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Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

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Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#31

Post by ano-ther »

EternalFury wrote: post #14

Anyone can mix chemicals in a test tube and claim it’s the cure for something. That’s the easy part. Proving it’s safe and effective, that’s what requires a lot of capital expenditure. This statement is a drastic characterization, but you could say “half a dozen PhDs can form reasons to believe they may have found a cure for something”, and the paragraph would end the same.

From the article translation it sounds like they have phase 3 data and submitted or are about to submit an application to the European Medicines Agency.

That means they have gone all the way to prove it’s safe and effective, and now have to convince the regulators.

Can anyone find the studies?

Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#32

Post by monero-xmr »

vasco wrote: post #24
EternalFury wrote: post #14

Anyone can mix chemicals in a test tube and claim it’s the cure for something. That’s the easy part. Proving it’s safe and effective, that’s what requires a lot of capital expenditure. This statement is a drastic characterization, but you could say “half a dozen PhDs can form reasons to believe they may have found a cure for something”, and the paragraph would end the same.

Since these are cancer trials I'm assuming no test subjects get paid, and university PhDs research for free, like in every other field, so what necessarily has to be expensive about it? If you have to pay 200 homeless to take your 0.0001% better than placebo antidepressants in the context of a huge corporation, and maybe redo the trial a few times, I can see how that gets expensive, but I don't see why it's a de fact…

This is the most misinformed unknowing take in all of the comments.

You can’t just recruit “200 homeless” and have it pass research standards. The homeless population is the most difficult of all to track, maintain accurate records, and even recruit for that matter. You think the homeless just line up for novel drug trials and report back for updates on a strict schedule?

You need good candidates for the trial. You need them to follow up. You need admins to properly track them and ensure it’s at least mostly accurate. Even the best trial candidates won’t follow the protocol correctly.

Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#33

Post by null08 »

EternalFury wrote: post #14

Anyone can mix chemicals in a test tube and claim it’s the cure for something. That’s the easy part. Proving it’s safe and effective, that’s what requires a lot of capital expenditure. This statement is a drastic characterization, but you could say “half a dozen PhDs can form reasons to believe they may have found a cure for something”, and the paragraph would end the same.

This article is about a phase III RCT that the hospital managed to do without major industry capital injection. This truly was a major achievement (I have been involved in a phase III RCT myself). It was published in the New England recently: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2402604

Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#34

Post by null08 »

ano-ther wrote: post #31
EternalFury wrote: post #14

Anyone can mix chemicals in a test tube and claim it’s the cure for something. That’s the easy part. Proving it’s safe and effective, that’s what requires a lot of capital expenditure. This statement is a drastic characterization, but you could say “half a dozen PhDs can form reasons to believe they may have found a cure for something”, and the paragraph would end the same.

From the article translation it sounds like they have phase 3 data and submitted or are about to submit an application to the European Medicines Agency. That means they have gone all the way to prove it’s safe and effective, and now have to convince the regulators. Can anyone find the studies?

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2402604

Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#35

Post by [deleted] »

monero-xmr wrote: post #32
vasco wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since these are cancer trials I'm assuming no test subjects get paid, and university PhDs research for free, like in every other field, so what necessarily has to be expensive about it? If you have to pay 200 homeless to take your 0.0001% better than placebo antidepressants in the context of a huge corporation, and maybe redo the trial a few times, I can see how that gets expensive, but I don't see why it's a de fact…

This is the most misinformed unknowing take in all of the comments. You can’t just recruit “200 homeless” and have it pass research standards. The homeless population is the most difficult of all to track, maintain accurate records, and even recruit for that matter. You think the homeless just line up for novel drug trials and report back for updates on a strict schedule? You need good candidates for the trial. You n…

[deleted]

Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#36

Post by kijalo »

null08 wrote: post #33
EternalFury wrote: post #14

Anyone can mix chemicals in a test tube and claim it’s the cure for something. That’s the easy part. Proving it’s safe and effective, that’s what requires a lot of capital expenditure. This statement is a drastic characterization, but you could say “half a dozen PhDs can form reasons to believe they may have found a cure for something”, and the paragraph would end the same.

This article is about a phase III RCT that the hospital managed to do without major industry capital injection. This truly was a major achievement (I have been involved in a phase III RCT myself). It was published in the New England recently: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2402604

This trial is using an existing drug in a potentially novel way (before surgery as opposed to after surgery). I dont think it really lives up the original article title.

Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#37

Post by JPLeRouzic »

vasco wrote: post #28
rahkiin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PhD candidates are paid salary in the Netherlands. Less of course than the senior trial researchers at pharma. I also would not assume there is no compensation for subjects as thats part of the medical-ethical process and not just ‘it helps the subject so no money’.

The €30k to €35k per year they make in this context approximates to free. Any normal company has to pay much more than that for less. A non-phd software engineer will get paid much more to change button colors for example. So that can't be the reason they are expensive and a PhD candidate is doing many other things than just helping to run trials.

> Any normal company has to pay much more than that for less

In most EU countries, the employee receives much less than what they cost the employer. In France, if an employee gets 30K euros, the employer has to provision ~45K Euros.

Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#38

Post by JPLeRouzic »

quantumwoke wrote: post #29
onionisafruit wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, what makes this a vaccine vs a treatment?

My wife (MD) tells me that vaccine refers to anything that induces an immune response against a pathogen or disease. In this case the vaccine causes anti-EGFR antibody production

> In this case the vaccine causes anti-EGFR antibody production

English is not my native tongue so I have some problem to parse your sentence. I prefer the writing in the publication cited above [0] even if it's probably the same meaning:

"CIMAvax-EGF is a therapeutic cancer vaccine composed of human recombinant EGF"

[0] https://aacrjournals.org/clincancerres/article/22/15/3782/79...

Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#39

Post by vasco »

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #37
vasco wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The €30k to €35k per year they make in this context approximates to free. Any normal company has to pay much more than that for less. A non-phd software engineer will get paid much more to change button colors for example. So that can't be the reason they are expensive and a PhD candidate is doing many other things than just helping to run trials.

> Any normal company has to pay much more than that for less In most EU countries, the employee receives much less than what they cost the employer. In France, if an employee gets 30K euros, the employer has to provision ~45K Euros.

What's your point? I've lived in 3 different european countries, I'm familiar with fully loaded costs, I don't see how social security changes anything. By paying more for less I mean PhDs candidates are very cheap labor for what they bring to the table.

Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

#40

Post by Gokevin »

null08 wrote: post #33
EternalFury wrote: post #14

Anyone can mix chemicals in a test tube and claim it’s the cure for something. That’s the easy part. Proving it’s safe and effective, that’s what requires a lot of capital expenditure. This statement is a drastic characterization, but you could say “half a dozen PhDs can form reasons to believe they may have found a cure for something”, and the paragraph would end the same.

This article is about a phase III RCT that the hospital managed to do without major industry capital injection. This truly was a major achievement (I have been involved in a phase III RCT myself). It was published in the New England recently: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2402604

Supported by Bristol Myers Squibb;
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