Roundup: Anemia drugs under assault, stem-cell trial moves forward, medical interventions and poor “quality of death,” and more

Is the bell tolling for EPO? — The news keeps going from bad to worse for the wonder drugs of biotech — the anemia treatments known as ESAs or EPO, shorthand for “erythropoiesis stimulating agents” and “erythropoietin,” respectively. Earlier today, an FDA advisory panel recommended new warnings for the drugs, which stimulate the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, as well as fresh clinical studies on their safety. Recent studies in kidney-dialysis patients linked higher doses of ESAs to heart problems and strokes, while studies in cancer patients treated for chemotherapy-related anemia have suggested that the treatments don’t improve patient survival, and may even cut lives short — possibly by encouraging tumor growth.

New restrictions, which the panel didn’t spell out, could put a serious crimp in ESA sales, which currently amount to billions of dollars for Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. The two companies have also been taking a public-relations battering in terms of how they promote the drugs. Yesterday, the NYT ran a front-page piece that detailed how rebates offered by Amgen and J&J encourage doctors to overuse the drugs, and today the WSJ followed with a look at whistleblower allegations that J&J boosted EPO sales by pushing higher-than-approved doses.

It’s worth remembering that while the storm is currently walloping industry giants like Amgen and J&J, plenty of smaller biotechs that have staked their hopes on getting into the anemia-treatment game could eventually be affected as well. These companies include Affymax, FibroGen and Neose. Only Affymax is public; another potential ESA competitor, GlycoFi, was acquired by Merck last year.

First embryonic stem-cell trial edges forward — By early next year, Geron plans to be injecting recent spinal-injury patients with nerve cells grown from embryonic stem cells, in hopes of regenerating damaged nerve pathways. This trial was supposed to be underway already, but last year the FDA requested more animal data for safety purposes. Geron CEO Thomas Okarma says the treatment will have been tested in 2,000 animals before it ever reaches humans. The FT’s Clive Cookson has the story.

Aggressive treatment leads to worse “quality of death” in cancer patients — File this one under things you already knew but didn’t want to think about. A study of 243 advanced cancer patients revealed that a greater number of aggressive treatments — including the use of ventilators and non-palliative chemotherapy — in the last week of life was associated with greater physical and psychological distress and a lower chance of dying in a preferred location (often home). Money quotes:

[Said study lead author Gabriel Silverman:] “These results suggest that when patients are actively dying, the use of aggressive treatments should be considered with caution and only pursued with the full understanding of patients or their surrogate decision makers.

[…]

“As a doctor, if I had a patient or family who wanted aggressive, life-sustaining care toward the end of their life, I would view it as a red flag warning of patient or caregiver distress,” Dr. [Robert] Arnold [of the University of Pittsburgh] concluded. “Often patients and their families are suffering, sad, or distressed at the end of life, and when dying occurs in medical settings they may hope that aggressive treatment will help the suffering, but often it doesn’t.”

Tau gets a little respect — For the past decade or so, Alzheimer’s researchers have concentrated their attention on beta amyloid, the protein that clumps around neurons in “tangles” visible in the autopsied brains of many — though not all — Alzheimer’s patients. Now comes evidence that a dark-horse protein called tau may also bear some responsibility for the disease. Researchers reported last week in Science that they reversed memory loss in mice by tinkering with their genes to produce lower levels of the tau protein. It’s heartening to see competing theories getting some attention in the Alzheimer’s community, which has had an unfortunate tendency to shun researchers who strayed from the majority opinion, but don’t expect beta-amyloid supporters to give much ground until they have to. That might be soon, as a new batch of drugs designed to block formation of beta-amyloid tangles should begin reporting data from human trials later this year.

New genetic heart-disease link — Another whole-genome association study has identified a new genetic variation that appears to increase heart-attack risk by 60 percent in European populations. The catch is that the variation doesn’t appear to be associated with any known gene, and instead exists in the long stretches of non-coding, or “junk,” DNA, meaning that no one has any idea why it should have any effect on heart-attack rates. The NYT has more.

Stem-cell researchers make like Willie Sutton — Near the end of this otherwise unremarkable account of a talk by James Thomson, the Wisconsin researcher who first isolated and grew human embryonic stem cells, comes this interesting nugget: Thomson will open a “satellite laboratory” on the UC Santa Barbara campus for stem-cell collaborations with UCSB researchers. Coincidentally enough, having a presence in the state might also qualify Thomson for funding by California’s $3 billion stem-cell program. Willie Sutton, you’ll recall, is the outlaw who once proclaimed that he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is.” Some sentiments, it seems, are universal.

Hypocrisy in the generic-biologics fight? — The prospect of legislation that clears a path for “generic” versions of expensive biotech drugs appears to have dimmed significantly. But biotech consultant and blogger David Williams — no fan himself of the push for “biogenerics” — notes that biotech companies and their lobbyists may be shooting themselves in the foot when they argue that biogenerics could never be “identical” to branded products now on the market. It’s worth reading his entire post — it’s not long — but the gist is that changing the manufacturing process for name-brand biotech drugs, which happens all the time, opens up the same “equivalence” issues that BIO and its allies find insurmountable where biogenerics are concerned. The main difference is that name-brand manufacturers can handle the issue with short, inexpensive “bioequivalence” trials — but they insist that biogenerics must undergo expensive, full-blown clinical testing to assure their efficacy and safety. If the biogenerics issue heats up again, don’t be surprised to see this argument make a comeback.

Surgical robots in space, stem cells in rodent eyes — These are just two interesting stories from the San Jose Mercury News I haven’t yet had a chance to mention. Last Sunday, the Merc ran this piece on efforts to automate surgery, with the ultimate goal of building robots that could operate on astronauts in space or soldiers on the battlefield. Far off and far out stuff. Similarly, this piece outlined the possibility of growing new blood vessels using an early and highly regenerative stem cell called a hemangioblast. Ultimately, these fast-growing cells could one day regrow blood vessels in the heart, eyes or limbs that were damaged by injury or disease.