL. Once these kinase inhibitors such as CAL-101 and the

catchy-named PCI-32765 are approved, maybe the drug companies will stop all

research! They could never look at the disease again, and just shovel in the

money. It's better than heroin!

Of course, they have to put the kibosh on researchers such as Drs. Keating,

Kipps, Croce and others. I'm sure those men and women will willing stop

researching once the nice drug companies ask them to.

And, once the patents expire, and generic drugs are offered, the prices will go

down. Making the big drug companies so sad

And, weren't horses good enough anyway???

*********************

trials for slowly progressed patients

Posted by: " Al Janski "

aljanski@...

 

Re: Need Help With Understanding New Test Results

At 04:03 AM 2/2/2011, Terry Hamblin MD FMedSci wrote:

>We are at a tipping point in the treatment of

>CLL. There are several kinase and other enzyme

>inhibitors in clinical trial at present and

>depending on the outcome of trials these may

>become the standard of care. They do not seem

>to eliminate the disease completely, but they

>reduce it to a manageable level where it does

>not cause symptoms. This may be an acceptable

>strategy - especially for the pharmaceutical houses.

*****************

Might that strategy then be an incentive for

those pharmaceutical companies to propose study

designs that would 'reduce' disease but not eliminate disease?