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Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

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Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#81
post #76
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of $4,000 doesn't take into account R&D costs, which must be recuperated in the drug's price.

It also doesn't take into account marketing costs, which also must be recuperated in the drug's price, and are much bigger then the R&D costs...

You think that is also true for leukemia drugs/treatments?

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#82
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, given that cancer cells do not evolve between individuals (as opposed to bacteria and virii), if we are to find a efficient immunological treatment it's going to stay efficient. If anything, we will evolve for our cancers to respond better to it.

Well, until you deal with super cancer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease

Wow, that's an actual transmissible cancer, not a transmissible trigger.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can explain the first quote. In a universal donor scenario, the T-cells are engineered, error corrected and tested once. From there, they can be multiplied pretty cheaply. Most of the cost is in the initial engineering. In a patient cell scenario, each individual patient's cells must be engineered, tested and delivered. This is obviously much more expensive. A very crude computer science analogy would be the differ…

The treatment also requires a bone marrow transplant (which requires destroying the patient's immune system). It's a lot of medical care.

Are you sure? I don't find that claim in the articles or report. The bone marrow procedures seem performed in the context of the chemotherapy treatment - which failed in combination. They dont seem to indicate how necessary or unnecessary that combination was to this treatments success here.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#84
post #76
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of $4,000 doesn't take into account R&D costs, which must be recuperated in the drug's price.

It also doesn't take into account marketing costs, which also must be recuperated in the drug's price, and are much bigger then the R&D costs...

Nobody invests in marketing unless the ROI is >100%. The marketing activity funds itself unless somebody screwed up.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#85
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd want to eliminate as many potential confounding variables as possible. If they took the control group from another hospital, maybe that other hospital does something that improves or hurts their chances. Even if you pull from the same hospital, just being in the study might change the treatment they get in subtle ways. There's also the issue of blinding. If the control group is some outside group, then you know…

With something like cancer which has a wide geographical coverage, and more or less standardised treatments, couldn't you get a good result from including everyone in hospital X in a treatment and comparing to the general public?

No, cancer does not have standardized treatments. The remission rates vary greatly depending on the hospital and even on the doctor.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#86
post #35

Does anyone here know which companies are looking for software engineers to help with this kind of stuff?

Novartis, mentioned in the article would be one. Companies that partner with those like Novartis would be some more. The needs would be both "data-ish," running databases and studies, as well as medical device control software. Lots of breadth and depth, start looking around.

Follow press releases from company to mentioned company would be one way to start looking.

Another way would be to ask the FDA: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfPMN/pmn...

Searching in that form for "immunology" in the Panel field yields 500 results, and lots of companies.

That link also points to other databases.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The treatment also requires a bone marrow transplant (which requires destroying the patient's immune system). It's a lot of medical care.

Are you sure? I don't find that claim in the articles or report. The bone marrow procedures seem performed in the context of the chemotherapy treatment - which failed in combination. They dont seem to indicate how necessary or unnecessary that combination was to this treatments success here.

The "Subject 1" and "Subject 2" sections of the paper both speak of persistent malignancy in bone marrow.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#88
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, can't simple take some (or all) other children who are going through "just chemo" in any other hospital, or even in the same hospital? I think there are plenty of children in the world that are doing (suffering?) chemo everyday.

You'd want to eliminate as many potential confounding variables as possible. If they took the control group from another hospital, maybe that other hospital does something that improves or hurts their chances. Even if you pull from the same hospital, just being in the study might change the treatment they get in subtle ways. There's also the issue of blinding. If the control group is some outside group, then you know…

You don't need blinding for cancer trials

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#89
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With something like cancer which has a wide geographical coverage, and more or less standardised treatments, couldn't you get a good result from including everyone in hospital X in a treatment and comparing to the general public?

No, cancer does not have standardized treatments. The remission rates vary greatly depending on the hospital and even on the doctor.

Huh...? There are standard treatment protocols.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#90
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is author serious with this statement? Whether or not this author is serious, there are many people who are deadly serious about this sort of thing. It's one of the main reasons that, for example, marijuana has been kept illegal despite the overwhelming evidence that it is less dangerous than either alcohol or cigarettes: legalizing pot is bad for established business interests. It's the reason that credit card tra…

Farther back in the history of the demonization of marijuana you'll find it's connected to an argument used by fundamental Christians, Evangelical Christians, related to demons, spirits and the spirit world. Now combine that with fundamental republican right.

Prohibition may have been pushed using a Christian narrative but only because it made it an appealing message for the wider population that wasn't going to just take "look, we can sell way more paper and cigarettes now" as justification.
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