I have just returned from most engaging presentation being held at the Nowgen centre in Manchester, the meeting entitled Leukaemia 60 years of Progress was a look a the progress we have made in treating Leukaemia in the past 60 years and I found it a massive boost to my moral and why I was attracted to working in this industry in the first place.

The Presentation was made by Dr Emm Barnes and Professor Tony Whetton, as part of the Our Kid Medical Manchester celebrations.

The story starts with a staggering fact, in 1948 the survival time from diagnosis to death was 3 days. But in 1948 a Dr Sydney Farber reported the first ever remissions from drug therapy in in the New England Journal Of Medicine, this is considered the birth of modern anti-cancer drug therapy.

The Medical Research Council were quick to support British Researchers such as Henry Basil Marsden from Manchester, in taking up and researching these new technologies, and Edith Paterson so set up the worlds first cancer registry a lead that remains in place today.

Childhood Leukaemia has always being a disease that has attracted alot of attention, the reason for this is clear, following on from the nuclear bombs benign dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, there saw a massive increase in the incidence of Leukaemia in the local child population that survived the initial attacks. There was general fear that the increased use of Nuclear power and weapons discharging radiation into the atmosphere that there would be a huge upsurge in Childhood Leukaemia globally.  Also at this time there was an upsurge in diagnosis of the condition, following improvements in Antibiotic therapies meaning that children were surviving infections and the underlying condition was then being diagnosed.

In the 1960′s and 1970′s the first specialist services for children with cancer were rolled out in the NHS, after a decade of research demonstrated that children who were in specialist centers survived 2.5 times longer.

In the 1970′s the survival in childhood leukaemia stopped being reported in time and started being recorded in percentages, this was a significant milestone in the treatment of this disease, as 50%  has a chance of survival. Issues of long term care started to become important, such as social stigma, employment and insurance problems.

1980′s there was still no standard treatment, (there is still no standard today) but all patients were treated in what is basicaly an ongoing clinical trial, with enrolment being at 80 to 90%, we are currentley at stages 14 of this ongoing programme.

1990′s there were leaps forward in survival and masses of progress in reduced side effects. Gleevec was discovered and developed.

2000′s it has now being discovered that there are 100 different genetic mutations that cause leukaemia, so it is 1 disease of 100 diseases with common symptoms, these are the questions that are facing researchers now and the progress of personalised medicine is starting to define how research will move forward in the future. Gleevec was also launched in 2001, this drug revolutionised therapy, however it is not a cure but a treatment and as with antibiotic therapy we are now starting to see patients develop gleevec resistant leukaemia.

In summary in 60 years of medical research we have gone from a survival time of three days to stage where patients are held in remission almost indefinitely, in this most complex genetic disease.

Damien Bové works as a drug development consultant (pharmaceutical or biotechnology), we work with our clients to define a development target, define a development strategy, define a regulatory strategy or define a commercial strategy. Our clients are generally raising funds or looking to license out their technology and we help them achieve it. If you want to know more don’t hesitate to get in touch using the contact form or email Damien at damien.bove@idaconsultants.com