DailyDirt: In The Long Run, We're All Dead

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If you're looking for some good data to put into an infographic, it's not too hard to find statistics on death. Reliable stats of how people died go back quite a ways, too. Sure, it's a bit morbid, but most people don't think about dying until they're close to doing it. So if you're curious, check out a few of these visualizations on how we die.

• The leading causes of death have changed significantly since 1900, so the flu (or pneumonia) isn't killing off as many Americans as it used to. Instead, heart disease and cancer have replaced the flu/pneumonia and tuberculosis. [url]
• What are the odds? Dying of heart disease has relatively common 467:1 odds -- compared to dying from cycling (340,845:1) or an asteroid impact (74,817,414:1). [url]
• Another infographic on how the world died (in the 20th century) shows non-communicable diseases and infectious diseases are obviously really deadly, but so are wars and drugs. It could be difficult to change these stats. Medical technology could wipe out some diseases, but we haven't cured old age.... [url]
• Is it worth it to try to minimize your risks of dying? If you want to try, remember to focus on the activities that are actually high risk, not the spectacular deaths that don't kill that many people (eg. stepladders vs terrorism). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: accidents, cancer, data, death, flu, health, heart disease, infographics, non-communicable diseases, pneumonia, risk, statistics, tuberculosis

DailyDirt: Fighting Cancer

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The fight against cancer is a tough one, but new treatments are coming along that might put an end to more forms of it. For example, Google X (aka Google[x]) is working on a way to target cancer cells with nanoparticles and a wearable device. That sounds like pretty far out research, but there are a lot of different approaches to tackling cancer. Here are just a few promising ones.

• Genetically engineered T cells have been re-programmed to kill off other blood cells that might become cancerous. Patients with deadly leukemia have been treated with these modified T cells, and it looks like a promising treatment which could be modified to work against other cancers. [url]
• An experimental protein therapy might stop the metastasis of certain cancers and offer an alternative to chemotherapy. Modified proteins have stopped the spread of breast and ovarian cancers in lab mice, but testing has not yet been done in humans. [url]
• Some "zombie bacteria" (genetically modified anthrax) can be used as a drug delivery system for cancerous cells that are typically difficult to target. Cancer-fighting anthrax is being tested on mice, and this strategy might help expand the number of drugs available to treat recalcitrant tumors. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: cancer, chemotherapy, drug delivery, genetically modified anthrax, gmo, health, leukemia, nanotech, protein therapy, tumor, zombie bacteria
Companies: google

Crowdfunding A Patent-Free Drug For Treating Cancer

from the here's-how-it's-done dept

Here on Techdirt we've been pretty scathing about the way that Big Pharma develops drugs -- often poorly -- and then uses patent monopolies to keep prices so high that only rich Westerners can afford them. Of course, it's easy to complain about the flaws of the current approach, but are there any alternatives? We've already covered one -- using prizes - and now Carl Levinson points us to another potentially powerful approach: crowdsourcing. It's already been adopted by 'Project Marilyn' to develop a patent-free anti-cancer drug:

The campaign will fund a xenograft experiment, which is the next step in developing the promising anti-cancer compound "9DS". This experiment needs to be completed before 9DS can move on to clinical trials.

Here are some more details of both the drug and the project:

The drug candidate 9DS was developed at the University of Maryland. The last work done on the drug showed that it had activity against cancer competitive with leading cancer drugs such as taxol. Moreover, 9DS is also likely to have lower side effects than most chemotherapies, since a related compound, SJG-136, seems to have low side effects in early clinical trials.

Project Marilyn involves: production of more 9DS, and submitting 9DS to a xenograft study ('curing cancer in mice'). This is the next step in drug development and an important one on the way to doing clinical (human) studies. The process we're seeking to fund should take approximately 6 months. If we receive more funding, we will add stretch goals, such as further preclinical experiments on 9DS, development 9DS analogs, or other exciting anti-cancer ideas.

Of course, even if enough money is raised -- at the time of writing, just over a quarter of the crowdfunding target has been pledged -- there's still much more work to be done before the drug can be sold to the public. An article in the Times of San Diego explains what will happen next:

Provided that the xenograft study goes well, 9DS will move into further preclinical trials, possibly through a collaboration with a for-profit company. Research and development at the later stages costs between $1 million and $10 million and will likely not be crowdfunded.

Due the drug's patent status, the threat of competition is likely to keep the price of 9DS low, regardless of a partnership with a for-profit company. Currently, when a drug loses its patent status, the price can come down ten-fold, according to [project leader Dr. Isaac] Yonemoto.

It's only a small-scale project, but it's exciting to see new funding models being tried out for drug development. Moreover, the Times of San Diego reports that Yonemoto wants his site indysci.org to host further crowdfunded projects, both from himself and other researchers. Let's hope enough pledges are made, and that others do indeed start to build on the idea.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: cancer, clinical trials, crowdfunding, drug development, drugs, patents

Magical 'Cancer Cure' Wins EFF's Stupid Patent Of The Month

from the curing-cancer dept

Good news everyone! The Patent Office has granted a patent on a cure for cancer.

Last December, the Patent Office issued Patent No. 8,609,158 on a “potent drug” that “rebukes cancer, cancer cells, and kills cancer.” According to the patent, this drug cures a litany of other maladies. What is this wonderful invention, you ask? It is a combination of “evening primrose oil, rice, sesame seeds, green beans, coffee, meat, cheese, milk, green tea extract, evening primrose seeds, and wine.” As the patent’s abstract says, “it works.” 

There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the person who filed this application. But the patent examiner could and should have rejected it on any number of grounds, including enablement, indefiniteness, and utility. Why would the examiner issue the patent despite its clear infirmities? The answer to that question reveals the fundamental imbalance at the heart of the patent system.

This patent’s most obvious flaw is lack of utility – there’s no proof that the invention works. But the system places the burden of proof on the Patent Office, not the person asking for a 20 year monopoly. The examiner likely decided a rejection was not worth the effort – frankly, we wonder whether the examiner even read the application. In a similar case, the Patent Office issued a patent to an applicant whose work was widely known to be fraudulent. (The purported inventor had even spent time in jail for the fraud.) As Professor James Grimmelmann observed at the time: “The USPTO is an armory handing out legal howitzers on the honor system. What could possibly go wrong?”

The patent system also provides inadequate review of the crucial questions of anticipation and obviousness, i.e. is the patent really a new invention? Buried by hundreds of thousands of applications, the Patent Office can preform only a cursory review of each one. Examiners spend an average of only 19 hours per application (assuming that the claimed hours are real) and only a portion of that time is spent on the difficult and time consuming task of searching for prior art. Recent research confirmed that “examiners are more likely to approve marginal inventions when pressed for time.”

Despite this plainly inadequate review, granted patents are powerful litigation weapons. An issued patent, even Patent No. 8,609,915, is presumed valid and can only be invalidated in court with clear and convincing evidence. This is part of the reason why defending a patent suit is so expensive, even when the patent is weak. Patent trolls use this as leverage to extort settlements.

This month’s winning patent may be something of an outlier. But finding other bad patents is not difficult. Our (dis)honorable mentions this month include the recent patents US 8,793,159, US 8,793,178, and US 8,793,183. (Each of these patents, despite being issued after the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank, merely ties an abstract business process to a computer.) Whether we consider this month’s stupid patent or the runners-up, it’s clear we need fundamental reform to stop the flood of bad patents.

Reposted from EFF's Stupid Patent of the Month

Filed Under: cancer, cure, examiners, patents, stupid patent of the month, usefulness, uspto
Companies: eff

DailyDirt: How Old Can People Get?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some biblical characters lived for hundreds of years. (eg. Methuselah lived to be 969.) However, people living now don't quite get that old. Aging is a mysterious process that is slowly killing everyone, and there are more than a few projects working on ways to avoid death. Immortality could be a blessing or a curse, and maybe someday we'll find out which it is.

• Suspended animation is a real medical procedure, and some techniques are being tested in emergency rooms. The FDA has approved a procedure that will be used at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital to replace near-fatal patients' blood with a cold saline solution. The process stops the patient's body from doing normal things like breathing, but patients can be revived hours later from a death-like state. [url]
• The Methuselah Foundation has a few projects to develop regenerative medicine that might allow people to live longer, healthier lives. Regrowing organs, developing custom chemotherapies based on a patient's DNA, and studying long-lived animals could help extend human lifespans. [url]
• Google funded an anti-aging startup in 2013 called Calico. Larry Page noted at its launch that "curing cancer" might not be a good enough goal because death might only be delayed a few years, even with a cure for cancer. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: aging, anti-aging, cancer, death, immortality, larry page, methuselah, regenerative medicine, suspended animation
Companies: calico, methuselah foundation

DailyDirt: Terrible Tumors

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Radiolab had a fascinating episode on famous tumors that aired recently (again). Cancer is usually a pretty grim topic, but there are some incredibly interesting facets of cancer if you can forget about its lethal nature. If you haven't known anyone who has battled cancer, consider yourself lucky. But cancer is a leading cause of death, so it may be unavoidable to encounter this disease at some point in your life. In the meantime, here are just a few tidbits about tumors that you might not have seen.

• The family of Henrietta Lacks has come to an agreement with the National Institutes of Health on how the genome data from HeLa cells should be distributed. Hela cells are cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks that are a de facto standard in biotechnology, but genomic data from these cells also contain genetic information on all of her descendants. [url]
• In Australia, devil facial tumor disease is a contagious form of cancer that is killing off Tasmanian devils at concerning rate. The Tazmanian devil could be extinct in a few decades, but a vaccine against this cancer could be available in time to save these animals. [url]
• Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) may be the oldest known cancer -- estimated to have originated between 200 and 2,500 years ago in a single animal. CTVT is a common, non-lethal cancer that has spread to all dog breeds all over the world -- and its existence raises questions about the nature of cancer and how cancer evolves. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: biotech, cancer, canine transmissible venereal tumor, contagious, ctvt, devil facial tumor disease, hela, henrietta lacks, tasmanian devil, tumors
Companies: nih

Myriad Mocks Supreme Court's Ruling On Gene Patents; Sues New Competitors Doing Breast Cancer Tests

from the chutzpah dept

Remember how, just a month ago, the Supreme Court had struck down gene patents in the Myriad case? If you don't recall, Myriad claimed, effectively, to have patented the isolated BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are indicators of a likelihood for developing breast cancer. As such, they blocked anyone else from doing tests to find those two genes, and charged a whopping $4,000 or so for anyone who wanted the test. The Supreme Court, thankfully, tossed out those claims, noting that Myriad "did not create or alter any of the genetic information" in those genes, and that if found valid, it would "give it the exclusive right to isolate an individual’s BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes." That's obviously crazy, so it was good that the Supreme Court rejected those claims.

Immediately after that, a few competitors jumped into the space, offering BRCA1 and BRCA2 testing -- for significantly lower prices. And, Myriad wasted very little time in suing them all for patent infringement. Huh? The short version is that Myriad claims that the Supreme Court merely removed five total claims out of its patents, and it still has 515 remaining claims across 24 patents -- and these tests violate those:

As of the morning of June 13, 2013, Plaintiffs collectively had 24 patents containing 520 claims concerning two genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2), and methods of use and synthetic compositions of matter related thereto. On June 13, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that five patent claims covering isolated naturally occurring DNA were not patent-eligible, thereby reducing the overall patent estate to 24 patents and 515 patent claims. This case involves none of those five rejected claims.

The filing goes on to suggest that the Supreme Court ruling really didn't mean very much at all. In many ways, this really does appear to be Myriad giving the middle finger to the Supreme Court. As Tim Lee notes, if Myriad's interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling is correct, then the Court's ruling is effectively meaningless, because Myriad (and anyone else) can effectively write patents for genes by just changing how they structure the patents:

The patent claims the Supreme Court invalidated last month were “composition of matter” claims, covering the chemical structure of the BRCA genes. But Myriad’s patents also have “method” claims covering processes for diagnosing breast cancer. And while these patents use different language than the composition-of-matter patents the high court invalidated, their practical effect on the genetic testing market could be very similar.

Consider Patent 6,951,721, one of the patents cited by Myriad in its lawsuit against competitor Ambry Genetics. It claims the concept of diagnosing breast cancer by “determining the nucleotide sequence of the BRCA1 gene” from a “female individual” and then checking for mutations at specific points on the gene. The patent isn’t limited to any particular technology for isolating or sequencing the patient’s BRCA1 gene. So while it’s not technically a patent on the BRCA1 gene, it might as well be.

Of course, as you look over the details, it seems like Myriad is still going to be in trouble. Effectively, the claims it's relying on may appear to be more similar to a patent on the diagnostic process itself. But, that's a problem for Myriad, because in the big Prometheus Labs case, which the Supreme Court decided a year ago, and which it relied on in the Myriad case itself, medical diagnostics aren't patentable either.

It seems like Myriad is just trying to squeeze some more money out of these patents before it gets smacked down again. Of course, not everyone agrees. Dennis Crouch seems to think they have a "very strong case," while PubPat's outspoken Dan Ravicher feels otherwise:

PubPat director Dan Ravicher, e-mailing Ars from Beijing, described Myriad's new suits as a way to save face with Wall Street. He said the Supreme Court decision was a "total loss" for Myriad, and the synthetic cDNA they are focused on now is not needed for genetic testing. "I am confident they will lose these cases, too, so long as the defendants have the financial resources and institutional desire to fight," said Ravicher.

Of course, it's that last bit that's the challenge. Any such case will take years and millions of dollars. And, during that time some may just choose to settle, and if lower courts side with Myriad and issue injunctions it can be a big risk for the competitors in the space. The end result may work in Myriad's favor even if these cases are completely bogus: it's likely to scare away competitors, and keep the prices of its breast cancer gene tests very high, making it much more likely people will die. I do wonder how Myriad's execs look at themselves in the mirror. There is no reason for doing what they're doing other than to enrich themselves, while ensuring that more women will die from undetected breast cancer. Sickening.

While the FTC has claimed that it's going to go after patent trolls, this seems like another situation where they, along with the DOJ, should also look into Myriad. While it may not be a traditional "troll," there's certainly a strong argument to be made that the company is abusing patents in a manner this is likely to lead to much higher prices for consumers, especially following the Supreme Court rejecting the very premise that they're now relying on in these new lawsuits -- that no one but Myriad can offer tests for BRCA1 and BRCA2. One hopes that the FTC decides to expand its "investigations" into companies like Myriad.

Filed Under: brca1, brca2, breast cancer, cancer, gene patents, lawsuits, patents
Companies: myriad genetics

DailyDirt: Putting An End To Cancer...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Cancer isn't a single specific disease that can be cured with a universal treatment because there are many, many different kinds of cancers. Just about any multi-cellular organism can suffer from cancer, but the occurrence of cancer in some species is remarkably low -- leading scientists to study those animals to find out why -- to see if there might be a strategy for preventing cancers in mammals like us. Here are just a few interesting links on cancer research.

• Naked mole rats are cancer-resistant rodents, and that resistance could be due to a complex sugar called hyaluronan. This sugar exists in some form in all animals, but the naked mole rat's hyaluronan is unusual because the enzymes that normally break it down aren't very active in naked mole rats. [url]
• Cancer in insects has been reported for decades. So even if cockroaches can survive a nuclear war, they're not immune to cancer. [url]
• Despite published books with titles like "Sharks (Still) Don’t Get Cancer", sharks actually *do* get cancer. This myth has killed countless sharks as snake oil salesmen push shark cartilage as a natural cure for cancer (even though it isn't). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: cancer, cure, disease, hyaluronan, insects, medicine, myth, naked mole rat, sharks

Australian Court Says Genes Are Patentable

from the sweat-of-the-brow? dept

While the US Supreme Court will soon be weighing in on whether or not genes are patentable in the Myriad Genetics case, we've also been following a similar case in Australia. There, a bunch of cancer patients took Myriad to court, arguing that the patent on BRCA1 is invalid (this same gene is part of the US case). Unfortunately, the court has decided that genes are, in fact, patentable if they've been isolated. This is always the key point of contention with gene patent supporters. They claim that it's the fact that they can separate the gene that makes their work patentable. In some ways this is an odd sort of "sweat of the brow" argument for patents -- and here, the judge is buying the argument completely. He says that patenting genes in the human body would be a problem... but isolating them magically makes it a different story.

There is no doubt that naturally occurring DNA and RNA as they exist inside the cells of the human body cannot be the subject of a valid patent. However, the disputed claims do not cover naturally occurring DNA and RNA as they exist inside such cells. The disputed claims extend only to naturally occurring DNA and RNA which have been extracted from cells obtained from the human body and purged of other biological materials with which they were associated.

This still seems ridiculous to me. If others figure out how to get an isolated gene as well, why should that be subject to a patent? Hopefully this is not a preview of the US Supreme Court's upcoming ruling.

Filed Under: australia, brca1, breast cancer, cancer, genes, patents
Companies: myriad, myriad genetics

Harvard Research Scientist: Sharing Discoveries More Efficient, More Honorable Than Patenting Them

from the my-hero dept

Meet Jay Bradner, Harvard research scientist, who disovered a promising molecule that may represent a step forward in the fight against cancer and decided to put science before fortune, because he's a human being. Oh, and also because he suggests that going the patent route would be less efficient and less honorable.

Two years ago, after Jay Bradner made a remarkable breakthrough—the discovery of a molecule that, in mice, appeared to trick certain cancer cells into becoming normal cells—he did something unusual. Instead of huddling with lawyers to file for a patent on the molecule, Bradner simply gave his work away. Hoping to get the discovery into the hands of any scientist who could advance it, he published the structure of the compound (called JQ1) and mailed samples to labs around the world. The move, he says, felt like “the more efficient way to do science—and maybe the more honorable way.”

More efficient. More honorable. It's a small example of the potential destruction for both prongs of the pro-patent argument. If it makes science more efficient to not patent, there goes promoting the progress. If it's more honorable, there goes the moral argument. And, unlike some pharma companies, I'm not even going to make patents the key point here: Bradner's focus is on helping people. Do we get the same sense from the crowd patenting their drugs, their medical diagnostic techniques, and anything else they can get their hands on?

Now, lest you write this off as some minor discovery that Bradner made, this molecule would likely have made him a great deal of money.

The monopoly on developing the molecule that Bradner walked away from would likely have been worth a fortune (last year, the median value for U.S.-based biotech companies was $370 million). Now four companies are building on his discovery—which delights Bradner, who this year released four new molecules. “For years, drug discovery has been a dark art performed behind closed doors with the shades pulled,” he says. “I would be greatly satisfied if the example of this research contributed to a change in the culture of drug discovery.”

This puts Bradner firmly on my hero list. Here's hoping he succeeds in helping to change the biomedical culture.

Filed Under: cancer, jay bradner, medical, patents, research