re: Husband of Dying Wife Fights for Experimental Drug

This is truly a heart wrenching story that I wish was not familiar to me. We went though a similar situation with my younger brother about 14 years ago. He had metastatic colon cancer.

I formally worked for Genentech as a rep, and my wife worked with Biogen/Idec at the time. With all our connections, there was absolutely no chance for him to even get compassionate use of an angiogenesis drug, that incidently, didn't pan out as hoped.

Many times, during clinical trials, companies have a difficult enough time getting enough drug for clinical trials, let alone to give away for compassionate use. Sad, but true, it's a rare situation to get an experimental drug during clinical trials. Best bet to get compassionate use is after all the trials have closed and the company is awaiting approval.

I wish them the best.