Isis Developing New IBD Medication

Yay!

At first I thought you were referring to the terrorist cell! I was really confused lol

Red_34 said...
At first I thought you were referring to the terrorist cell! I was really confused lol

I thought the same thing and was wondering if it was a (fairly sick) joke!

This is going to be huge for people with ulcerative colitis, it'll significantly improve things for many people that couldn't be treated with the alternatives. I can't wait for the development of antisense medication for ulcerative colitis. It feels good to know that big companies are investing in research on a large scale to improve our treatment options.

sfc425, we're not sure what it means yet. Janssen signed a deal to develop up to three IBD drugs using antisense technology. They're not even drugs yet. So we don't know whether they will be great at maintenance or reducing flares, or even ever make it into production. Here's what's good about it:

1) The one antisense drug that exists for IBD was extremely effective in its phase II trial.
2) Janssen, the maker of Remicade, Simponi, and Stelara, wants to make extremely effective IBD drugs too, and is willing to pay a lot of money to do so.
3) The intent of all of these antisense drugs is to be oral medications, which is good for those of us who hate needles.
4) These new drugs will have different mechanisms of action than existing drugs. If anti-TNF's don't work for you, then maybe these will. They're not just more of the same.
5) More research is always a good thing. They'll never find the next great IBD treatment without it.
6) Drug makers want to make money. If Celgene's drug is a pill and is twice as effective as Janssen's Remicade infusion, more doctors will prescribe the pill than Remicade. This forces Janssen to develop something that is at least as effective as Celgene's pill. And from there it's game on. How many years went by where the only treatments for IBD were 5-ASA's and chemotherapy immunosuppressants? Then Remicade came on the scene, a state-of-the-art treatment specifically for IBD (at least at first). It made lots of money, and the rush to develop IBD treatments exploded - Humira, Cimzia, Simponi, Tysabri, Entyvio, Stelara. And that doesn't even include the many other treatments that never made it to approval. Even the failures are great because they advanced the research.

I am hopeful but I feel like there are always great ideas and often they aren't as great in reality. I REALLY want to see something happen soon :(

Now this makes me hopeful !!, a gene therapy can't wait to get rid of those faulty genes.

I was certain something like this would happen sooner or later, treating the problem at the source is how it should be -i hope- .

How long do you think it will take for the drug to be available ? and cost ?

A good news to start 2015 with, even though i don't think i would be able to afford it :(

I can't believe the level of pessimism people have, it's best to hope for the best. This is as good as it gets, and that's the bottom line.

The Rock said...
I can't believe the level of pessimism people have, it's best to hope for the best. This is as good as it gets, and that's the bottom line.

I do have a lot of hope... but just not in any pharmaceutical company, given their poor track record. Borody has shown us that people on the verge of surgery can not just go on to live normal lives, but be free of medication decades after resolved UC pathology... as if the UC never existed for them.

He opened the door for many to do their own research and be their own advocates when it comes to treatments. Without his case studies, Michael (the user FecalTransplatForUC) would no longer have a colon and now he's living like the disease never existed (after 12 years of UC pathology and 3 days away from the surgery table).

So I do have hope in the microbial treatments that are coming out. I think just the fact that the mutaflor probiotic is just as effective as 5asa in treating UC is a good sign.

I just think greed corrupts even the best minds the world has to offer. Everyone has their price (doctors included), except maybe Buddhist monks.

Best.

notsosicklygirl said...

The Rock said...
I can't believe the level of pessimism people have, it's best to hope for the best. This is as good as it gets, and that's the bottom line.

Yeah, I know. I hate being a pessimist but I've seen so many things come and go and people are still having surgery. I don't even have high hopes in Borody. I asked my GI about him and she said his studies are inaccurate and not well documented. She seemed like she knew quite a bit about the topic of FT and she was very informed on all of the alternatives that come up here regularly. She's quite bright and follows all different avenues, she never discourages me from asking questions, or says absolutely NO to anything I mention, but she definitely brought down my hopes on FT being a great option. I would try it regardless. Heck, anything before losing a colon and accepting pooing 6x a day. But yes, pessimist for sure. I was less so when on antidepressants.

Because the FMT data is scattered all over the place and quite frankly, the funding would be an issue for that kind of treatment. The recent studies all it's promising (with the patients discontinuing treatment). It's also kind of hard to show something when the right personnel aren't conducting the studies, and when they discontinue it despite showing promise.

I honestly would not trust a GI that regurgitates information that most of her peers are likely to tell her. What exactly is inaccurate about documented UC patients being free of disease after FMT? Also, personal experience triumphs most manipulated pharmaceutical data, or anything that a white coat tells you. YOU know better to trust yourself than other people, NSSG.

A locum GI (in a conventional practice) I saw opened my mind to it, as well as other treatments like LDN and tricyclics. And he actually told me to try it because of the current dismal options out there.

Guardian7 said...

notsosicklygirl said...

The Rock said...
I can't believe the level of pessimism people have, it's best to hope for the best. This is as good as it gets, and that's the bottom line.

Yeah, I know. I hate being a pessimist but I've seen so many things come and go and people are still having surgery. I don't even have high hopes in Borody. I asked my GI about him and she said his studies are inaccurate and not well documented. She seemed like she knew quite a bit about the topic of FT and she was very informed on all of the alternatives that come up here regularly. She's quite bright and follows all different avenues, she never discourages me from asking questions, or says absolutely NO to anything I mention, but she definitely brought down my hopes on FT being a great option. I would try it regardless. Heck, anything before losing a colon and accepting pooing 6x a day. But yes, pessimist for sure. I was less so when on antidepressants.

Because the FMT data is scattered all over the place and quite frankly, the funding would be an issue for that kind of treatment. The recent studies all it's promising (with the patients discontinuing treatment). It's also kind of hard to show something when the right personnel aren't conducting the studies, and when they discontinue it despite showing promise.

I honestly would not trust a GI that regurgitates information that most of her peers are likely to tell her. What exactly is inaccurate about documented UC patients being free of disease after FMT? Also, personal experience triumphs most manipulated pharmaceutical data, or anything that a white coat tells you. YOU know better to trust yourself than other people, NSSG.

A locum GI (in a conventional practice) I saw opened my mind to it, as well as other treatments like LDN and tricyclics. And he actually told me to try it because of the current dismal options out there.

Well yeah, you can't trust anyone. She may be tryin to push me the other way for her own benefit. I don't have a good donor anyway so FT isn't going to happen for me unless there was a clinical trial where they provided a donor stool. I see other drs, that is just one drs opinion. One of my old drs was really hopeful about worm therapy but then I have seen so many people have no luck with it that I started to doubt it as a valid option. There isn't a lot of recorded data on a lot of these things and you're right, it doesn't make financial sense for companies to invest in clinical trials of things that could make their drugs unnecessary. Even doctors, it could make them unnecessary if we can all put poop up our butts and be 100% forever.