Results tagged “press releases” from Pathophilia
It's one thing to bury your missed primary endpoint, but nobody entertains like a renegade PR writer who's sky-high on his own fumes.
Epeius Biotechnologies, a privately held, California firm, evidently employs one such maverick (yes, I wrote "maverick")—as evidenced by some seriously entertaining press releases. Props for discovering the purple prose go to Trista Morrison at bnet.
The clumsy hyperbole concerns the firm's front-runner drug, Rexin-G, an antitumor molecule in stage 1/2 development.
Amongst the high-larity*:
October 14, 2009
The outstanding results of this advanced US clinical trial...demonstrate beyond contestation that Rexin-G...exhibits profound anti-tumor activity...
The success of landmark studies is a tribute, not only to the clinical investigators who "held the course" and the "cause" of a better medicine as a high standard, but to the US FDA who, by allowing across-the-board dose escalations in ongoing trials...served to expedite the achievement of these effective doses, and thus these heartening results. [quotation marks sic]
October 12, 2009 (regarding 3 case studies)
...Rexin-G has once again accomplished what standard cancer treatment and even much-touted biologics have failed to do: that is, to bring forth the benefits of remission in otherwise intractable metastatic cancers.
Even more remarkable, perhaps, are the profiles of...two patients, which signal the advent of Rexin-G as the vanguard of a new class of exceedingly precise, selective, and effective anti-cancer agents, and which typify a newfound societal acceptance and acknowledgement of the real-world promise and potential of this uniquely-targeted genetic medicine.
Remarkably, a Catholic priest, who was previously bedridden and in withering pain, suffering from end-stage prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, received successive courses of Rexin-G, during which time the bone pain was relieved, the PSA tumor markers fell, the bone tumors stopped growing, and even the previously inoperable primary tumor disappeared on follow-up CT scans.
As the priest’s bones began to heal and strengthen, he arose from his bed and is currently saying daily Mass and delivering lectures in the seminary. What is even more remarkable is that this revered man of the cloth was over ninety years old at the time of his treatment and remission.
...the latest good news comes from the trenches of Stage IVb pancreas cancer...
Indeed, as the unprecedented single-agent efficacy of Rexin-G is incontrovertibly demonstrated...the progressive steps of these intrepid pioneers may provide a rational basis of hope and expectation...
June 22, 2009
Epeius...stuns the medical and scientific communities...
Yet the progressive development strategy has finally paid off with real dividends...The dividends for the cancer patient can now be measured in terms of overall survival...
June 17, 2009
Rexin-G is the flagship of tumor-targeted genetic medicine: "smart," "stealth," "selective" and "potent" nano-medicine...
June 9, 2009
...Rexin-G is the world’s smallest hero! Imagine if you will, a tiny particle that can travel freely within the human body seeking out cancerous tissues and metastatic tumors that have spread far and wide. Imagine an entire army of these tiny nano-particles seeking out and accumulating to high concentrations within the flagrant, otherwise intractable tumors with one goal in mind: to destroy the metastatic cancers from the inside. Guided by nature’s own disease-seeking factors (ie, pathotropic targeting), armed with a powerful tumor-killing designer gene, and trained in the art of efficient gene delivery over aeons of evolutionary engineering, these tiny therapeutic particles represent a new paradigm in drug delivery and a new class of anti-cancer agents that exhibit profound and unprecedented single-agent efficacy in many cancers.
...these tiny nano-particles are inherently "smart." In performing a vital cancer surveillance function, they are uniformly "vigilant." By taking on a broad spectrum of cancers that are determined to be refractory to standard chemotherapy (ie, ineffectual apothecary), they are exceedingly "valiant." By reducing the cancer patient’s body burden and extending overall survival, they are truly "heroic." In a manner of speaking, these tiny nano-particles may well be the smallest heroes in all the world. [boldface sic]
December 18, 2007
...such individual accomplishments are rarely heralded by the intrepid physicians and scientists at Epeius Biotechnologies whose mission runs contrary to so many blue-sky biotechnology companies that are quick to "sell (ie, promote) the story," only to disappoint the patients, who remain the most vulnerable of society.
June 4, 2007
Epeius Biotechnologies Corporation today announced the publication of a historic landmark in medical oncology and a definitive benchmark in the emerging field of cancer gene therapy...In other words, this paper documents the unprecedented efficacy of targeted gene delivery in the tragic battlefield of metastatic cancer...
Frederick Hall, President and CEO of Epeius, is on my short list of suspect writers, given the ex-squeeze-me style of his quotes:
It is most fitting that Rexin-G receives its first product registration in the Philippines which brought forth the stellar physician-scientist whose drive and determination to engineer a better medicine made Rexin-G possible, and also it was first in the Philippines where the dedicated clinicians, oncologists, regulatory authorities, and medical institutions worked tirelessly for years to bring this targeted genetic medicine to the bedside.
In each and every cancer patient extends their very own impedimenta, which deepens and exacerbates with time and ineffectual apothecary. The scientists and physicians at Epeius Biotechnologies are proud to have participated in the historic events that brought these first targeted genetic medicines safely and conscientiously across the threshold of history, bringing hard science gently to the bedside.
* Because of the relative sobriety of the press releases during 2008 and the first part of 2009, I conclude that the writer was either on extended vacation, forcibly restrained from contributing to the PR process, or receiving effective psychiatric medication.
N.B. The puffed-up leadership of Epeius is also suggested by a literary explanation of the company name—a tribute to the little-known architect of the Trojan Horse.
