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Gossip columnist Liz Smith just posted that legendary "60 Minutes" creator Don Hewitt is hospitalized with pancreatic cancer.
Is it just me? Or does it seem like there's been a strange confluence lately of boldface names being diagnosed with it?
Hewitt, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Apple [AAPL
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] co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, actor Patrick Swayze and the late inspirational professor Randy Pausch, just to name a handful.
Last week Pfizer [PFE
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] announced that it was stopping a clinical trial of its cancer pill Sutent because it appears to have worked so well on patients with a very rare form of pancreatic cancer, apparently the type that Jobs has. In some instances, stopping a clinical trial is bad news. In this case, the study was halted early to give the patients who were on the dummy pill the choice of switching onto the real thing.
Up until this recent unfortunate spate of high-profile cases, pancreatic cancer hasn't gotten all that much attention. It's not as prevalent as other tumors and, sadly, patients often don't survive long enough to be a lobbying force. The prognosis usually is not so good and there isn't much out there to treat it. Many biopharma companies have repeatedly tried and failed to find something good and new. Maybe Pfizer's apparent breakthrough and these famous cases will help usher in a new era of progress.
- Past Coverage includes: Can Pfizer's Breakthrough Help Steve Jobs? Questions? Comments? and follow me on Twitter at mhuckman
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