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The Acclerated Cure Project has included a video of its 2007 annual event on its website. The video of Dr Tim Vollmer's presentation looks very interesting - I've seen the first 20 mins and will watch the rest later. I think GWA is a fan of Dr Vollmer.

Ian

http://www.acceleratedcure.org/video/acp-annual2007.php

Ian
Thanks for posting this. My husband and I attended this event and heard both speakers. Dr. Vollmer said some very interesting things as you will see from the video. I came away from it with hope for the near future.
Lori

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....I mean the naysayers.

That would be me..

with hope for the near future.

I'll say it a little louder as well
"Just around the corner"

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What a fascinating, informative and encouraging speech! I was especially struck by his comments about the patent running out on really useful drugs, so that they become generic and not profitable for companies to develop. This then delays or halts their progress. Early on he was at great pains to describe how phenomenally expensive MS is to the American economy: I think he said $20,000 000,000 a year, which reinforces the point I made a little while ago: that if generic drugs are not worth investigating for private companies, then surely it is worthwhile for a national government to fund a few trials. After all this is cold, hard cash we're talking about: a language even politicians understand,

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I'm posting a reply so I can be notified of changes to this thread (is there a way to do that without posting?)

But to add some value to my post, I'll point out that the talk that Ben Greenberg from Hopkins gave last year was also very hopeful and engaging. You can see that here http://www.acceleratedcure.org/video/acp-annual2006.php

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Yes Bob, that was actually the point I was trying to make, and I think Dr. Vollmer was, too: because of the profit motive and the issue of patents the drug companies are forced to find a drug that is as close to Rituximab as possible, but different enough to make it patentable, hence the frustrating delay.
As a promising drug which will soon become generic, my point is that it should be strongly pointed out to government that they could reap much of this profit in the form of saving billions of dollars in expenditure, for the financial outlay of funding these final trials

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TwistedHelix wrote:...because of the profit motive and the issue of patents the drug companies are forced to find a drug that is as close to Rituximab as possible, but different enough to make it patentable, hence the frustrating delay.
As a promising drug which will soon become generic....

I remember a conversation with my DR. I am sure he said, that one of the "tricks" of the big pharma's was to extend their patent by finding a new use of the drug, before their existing patent expired. My understanding was that, for example, if lipitor was approved for use in MS, then pfizer could extend their patent on it further. So if this is correct? they could invest in trials on MS to extend their control of its manufacture / sale; currently held for cholesterol.

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Thanks for that Ian - my neuro is a big fan of Dr Volmer and I can see why. He's no-nonsense, open-minded and engaging.

It was interesting what he had to say about NARCOMS. This provides a central register for less than 10 per cent of American MSers. But wouldn't it be wonderful if the profiles of all 2.7mill. worldwide were held in a central data bank and regularly updated - the technology is clearly there. With the press of a button a researcher anywhere in the world would be able to pull up a bunch of people with precisely the same MS profile for study purposes. Surely this would knock off a few years in the search for a cure?