The birth and the existence of the drug Glivec

In other countries other than India, GLIVEC is a life saving drug for people who suffer with either Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) or Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GSTM). As usual there is this fuss about its sales in India, but I will come back to that later.

But let us see how was Glivec (Imanitib) born

Now when we talk about CML, scientists at University of Pennysylvania detected "Philadelphia Chromosomes" in almost 95% cases of CML, then it was at University of Chicago it was elucidated that this chromosome was a result of reciprocal translocation between chromosome No. 9 and 22. This is a fusion between ABL protoncogene on Chromosome No.9 and BCR(Break Point Cluster region) on chromosome No.22. Later scientists at Whitehead Institute showed that the the protein product of this fusion gene BCR-ABL was a 210 kd kinase phosphoprotein.This protein results in excess and uncontrolled production of White Blood Cells by either inhibiting apoptosis pathways or by increasing cytokine independent growth of cells. This is all mediated by ATP when ATP binds to its site on BCR-ABL kinase protein.

This is where scientists from Novartis came in and finally came out with this compund called Imanitib(Glivec) which binds at the BCR-ABL-ATP pocket preventing ATP's binding to BCR-ABL and so ensuring apoptosis.

Everything whatever I have written seems to be beautiful,short and sweet bed time story,but it isn't .The story of Glivec has not been so easy, its birth has gone through lot of twists and turns. Look down for the timeline of Glivec: