Recently on this board I had read something about BCX 9930. It listed a number of diseases that were compliment mediated that it was interested in. Among these diseases that it listed were diabetic retinopathy, and macular degeneration. I do not remember reading about these diseases before in any of biocryst's releases. This is why I'm interested in that release. Being a diabetic, I often get my eyes checked at a leading eye hospital in Philadelphia. My doctor is head of the retina department at this hospital. On previous visits I had mentioned to him about biocryst. In my last visit I mentioned to him about BCX 9930. I mentioned that it was a possible cure for complement mediated diseases such as PNH. He seemed very interested and ask me the name of the company again. He said that one of the doctors at the hospital was working on dry macular degeneration which is a complemented mediated disease. After I came home, it occurred to me to have the hospital contact our company. I wrote a letter to the head of the retina department and gave him the name and address of doctor Sheridan at biocryst. Also at this time I contacted doctor Sheridan through an email, and notified him of the name of my doctor. I mentioned in the email that the hospital had a doctor that was working on a complemented mediated disease which was dry macular degeneration. I also put forward the idea that since trials were going to begin using BCX 9930 with PNH, that some of these patients might be suffering from dry macular degeneration and that it might be worthwhile to monitor their dry macular degeneration while they were using BCX 9930 for their PNH.
I have no idea what the results were of these letters. I was hoping that the idea of using PNH patients for a secondary endpoint might be desirable. The only indication that I might have had some success was in the release that I read through this forum that mentioned one of the complement mediated diseases that BioCryst might be looking at was diabetic retinopathy and dry macular degeneration. I can't possibly imagine that if there is success with dry macular degeneration which, if I'm not mistaken, leads to wet macular degeneration and loss of eyesight, what kind of market this could have for the drug BCX 9930. Only time will tell if I had any success with my idea of studying dry macular degeneration patients who are also receiving BCX 9930 for PNH. ........Frankie