Cancer has become one of the biggest threat to human race globally. The mortality rate due to cancer has been found out to be an alarming 806000 cases by the end of the last decade. Statistically, it is the second most common disease in India with about 0.3 million deaths per year. The inability to deal with its diagnosis and treatment makes us all the more handicapped to drive away this menace prevailing on the globe for centuries. The causes of such high incidence rates may be both due to external(environmental) and internal(hereditary) factors. Nearly 10 million cases of cancer are diagnosed around the world annually and half of them are from developing countries.
Recent innovative drugs have brought about mind boggling results in lung cancer, melanoma and other deadly tumors, seldom controlling the cancer cell count to zero percent.But recently, in a breakthrough development by Novartis, the third biggest drug maker on Forbes Global 2000, it claims to have discovered a technique of curing cancer all together, making it in their $9.9 billion research and development priority list.
A successful trial of this technique embedded with expert capabilities of DNA sequencing machines that can unlock genetic codes, can prove to be a new milestone in the way cancer cells are treated.
This technique involves a procedure wherein first, some amount of blood is drawn from the patient. Then magnetic beads covered with proteins are added to the blood cells. Then a virus is put in place to change the cell’s DNA, creating a receptor that is intended to attack Leukemia. More such cells are grown, beads removed and finally the blood sent back to the patient’s body which target the infected and cancer cells.
However, there are a lot of hurdles before a complete sustainable solutions is patented. Novartis has to run clinical trials in both adults and kids of different demographics, keep a manufacturing plant in place to create customized treatments for patients and then find out ways to reduce side-effects. Cancer drugs represent 19% of Novartis’s sales but Joseph Jimenez, its CEO is bent on doubling the figures, seeing the huge potential market for cancer cure. Innovation in the cancer cure industry has helped top notch companies like Roche, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb to deliver life saving solutions for patients for whom every second is a question of survival.
Recent innovative drugs have brought about mind boggling results in lung cancer, melanoma and other deadly tumors, seldom controlling the cancer cell count to zero percent.But recently, in a breakthrough development by Novartis, the third biggest drug maker on Forbes Global 2000, it claims to have discovered a technique of curing cancer all together, making it in their $9.9 billion research and development priority list.
A successful trial of this technique embedded with expert capabilities of DNA sequencing machines that can unlock genetic codes, can prove to be a new milestone in the way cancer cells are treated.
This technique involves a procedure wherein first, some amount of blood is drawn from the patient. Then magnetic beads covered with proteins are added to the blood cells. Then a virus is put in place to change the cell’s DNA, creating a receptor that is intended to attack Leukemia. More such cells are grown, beads removed and finally the blood sent back to the patient’s body which target the infected and cancer cells.
However, there are a lot of hurdles before a complete sustainable solutions is patented. Novartis has to run clinical trials in both adults and kids of different demographics, keep a manufacturing plant in place to create customized treatments for patients and then find out ways to reduce side-effects. Cancer drugs represent 19% of Novartis’s sales but Joseph Jimenez, its CEO is bent on doubling the figures, seeing the huge potential market for cancer cure. Innovation in the cancer cure industry has helped top notch companies like Roche, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb to deliver life saving solutions for patients for whom every second is a question of survival.
Anurag is the Chief Branding Officer in Brandcare.
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