New Medicines In Development For Women
(continued)
What's also new is not just that this research is being conducted, but how
it's being conducted. Researchers are approaching conditions common to both
sexes using a newly defined approach called "gender-based research." This approach
involves studying both the similarities and differences in men and women with
respect to the mechanism of a disease; potential differences in reactions to
preventive and therapeutic measures; how diagnosis may differ; and how this
condition and/or its treatments may further react with concomitant conditions,
other medicines, and hormones (especially birth control pills and hormone replacement
therapy).
Heart disease provides a good example of the importance of gender-based differences
and the need for continued gender-based research. The leading killer of both
men and women, we know heart disease develops approximately 10 years later in
women. When women are diagnosed with heart disease, however, their condition
is typically far more advanced than in men; they often have different symptoms;
and ironically, they may be treated less aggressively. Nearly 44 percent of
women who have heart attacks die within a year-compared to 27 percent of men.
Disappointingly, medicines in development specifically for women with various
types of heart disease and stroke (the number three killer of women) are not
included as part of this report. This therapeutic area is of such significance
that PhRMA published a separate report, New Medicines in Development for
Heart Disease and Stroke (1999) which summarizes the 115 new medicines in
development for heart disease and 21 new medicines in development for stroke.
This report, however, gives no gender-specific information about those clinical
trials.
This century we will see a great increase in new medicines developed from the
revolutionary research techniques developed in the 1990's using genetic engineering
and biotechnology to discover and develop more effective and targeted medicines.
Many of the medicines currently in the pipeline for women attack diseases in
novel ways. These include:
- two genetically engineered medicines that inhibit a protein believed to
trigger rheumatoid arthritis and that may be able to slow joint destruction;
- a vaccine to provoke the body's immune system to attack breast tumors;
- a gene therapy for ovarian and other cancers that delivers a tumor-suppressor
gene right to the cancer site.
Tremendous strides have been made in the development of medicines for various
cancers, with corresponding results in improved outcomes. This report also lists
27 ongoing clinical trials in drug development for breast, cervical and ovarian
cancers by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a division of the NIH, conducted
both independently and with pharmaceutical company partners. Perhaps most exciting
are several vaccines in development by various companies to prevent breast,
cervical, and ovarian cancer in women. Disappointingly, however, even though
lung cancer is the leading cancer killer of women (and men), drugs in development
for the treatment of lung or other non-reproductive cancers were not included
in this report, which focused only on cancers of the breasts and reproductive
organs in women. Because cancer is the second leading cause of death of all
Americans, however, PhRMA has published a separate report, New Medicines
in Development for Cancer (1999) which summarizes the 354 new medicines
and vaccines in development to prevent and/or treat numerous types of cancer,
including 58 new medicines in development to treat lung cancer; 63 for breast
cancer; 58 for skin cancer (including melanoma, the most serious form of skin
cancer, whose incidence has grown 4 percent a year since the 1970s); and 46
for colon cancer, the second leading cancer killer of both men and women.
With the exception of being able to assume that the 47 medicines in development
to treat prostate cancer are for men, and that the medicines in development
to treat breast and female reproductive cancers are for women, this report does
not give any other gender-specific information about the clinical trials being
conducted.