Read an interesting article in yesterday's NYTimes about a neurologist at the Beth Israel who was recently awarded a hefty prize for developing a reliable method for tracking the advancement of ALS. According to the article, the $1,000,000 prize is the largest ever awarded for tackling a specific medical challenge.
<<< $1,000,000 to inventor of ALS tracker >>>
A few excerpts from the article:
The winner, Dr. Seward Rutkove, showed that his method could cut in half the cost of clinical trials to screen potential drugs for the disease.
Each year, doctors diagnose about 5,000 new cases of A.L.S. in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health. Despite decades of clinical trials, the diagnosis remains a death sentence. It paralyzes and suffocates patients while their minds remain intact.
A few patients live for decades — the physicist Stephen Hawking is the best known — but most survive only three to five years after they first notice symptoms. And riluzole, the only A.L.S. drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration, costs about $10,000 a year and typically extends life by just a few more months.
The high cost of clinical trials limits drug companies' ability to test potential treatments. Researchers must recruit hundreds of patients and run trials that last as long as two years just to eliminate a drug from the running.
One executive told us, "For the cost of one A.L.S. drug I can develop two multiple sclerosis drugs, so obviously I go with M.S."
Dr. Doug Kerr, associate director of experimental neurology at Biogen Idec, which is working on an A.L.S. drug, said more sensitive testing methods "will allow us to test more drugs, more patients, and get an answer earlier." He called Dr. Rutkove’s method "a powerful new part of the armament to study A.L.S."
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