Defense Contract Could Benefit Leukemia Patients
A multi-million dollar government contract awarded to develop a treatment for military personnel attacked with radioactive weapons could also benefit leukemia patients whose bodies reject bone marrow transplants.
Osiris Therapeutics, Inc (NASDAQ: OSIR) will receive up to $224.7M from the US Department of Defense to speed development of Prochymal™, an intravenous drug designed to treat people accidentally or maliciously exposed to radiation. A portion of the funds will go to the Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ) which is helping Osiris develop the drug.
Aside from its potential military applications, Prochymal™ is in late-stage human trials investigating its effectiveness as treatment for a potentially fatal inflammatory condition called graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) which commonly afflicts blood cancer patients after bone marrow transplants.
The drug is manufactured from mesenchymal stem cells extracted from healthy adult bone marrow. These extracted cells replace damaged cells in the patient helping restore their body’s repair functions.
Executives at the biotechnology company believe the Pentagon contract will facilitate the company’s efforts to develop the product for the treatment of a variety of diseases. As one company official explained,
“If you can clear the hurdles to get into the market, you make it easier for the rest of the therapies to reach patients.”
C. Randal Mills, PhD
Chief Executive Officer, Osiris Therapeutics
Osiris plans to seek US Food and Drug Administration approval for Prochymal™ as a GvHD treatment by the end of the 2008 and a radiation exposure treatment in 2009. The company is also evaluating the drug as a potential therapy for Type I diabetes and Crohn’s disease.
If you’re interested in learning more about clinical trials open to leukemia patients in the United States, you can find out more at ClinicalTrials.gov.
Source: washingtonpost.com
Related Links: National Marrow Donor Program; msnbc.com; National Foundation for Transplants; Cancer Research UK
Related Podcast: New treatments fight GVHD in bone marrow transplant patients from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center
Tags: hematologic oncology; pharmaceutical companies; bioterrorism
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