- "TAR-200 is a miniature, pretzel-shaped drug-device duo containing a chemotherapy drug, gemcitabine, which is inserted into the bladder through a catheter. Once inside the bladder, the TAR-200 slowly and consistently releases the gemcitabine into the organ for three weeks per treatment cycle."
- Phase 2 Clinical Trial
- 85 patients with high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer
- "treated patients with TAR-200 every three weeks for six months, and then four times a year for the next two years"
- 70/85 patients—the cancer disappeared and still gone 1yr later in almost 50% patients
- FDA granted TAR-200 a New Drug Application Priority Review
- Johnson & Johnson manufactures TAR-200
woeirua · 44m ago
Unfortunately the recurrence rate after 1 year here is still quite high. Good progress, but not a cure yet.
tptacek · 33m ago
Only a small percentage had a recurrence that progressed to later-stage muscle-invasive illness, though.
lordofgibbons · 9m ago
Do cancers have a tendency to come back with better drug resistance if it's not fully eliminated? at least a resistance to the drug that got rid of it the previous time?
tomsto · 2m ago
Emphatically so, yes
blackhaz · 54m ago
My father currently suffers from bladder cancer, he's currently in palliative care, he's in Ukraine. If there are any medical professionals here, could someone provide an advice - is there any chance to get him access to TAR-200?
TheAmazingRace · 51m ago
I really wish this was available earlier, because I just lost a family member to bladder cancer yesterday morning. :(
javiramos · 23m ago
Sorry for your loss.
ecoffey · 50m ago
That is tough, I’m sorry for your loss.
TheAmazingRace · 36m ago
Thank you for the condolences.
pugworthy · 10m ago
To be clear, here is the rest of what the article title should be...
> ...for individuals with high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer whose cancer had previously resisted treatment
A_D_E_P_T · 28m ago
There's an open access paper on the development of the drug here:
Sorta OT: I’m seriously freaking out AND depressed—reading about this seemingly incredible bladder-cancer treatment (and other breakthroughs I constantly see), and then seeing, in just the past 6+ months, funding slashed and the best students from around the world actively discouraged from coming to our top schools. It’s beyond alarming.
The US is literally crushing both innovation and talent at the same time. Think of all the brilliant minds who can’t—or won’t bother—coming here to test their ideas because visas are paused, revoked, or delayed for political reasons. Worse, proposed H-1B changes favoring only high-wage workers could shut out fresh grads entirely. At this rate, funding is being starved for political concessions, and the next generation of genius scientists might be too scared—or flat-out blocked—from studying and innovating here.
And it’s not just foreign students—even native US students are looking at science careers that might not exist in a few years. My wife is an accountant for research grants, and ALL her PIs are still in a daze, trying to process what’s happening.
Again… depressing AF. THe US based science/research pipeline is toast.
searine · 48m ago
And for some reason a contingent of HN is cheering it on.
We are breaking the innovation machine and pretending discoveries will just keep happening.
kstrauser · 3m ago
In any sizable group, you're going to find a vocal jackass minority. But here, at least, they genuinely seem to be the minority.
yieldcrv · 35m ago
The US isn't the only country with prestigious universities, that partially function on a form of social taxpayer welfare, that innovate in the medical field
In fact, some other developed nations do it in far greater percentages of the universities' independent revenue.
Many also have quite comparatively easy immigration paths for both students and workers.
beowulfey · 10m ago
The scale of the US research program, compared to the rest of the world, is about an order of magnitude difference.
anonymars · 52m ago
Ultimately that's one reason why the US got the atomic bomb and not the Nazis. Ironic.
cityofdelusion · 33m ago
Realistically speaking, Germany was never on track to produce atomic weapons before their war economy was obliterated by the allies. The program was not taken seriously or had proper investment. The war machine was already severely starved of resources prior to their even more significant land losses in 1944. I honestly can’t even think of an alternate (realistic) timeline where they achieve a delivery system for atomic weaponry.
oldpersonintx2 · 51m ago
could people stop posting the same thing over and over again? its been said a million times and all of the upvotes were handed out
repeating the same karma-farming copy isn't even mid at this point
try reddit
tracker1 · 19m ago
I know I may get some flack for this. But IMO, you shouldn't make waves when you are a VISA guest in another country. It's just a bad idea all around. There's every reason to actively avoid getting politically involved. While I realize that US higher education is particularly motivated towards activism, protests and the like. Historically accepting even foreign nationals in such activity. It's still just a bad idea for non-citizens in any country to do so.
I do think a lot of grant funding will cycle back around. There's every reason for commercial sourcing to become a larger portion of university funding as well as university funding directly from endowments considering the profit motivations in both cases. I think it's far from dead, just changing.
beowulfey · 8m ago
1) Why would companies pay for basic research? They used to get that research for free.
2) Very few schools have endowments that are large enough to support current faculty research costs; even Harvard can only support all research off their endowment for about a year.
3) Endowments are now taxed, so they will have even less available for research.
tsol · 17m ago
I don't think everyone that got their funding pulled made waves. Terrance Tao for example had funding pulled simply for being associated with the wrong school.
searine · 5m ago
Corporations were funding scientific innovation indirectly through corporate taxes and they fought with every fiber of their being to cut those taxes because they didn't want to pay for it.
If you think they will suddenly have a change of heart and start funding scientific discovery not just indirectly, but directly, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Teever · 1h ago
> The standard treatment for this type of bladder cancer is an immunotherapy drug, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin,
Can anyone explain why the vaccine for TB works to treat bladder cancer?
QuercusMax · 1h ago
This "drug" is a weakened form of the bacterium, which apparently stimulates immune response. So I guess it works for both TB and bladder cancer just by getting your immune system to notice something is amiss?
imranq · 57m ago
Turning it off and then on again works in a lot of surprising places
tiahura · 1h ago
“almost half the patients were cancer-free a year later.”
onlyrealcuzzo · 41m ago
That's one way of looking at the glass half empty.
If half of people get rid of cancer for 1 year that is still outstanding - ESPECIALLY if the majority of those remain cancer free for quite some time after.
- "TAR-200 is a miniature, pretzel-shaped drug-device duo containing a chemotherapy drug, gemcitabine, which is inserted into the bladder through a catheter. Once inside the bladder, the TAR-200 slowly and consistently releases the gemcitabine into the organ for three weeks per treatment cycle."
- Phase 2 Clinical Trial
- 85 patients with high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer
- "treated patients with TAR-200 every three weeks for six months, and then four times a year for the next two years"
- 70/85 patients—the cancer disappeared and still gone 1yr later in almost 50% patients
- FDA granted TAR-200 a New Drug Application Priority Review
- Johnson & Johnson manufactures TAR-200
> ...for individuals with high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer whose cancer had previously resisted treatment
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S107814392...
The US is literally crushing both innovation and talent at the same time. Think of all the brilliant minds who can’t—or won’t bother—coming here to test their ideas because visas are paused, revoked, or delayed for political reasons. Worse, proposed H-1B changes favoring only high-wage workers could shut out fresh grads entirely. At this rate, funding is being starved for political concessions, and the next generation of genius scientists might be too scared—or flat-out blocked—from studying and innovating here.
And it’s not just foreign students—even native US students are looking at science careers that might not exist in a few years. My wife is an accountant for research grants, and ALL her PIs are still in a daze, trying to process what’s happening.
Again… depressing AF. THe US based science/research pipeline is toast.
We are breaking the innovation machine and pretending discoveries will just keep happening.
In fact, some other developed nations do it in far greater percentages of the universities' independent revenue.
Many also have quite comparatively easy immigration paths for both students and workers.
repeating the same karma-farming copy isn't even mid at this point
try reddit
I do think a lot of grant funding will cycle back around. There's every reason for commercial sourcing to become a larger portion of university funding as well as university funding directly from endowments considering the profit motivations in both cases. I think it's far from dead, just changing.
2) Very few schools have endowments that are large enough to support current faculty research costs; even Harvard can only support all research off their endowment for about a year.
3) Endowments are now taxed, so they will have even less available for research.
If you think they will suddenly have a change of heart and start funding scientific discovery not just indirectly, but directly, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Can anyone explain why the vaccine for TB works to treat bladder cancer?
If half of people get rid of cancer for 1 year that is still outstanding - ESPECIALLY if the majority of those remain cancer free for quite some time after.