Carty - Slashdot User

Cheap Cancer Drug Finally Tested In Humans 363

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 13, 2010 @05:16PM from the good-enough-for-the-likes-of-you dept.

John Bayko writes "Mentioned on Slashdot a couple of years ago, the drug dichloroacetate (DCA) has finally finished its first clinical trial against brain tumors in humans. Drug companies weren't willing to test a drug they could not patent, so money was raised in the community through donations, auctions, and finally government support, but the study was still limited to five patients. It showed extremely positive results in four of them. This episode raises the question of what happens to all the money donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it, if not to actual cancer research like this."

FDA Approves Vaccine For Prostate Cancer 194

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 29, 2010 @07:23PM from the where-you-can-stick-it dept.

reverseengineer writes "The US Food and Drug Administration has given its first first approval for a therapeutic cancer vaccine. In a clinical trial 'involving 512 men, those who got Provenge (sipuleucel-T) had a median survival of 25.8 months after treatment, while those who got a placebo lived a median of 21.7 months. After three years, 32 percent of those who got Provenge were alive, compared with 23 percent of those who got the placebo. ... "The big story here is that this is the first proof of principle and proof that immunotherapy works in general in cancer, which I think is a huge observation," said Dr. Philip Kantoff, chief of solid tumor oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and the lead investigator in Dendreon's largest clinical trial for the drug. "I think this is a very big thing and will lead to a lot more enthusiasm for the approach."'"

Comment Re:So, let me get this straight (Score 2, Informative) 423

by Carty on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:06PM (#11210186) Attached to: Windows Media Center Edition vs. The World

Where is the startup with the $400 MythTV-based solution?

I have been spending some time with Boston-area venture capitalists on some new ideas. To a capitalist they use 'Tivo' as an example of a solution with massive consumer appeal but an unprofitable business model. Even with a $13/mo. program guide subscription.

I agree with earlier posts that this business is destined to be eclipsed by the cable and satellite providers.

A MythTV product would be an awesome, more flexible solution than Tivo, but I suspect that at $400 would virtually impossible to deliver profitably. God forbid someone had an issue and required support from a salaried human :'(.

The art, methinks, in coming up with an idea that drives the notion of more flexible management of video content in a model that provides *reasonable* profitability for those producing and distributing the content and the equipment used to manage it.

While it is fashionable here to think of e.g. cable companies as 'evil' and 'controlling', that anthropomorphizes something that can be explained much more simply: they exist, as agents of their stockholders, to be profitable.

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