Brian J. Druner (b. 1955), Nicholas B. Lydon (b. 1957), Charles L. Sawyers (b. 1959)
Gleevec or Glivec (outside the United States) represents a major advance in the treatment of cancer—a drug that Time magazine characterized as a “magic bullet” in a cover story in 2001, the year of its introduction. As of 2011, this drug has been found to be effective against eleven different types of cancer, including those affecting the blood, stomach, and digestive tract, several of which previously had poor survival rates. Of even greater significance for the future development of new anticancer drugs, Gleevec/Glivec (imatinib) is the first drug shown to act by zeroing in on a specific target associated with a certain cancer cell type.
In chronic myelocytic leukemia (CLM), normal white blood cells become cancerous. The survival rate with bone transplants and older drugs, such as interferon, was very low, and adverse effects were very high. With Gleevec/Glivec, the five-year overall survival rate is almost 90 percent, and side effects are relatively mild. CML, once a fatal disease, has been transformed into a treatable chronic disease.
The path for the discovery of Gleevec/Glivec was based on knowledge of the biology of CML and has provided a model for the development of other targeted therapies of cancer. By the 1980s, after several decades of research, it was known that all patients with CML had a chromosomal abnormality, dubbed the Philadelphia chromosome. Under normal conditions, the enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase signals cells to divide. Within the CML chromosome, however, are two genes that produced an abnormal tyrosine kinase protein that, when activated, signals an overproduction of white blood cells, resulting in CML.
During the 1990s, Brian Druner, an oncologist at the Oregon Health and Sciences University, Nicholas Lydon, formerly a biochemist at Novartis, and Charles Sawyers, a physician-scientist at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, collaborated to find an inhibitor of tyrosine hydroxylase that was specific to CML. That compound was Gleevec/Glivec. As a result of their groundbreaking discovery, they were co-recipients of the 2009 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Award, the “American Nobel Prize.”
SEE ALSO Amethopterin and Methotrexate (1947).
Mary Lasker (1900–1994), who was instrumental in garnering federal financial support for the National Institutes of Health, was a driving force in increasing public awareness of disease and raising funds to support medical research. Since 1946, Lasker Awards (American Nobels) have been bestowed on individuals who have made major scientific contributions to treating and preventing human disease.