http://www.globalwatchservice.com/pages/TwoColumns.aspx?PageID=439&ProfileID=1010&UseRef=False

Heres a recommendation from Hoods mind you since then ERX has had a bit of dilution, but i would not say no to 7.75p

PH can you put it bullet notes all the things expected and rough time scales?

Press Release News | Home

Researchers Advancing Blood Cancer Therapies Receive $42.75 Million in Grants From The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Posted on : Mon, 23 Oct 2006 11:04:00 GMT | Author : The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
News Category : PressRelease


WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society today announced it has awarded four new Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) grants, the Society's most ambitious and synergistic research initiative, bringing the program's total funding to $159 million since its inception in 2000.

Three of this year's SCOR recipients will receive $1.25 million per year for five years, for a total of $6.25 million, and one will receive $1.05 million per year for five years, for a total of $5.25 million. In addition, the Society is renewing three existing SCORs for five more years.


The innovative SCOR program brings together teams of researchers representing different disciplines in a collaborative effort to discover new approaches to treat patients with leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma. Awards go to those groups that best demonstrate outstanding scientific promise and the synergy that will occur from their combined efforts.

"The four SCOR recipients selected this year have assembled teams that are pursuing new targets for drug therapy," said Marshall Lichtman, M.D., the Society's executive vice president, Research & Medical Programs. "In addition to lymphoma, acute myelogenous and lymphocytic leukemia, two understudied problems, infant leukemia and the myeloproliferative diseases are being investigated. The latter diseases are essentially three different forms of chronic myelogenous leukemia. A recently described mutation common to the myeloproliferative diseases provides an opportunity to develop the first specific treatment of these disorders. These SCOR grants represent an impressive addition of outstanding scientists and scientific goals to the Society's Specialized Centers program."

The recipients for 2006 are:

Frederick W. Alt, PhD., Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at Children's Hospital Boston; Janeway Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School; Scientific Director of the CBR Institute for Biomedical Research. Dr. Alt received the Society's de Villiers International Achievement Award last year for his seminal work in immune cell function, genetic instability in cancer, and the DNA repair process that can prevent cancer-causing mutations. His SCOR will focus on the causes of B cell lymphomas and the development of new therapies for these tumors. To develop more effective treatments, Dr. Alt's team will focus on two fundamental properties of malignant B cells: B cell receptor (BCR) signaling and DNA repair-associated genetic abnormalities. They will identify pre-disposing genetic factors that are likely to serve as molecular targets for new therapies. The SCOR team also includes researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Carolyn A. Felix, MD, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Felix's research concentrates on improving the dismal outcome for infants with leukemia -- these blood cancers are characterized by chromosomal abnormalities called translocations which involve the breakage and abnormal recombination of a gene called MLL (Mixed Lineage Leukemia) with one of many partner genes. Dr. Felix's SCOR team will characterize the MLL leukemia stem cell from which all other leukemia cells derive, identify and develop agents that specifically target cells with MLL translocations, and learn in which infants these new drugs are most likely to be effective. Her team comprises researchers from the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Center at Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University and Tulane University. The multi-faceted, multi-institutional team will collaborate with and access critical resources of the Children's Oncology Group in order to streamline advancement of new agents from the laboratory to affected infants.

Anthony Green, MD, PhD, FRCPath, University of Cambridge, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research Haematology. Prof. Green studies normal hematopoietic stem cells and the way they can give rise to haematological malignancies including the myeloproliferative disorders (MPDs). Research has shown that defects in one gene, JAK2, are present in most but not all patients with an MPD. This and other molecular discoveries will help develop new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of these disorders. Prof. Green's SCOR, based in the United Kingdom, will bring together and provide infrastructural support for researchers from the Cambridge Institute of Medical Research, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, the Sanger Institute and Addenbrooke's Hospital. The SCOR will also benefit from Prof. Green's role as coordinator of the largest randomized MPD clinical trial and from collaboration with the UK MPD Study Group, a national network of MPD physicians.

Michael Thirman, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Leukemia Biology, University of Chicago. Dr. Thirman's work is focused on critical genetic changes in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). His SCOR will develop and test novel agents that can target and disrupt the molecular pathways that result in the transformation of blood cells into cancer cells. The researchers will study the role of several genes that are critical to the development of leukemia and lymphoma. They will focus on the development of peptides and small molecules that can penetrate cancer cells and target pathways that are essential to survival. His SCOR is a collaboration with researchers from the University of Chicago, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and University of California San Diego.

In addition to the four new centers, the Society has renewed three SCORs led by Carl June, MD, University of Pennsylvania, whose SCOR is working on developing new immunotherapies for adults and children with blood cancers; Stephen Nimer, MD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, whose team is working toward understanding how fusion proteins cause leukemias and might serve as new therapy targets; and Jerry Adams, PhD, Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, whose SCOR is trying to understand how the cell death process called apoptosis is blocked in blood cancer cells so that new, targeted drugs can be developed to effectively kill cancer cells.

SCOR is one of three integrated research programs established by the Society. The Career Development Program provides stipends to investigators of exceptional promise in the early stages of their careers, and the Translational Research Program encourages and supports outstanding investigative research that shows strong promise of translating biomedical knowledge into new treatments. The Society also bestows the Stohlman Scholar Award, given to scientists who hold faculty-level or equivalent positions at major research institutions and who are in the fifth year of their research.

About The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, headquartered in White Plains, NY, with 66 chapters in the United States and Canada, is the world's largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research and providing education and patient services. The Society's mission: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. Since its founding in 1949, the Society has invested more than $483 million in research specifically targeting leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. Last year alone, the Society made 4.2 million contacts with patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals.

Short version what is good for us?

MGI Pharam being chased for money
OSI Pharam due to pay 19mil
Breast cancer deal expected to fetch 19mil going by current rumour

and there is more ;-)

Boston US- October 06
http://www.discoveryontarget.com/06-RNAI.asp

http://www.eirx.com


AUDIO INTERVIEW
http://www.wallstreetreporter.com/interview.php?id=18589&player=wma


MGI Pharma
----------
http://www.eirx.com/eirx_heading_images/Vaccine%20Antigens%20v2.0.pdf#search=%22mgi%20pharma%20zyc300%22

http://www.mgipharma.com/


Current Patents:-
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http://v3.espacenet.com/results?sf=a&FIRST=1&CY=gb&LG=en&DB=EPODOC&TI=&AB=&PN=&AP=&PR=&PD=&PA=eirx&IN=&EC=&IC=&=&=&=&=&=

http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=WO2006037993&F=0

http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP1601969&F=0


VERY DETAILED INDEPTH PRESENTATION PDF. All you need to know about EiRX.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.eirx.com/eirx_heading_images/EiRx%20-%20EPIC%20220606.pdf


Market research report: -
------------------------
http://www.marketresearch.com/product/display.asp?productid=1320831&g=1


EiRX Exhibiting & or Presenting
-------------------------------

Bio-Japan- September 06
http://expo.nikkeibp.co.jp/biojapan/2006/eng/report004.html

Boston US- October 06
http://www.discoveryontarget.com/06-RNAI.asp

I assume it is Jerry Adams from item 20 of 24 on page 1 that is the good news?

anyone any opion on why the 10% drop today?

bad news on pharma.. thats what.. to do with share options.. was nothing to do with us, but it effected almost all the sp's

raving

8p I think i saw a flying elephant ??

Enzyme inhibitor produces stable disease in patients with advanced solid cell cancers
Phase II trials initiated
Prague, Czech Republic: Preliminary trials of a MEK enzyme inhibitor have shown that it is capable of producing long-lasting stable disease in patients with advanced solid cancers. Tests showed that the drug inhibited key targets in the patients' tumours, and now it is being tested in phase II clinical trials.

Professor Alex Adjei told the EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Prague today (Wednesday 8 November) that the drug AZD6244 (ARRY-142886) [2] inhibited MEK1/2 an enzyme that plays an important role in the Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK cell signalling pathway, which regulates cell proliferation and survival. Activation of this pathway has been implicated in a number of cancers, including lung, pancreatic, colon, melanoma and thyroid cancer.

"Laboratory studies have shown that AZD6244 has an effect on human tumours at nanomolar concentrations, and the first part of the phase I clinical trial has determined the maximum tolerated dose and the safety of the compound. Results from this second part of the trial demonstrate that a dose of 100mg of AZD6244 is well tolerated, produces a high incidence of long-lasting stable disease, and is associated with a profound inhibition of the cell signalling protein pERK and a reduction in cell proliferation which indicates that the drug is working against the tumours," said Prof Adjei, who was professor of oncology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA, before moving in October to be the senior vice-president for clinical research and chair of the Department of Medicine at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, USA.

Prof Adjei and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and Fox Chase Cancer Center recruited into the second part of the trial 34 patients with advanced cancers, including melanoma, breast, lung and colorectal cancers. Approximately 40% of the patients had melanoma. The researchers were particularly interested in this tumour type because a large proportion harbour B-Raf mutations, and tumours with these mutations may be highly sensitive to MEK inhibitors.

The patients were randomised to receive 100 or 200mg doses, twice a day for 28-day cycles. The larger dose proved to be too high for continuous dosing due to adverse side effects, but the smaller dose was well tolerated over a prolonged period.

The researchers tested biopsy tissue taken from the patients both before and after dosing. They found that the pERK protein was reduced by 77%. They also looked at another protein, Ki-67, which is used as a marker for cell proliferation. After dosing, there was a reduction in Ki-67 in nine out of 20 patients, and in five of those nine patients the reduction was at least 50% or more.

"We found that after 15 days of dosing, AZD6244 continued to inhibit pERK at times when concentrations of the drug in the blood were at their lowest levels between doses. At the lowest concentration, 400 nanograms of the compound per microlitre of plasma still corresponded to a 35-44% inhibition of pERK," said Prof Adjei.

Overall, 39 of 57 patients completed at least one cycle of treatment with AZD6244. After completion of the second cycle, 19 (49%) had stable disease, and nine of these patients (six melanoma, one each of breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and medullary thyroid cancer) remained stable for five or more months (range, 5-14+ months; median, 6 months). Two patients, one with thyroid cancer and the other with melanoma, continue to receive treatment with AZD6244 after one year. Sixteen of the 20 patients with melanoma completed at least one cycle of treatment. Twelve had stable disease after completion of cycle two, with stable disease persisting for at least five months in six patients (range, 5 - 13+ months; median, 6.5 months).

Prof Adjei said: "This drug shows initial promising results. It appears to be able to target cancers with over-activation of MEK and associated cell signalling pathways in an efficient manner. Furthermore, it is easy to give to patients as it comes in an oral formulation that can be swallowed. As a result, a number of phase II clinical trials have been initiated in patients with melanoma, pancreatic, lung and colon cancers."

###
Embargoed: 12.30 hrs CET Wednesday 8 November 2006

Abstract no: 26

[1] EORTC [European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, NCI [National Cancer Institute], AACR [American Association for Cancer Research]. [2] AZD6244 (ARRY-142886), an MEK inhibitor, was invented by Array BioPharma and is being co-developed with AstraZeneca. Array BioPharma sponsored Prof Adjei's study.

Despite of 'Spudheads' ramping, ERX are owed monies from companies using thier patents, should be rerated soon.

I know... master. I have enough emails saying they are chasing the money..

so it should be with us pretty darned soon

up up and away

up and away again

Are you talking about your self again PH ! ;)

NEWS FLASH!!!!! - HOODS ON THE RUN

So PH when will the news be ref payments

the fact is, I heard that these are in the shares mag tomorrow.. thats why the rise..