Gleevec (Imatinib) was developed with primarily with the help of researches conducted by National Cancer Institute (NCI), and Imatinib was one of the discoveries they made.
This Drug has drastically improved the outcomes of patients who were suffering from Blood Cancer primarily Chronic Myelogenous Leukaemia.
Imatinib / Gleevec cost information Genetic Alterations by Cancer?How genes can be influenced by cancer had a very limited understanding amongst Scientist and Researchers in 1950s.
A researcher at the University of Pennsylvania quoted that in the 1950s, researchers and scientist didn’t think that genetic mutations can be a cause for tumours.Although a very few of the researchers who believed that generic mutations can cause Cancer were limited to lack of evidence to prove their hypothesis.During that time the patients suffering from the chronic myelogenous leukaemia were basically handed a death sentence because there wasn’t any effective treatment available.
After this discovery, further researches into this, led to conclusion that Philadelphia chromosome was present in 95% of patients suffering from CML.And with the technological development in the field of Cancer Research, researchers realized that Philadelphia chromosome is formed when 2 chromosomes break and both chromosome pieces swaps their place.A few years later, Dr. Nora Heisterkamp and her colleagues discovered that when two genes that are normally separated get fused together, leading to formation of Philadelphia chromosome.
And this hybrid (fusion gene) is called BCR-ABL.And later Dr. Owen Witte and his colleagues proved that CML was caused by BCR-ABL formation in blood cells.And with combined efforts of all the above researchers during the course of time had proven that genetic alternation/mutation can be a cause for cancer.