Article on the genesis of Adherex Technology - novel safe cancer pharmaceuticals

Prof. Orest Blaschuk, McGill University
founder of Adherex and a most prolific inventor

Originally from the Ottawa Citizen, by James Bagnall, this superb article describes the early days of Adherex, its merger with Oxiquant and moreover a succinct description of why Cadherin antagonists have such astounding promise as cancer pharmaceuticals - safely destroying a useful % of a targeted class of solid tumors, with few to no side effects, nor any toxicity observed in phase 1 FDA (where a large tumor was apparently completely destroyed). on AMEX on TSX

POSTSCRIPT March 9th 2007 - since the early 2006 posting of this blog article, ADH-1 has been found to be largely complementary to conventional chemos - where conventional chemos seem to attack mostly e-cadherin tumor tissue, conventional chemos seem largely to not treat / destroy n-cadherin marked tumor tissue that ADH-1 seems to target so effectively.

While ADH-1 is almost perfectly safe (natural human metabolic pathway, from its basic human natural source) ADH-1 will likely find its home in combo therapy with conventional chemos that target specific tumors and will likely it seems change prognoses quite markedly for the better in quite a few tumor types. (based on early preliminary non clinical tests described in Adherex public conference calls)

ALSO the expertise of Dr. Peters and Norris is evidently profound - with Adherex's apparent quick technical fix to Glaxo's misfire on Glaxo's ~$80m development of 5FU/Eniluracil, Peters and his team have demonstrated in a mouse model the proper ratios of 5FU to Eniluracil fix most all the problems Glaxo saw and Adherex did this in ALL OF 3-4 months to mouse data reported!!

Adherex's 5FU/Eniluracil program will likely be an excellent PATENTABLE advance in orally administered "conventional" chemotherapy.

MY compliments to the superb ADHEREX TEAM !!

I will also point out that i HATE hollow investments touted as innovative and implied as successful in commercial mileu. REAL innovation is by dint of observation of careful methodical experiment and in Biotech is often NOT the result of expensive COMBINATORIAL shotgun experiments - by inexperienced wannabees. Careful scientific advances of commercial import come from keen observation and relevant skills - beating the well monied time and time again.

Another notable advance looming is in possible reversing of Diabetes by a team at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto with pedigree in research dating back to the discovery of insulin. ALL DONE ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET, just like Orest was largely underfunded, the Toronto advance was done with a simple experiment first killing excess neurons in the pancreas with pepper extract capsaicin, and then injecting a neuropeptide to kick insulin regulation back into operation, tested for 4 months revival. So far just done with a mouse model, but with potentially huge implications for a possible real cure to diabetes. INNOVATIONS by real experts rather than "purported advances" by wannabees as is more common with Biotech.

Here is the news release from the hospital that did the actual early novel diabetes studies - Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto

http://www.sickkids.ca/mediaroom/custom/diabetesopen06.asp

The key researchers - some profiles

http://www.sickkids.ca/HSCdirectory/personalprofile.asp?pID=2345&sID=1104&s=Research+Programs&ssID=378&ss=Neurosciences+%26+Mental+Health


http://www.canadianpaincoalition.ca/index.php/en/about-us/board-of-directors/micheal-salter


I will also remark that there are hints that MS might be treatable by comparable means - where capsaicin might be able to change outcomes of MS, but this is mere speculation on my part ( ie possibly by killing defective nerves and stimulating healthy regrowth? or limiting further degradation, although the means for effective targeted delivery to specific sites of early damage is not a minor problem technically, but one might hypothesize that MS was initially localized neurological damage that if caught early could in fact be treated before spreading significantly by eliminating the damaged regions.??? I have to explore
this a bit more to come down from the wild ass stratosphere .... )

[ Aug 19th 2007, I happened to stumble on a goldmine re MS understanding. In short MS seems to be associated with a type of viral infection, in early stage of the understanding. Here are some relevant web sites - 2 blogs and the research group site of a leading researcher in this area of understanding Multiple Sclerosis :

hervs-and-multiple-sclerosis-part-1
hervs-and-multiple-sclerosis-part-2
some background on endogenous retroviruses
endogenous-retroviruses-and-evidence

and a researcher leading the way to the understanding correlation between a viral infection and multiple sclerosis (ie that a specific viral infection causes Multiple Sclerosis ) - Prof. Christopher Power MD, at the University of Alberta Department of Neurology... brainpowerlab ]

And yes I like identifying real innovations.... outperform the speculators and pumpers, with real advances analysed and followed closely. That is investing.

I am happy to help any and all in doing due diligence on any prospective tech or bio investment. Contact me through comments for further discussions (I will not publish your inquiries)

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