Wally Vogel - Poor Prognosis to NED (Click for video)
KidneyCancerCanada (Click to reach KCC)
Drug researchers set to hear Canadian man's cancer 'miracle'
By Steven Edwards
NEW YORK - Cancer drug researchers from around the world will today hear for the first time from one of their biggest success stories – a Canadian businessman given just weeks to live before he began taking their experimental drug.
Once stricken with advanced kidney cancer, Wally Vogel is set to recount his incredible comeback after he began taking Sutent – a cancer-growth inhibitor that is considered to be one of the deadly disease's ''breakthrough'' drugs.
Once stricken with advanced kidney cancer, Wally Vogel is set to recount his incredible comeback after he began taking Sutent – a cancer-growth inhibitor that is considered to be one of the deadly disease's ''breakthrough'' drugs.
''I will basically be telling the story of my cancer battle, so that the group can see the personal impact of their work,'' said Vogel, who serves on the board of the support group Kidney Cancer Canada. ''I believe the day is coming when cancer will no longer be viewed as a critical terminal disease but rather a disease that can be managed for many years as a chronic condition.''
Several dozen Sutent researchers, clinicians and marketers with the drug company Pfizer Inc., which holds the licence to the treatment until 2021, will be in the audience as Vogel speaks at the Westin New York Hotel in Times Square.
The conference takes place a day before the launch of Pfizer's annual shareholders' meeting in Dallas.
''Wally's story is compelling and well known to many in Pfizer,'' said one senior company official. ''We first saw it on a video he made, and I don't think there was a dry eye in the house. His story helps us understand the very human side of our research.''
Vogel, 49, had lost hope in the fall of 2004 of seeing even a final Christmas with his wife, Jane, and daughters, Alexa, then 13, and Courtney, then 9, at their home in Mississauga, Ont. At the time, there were few options open to people in his predicament other than surgery and a treatment called immunotherapy. Both had failed to prevent the spread of the cancer, which does not respond to chemotherapy or radiation.
In a last ditch bid to survive, Vogel enrolled in a trial - through the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio - of one of the emerging drugs that were having some success in slowing the growth of tumours.
''A few weeks later, a scan showed remarkable results,'' Vogel's talking points for his speech say. ''The tumours had begun to shrink and many had disappeared completely.''
He'll tell his audience the results were ''nothing short of miraculous'' because the tumours that remained were now all operable.
A U.S.-based biotechnology company founded in 1991 and later acquired by Pfizer discovered the drug, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved in early 2006 to treat both advanced kidney tumours and rare abdominal malignancies.
Canadian provinces and Health Canada approved it over the next three years for use north of the border, where the Canadian Cancer Society says there were about 4,800 new cases of the disease last year, and estimated that about 1,650 people died of it.
Sutent was one of the first ''angiogenesis'' inhibitors, which block the growth of new blood vessels, and provide new hope for managing cancers in the absence of discovering cures. Many major drug companies now produce such drugs - though the treatments do not work with the same efficacy in all patients.
Still, Vogel has entered his fifth year of scans showing no evidence of cancer, and long ago returned to full duties as CEO and founder of the payment processing software company Creditron.
''I'm excited,'' he said of the prospect of delivering his address. ''I was fortunate to be one of the first to experience the impact personally and dramatically'' of the drug.
Tue Apr 26 2011
Several dozen Sutent researchers, clinicians and marketers with the drug company Pfizer Inc., which holds the licence to the treatment until 2021, will be in the audience as Vogel speaks at the Westin New York Hotel in Times Square.
The conference takes place a day before the launch of Pfizer's annual shareholders' meeting in Dallas.
''Wally's story is compelling and well known to many in Pfizer,'' said one senior company official. ''We first saw it on a video he made, and I don't think there was a dry eye in the house. His story helps us understand the very human side of our research.''
Vogel, 49, had lost hope in the fall of 2004 of seeing even a final Christmas with his wife, Jane, and daughters, Alexa, then 13, and Courtney, then 9, at their home in Mississauga, Ont. At the time, there were few options open to people in his predicament other than surgery and a treatment called immunotherapy. Both had failed to prevent the spread of the cancer, which does not respond to chemotherapy or radiation.
In a last ditch bid to survive, Vogel enrolled in a trial - through the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio - of one of the emerging drugs that were having some success in slowing the growth of tumours.
''A few weeks later, a scan showed remarkable results,'' Vogel's talking points for his speech say. ''The tumours had begun to shrink and many had disappeared completely.''
He'll tell his audience the results were ''nothing short of miraculous'' because the tumours that remained were now all operable.
A U.S.-based biotechnology company founded in 1991 and later acquired by Pfizer discovered the drug, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved in early 2006 to treat both advanced kidney tumours and rare abdominal malignancies.
Canadian provinces and Health Canada approved it over the next three years for use north of the border, where the Canadian Cancer Society says there were about 4,800 new cases of the disease last year, and estimated that about 1,650 people died of it.
Sutent was one of the first ''angiogenesis'' inhibitors, which block the growth of new blood vessels, and provide new hope for managing cancers in the absence of discovering cures. Many major drug companies now produce such drugs - though the treatments do not work with the same efficacy in all patients.
Still, Vogel has entered his fifth year of scans showing no evidence of cancer, and long ago returned to full duties as CEO and founder of the payment processing software company Creditron.
''I'm excited,'' he said of the prospect of delivering his address. ''I was fortunate to be one of the first to experience the impact personally and dramatically'' of the drug.
Tue Apr 26 2011
605 words
Postmedia News
Postmedia News
Appeared on Canada.com site and in The Province, the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, the Daily News.
No comments:
Post a Comment