No pseudomonas vaccine

[Marjolein]

I just saw a newsitem somewhere on internet about the vaccine against Pseudomonas Aeruginosa.

<i>Crucell stopt with the development of a vaccine against Pseudomonas Aeruginosa in patients with Cystic Fibrosis. From tests on 476 patients from four countries, of which a part got a placebo, became clear that Aerugen is insufficiently effective.

Earlier clinical studies showed to be succefull. Aerugen seemed to be able to keep Pseudomonas Aeruginosa away from people with Cystic Fibrosis.

Crucell got the candidate vaccine when they took over Berna Biotech from Switzerland. According to the company the decision has no influence on the income this year.
</i>

I translated it from Dutch, i don't know if there is an article in English somewhere on the net too. The last line isn't really necessary. But i posted it anyway.


Hopefully the next time a company gets another breakthrough it will be succesfull!

 

[JazzysMom]

Thank you for the update as well as the translation!

 

[NoExcuses]

For everyone who complains about drug prices, this is a great example as to why prices are the way that they are.

There are countless examples where millions of dollars are poured into drug development only to have them turn out to be ineffective. And there's no way of knowing until you get through the various phases of clinical trials.

This poor company has lost millions now with no hope of recouping cost for this drug. So what has to happen? They have to recover the costs from the sales of other drugs.

If they couldn't do this (like they can't in Europe and Canada due to price caps), research and development would come to a screeching halt.

Thank God the United States still allows the market to determine pharmaceutical costs or else we Cystic Fibrosis patients would be in for a much longer journey in discovering new meds to treat our disease. The reality is that the United States subsidizes research and development for the rest of the world. So if we adopted the same socialist policies as other developed countries in the world, there would be even LESS of an incentive for drug companies to develop drugs for CF.

It's a harsh reality, but it's true folks.

 

[Marjolein]

Another article about this (in English)

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://today.reuters.com/stocks/QuoteCompanyNewsArticle.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-07-18T071053Z_01_L18485647_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-CRUCELL-UPDATE-1.XML&rpc=66">Article</a>