Man's life changes, thanks to new drug developed by Amgen

After a fall from his roof nine years ago, Charlie Hooker ended up in the hospital. He was diagnosed with a chronic illness that changed his life drastically. But now, with the help of a new drug developed by Amgen, his life is returning to normal.

The Westlake Village man wasn't aware of any symptoms before being diagnosed with immune thrombocytopenic purpura, a disease that results in a low blood platelet count, causing serious bleeding problems. Platelets, also called thrombocytes, cause the blood to clot.

"If I had broken my skin when I fell off my roof, I could have hemorrhaged to death," Hooker said.

In 1999 Hooker was 62. He was retired from two jobs—he had worked as a helicopter pilot for the national guard for 37 years before retiring in 1997, and for Alpha Beta Supermarket (now Ralphs) for 28 years before his retirement in 1998. Hooker felt he was in good health when he climbed on the roof to paint his house.

"I had no symptoms that I'd noticed, but after I fell off the roof and went to the hospital I found my platelet count was 28,000. A person with a platelet count below 30,000 can start hemorrhaging to death," he said.

He says that ITP is an autoimmune disorder that causes his immune system to attack his platelets as if they were foreign objects that don't belong in his body.

"My body was making platelets, but my immune system was killing them."

Hooker was put on corticosteroids, a drug that caused the 200-pound man to gain 93 pounds. Weighing almost 300 pounds and in ill health, his life changed dramatically. Before the accident, he was an active guy who liked to keep busy. After the diagnosis of ITP and his weight gain, he was tired all the time, wanting just to sit in a chair with his eyes closed, he said.

He was volunteering for Job Seekers with Calvary Community Church in 2000, helping the unemployed find work, but each day was a struggle. He confided to another volunteer, who happened to work for Amgen, about his illness and how he didn't think he could keep helping out.

"She told me Amgen was working on a protein (that could help) me and that they were not going to give up until they found a solution," Hooker said.

His fatigue led him to abandon his work with the Job Seekers organization. He spent his days at home, sitting in a chair. As part of his treatment, his spleen had been removed, and he underwent chemotherapy about six times. He also had more than 80 intravenous transfusions to give him antibodies extracted from plasma.

"I could hardly crawl out of my car or get out of a chair," Hooker said. "My eyes were hemorrhaging internally. This went on for about seven years."

Then two and a half years ago a friend told Hooker that Amgen was conducting a trial of the protein he'd heard about years before. He called Amgen immediately, and they referred him to Tower of Cancer Research in Beverly Hills, the group doing the testing, he said.

"I barely got in. I convinced them I could stop my other treatments long enough to do this trial."

It was a six-month program. While in it, Hooker would be unable to have the transfusions that had been keeping him alive, but he was willing to try what was then called AMG 531.

Hooker was one of the patients who received the actual drug and not a placebo. Although he began with a low dose, he was soon on the maximum dose because of his size, he said.

As a result of the drug, his platelet count is now above 80,000.

"My life has been given back to me," Hooker said.

He checks in with the doctor once a month for a blood test, and once a week he gives himself an injection of the drug, now called Nplate, a man-made protein that combines peptides with antibodies.

Hooker has reduced his weight by more than 40 pounds and has experienced no side effects, he said.

"I was so weak. Now I'm back to normal, and I can do anything."

Other new molecules in Amgen's pipeline

Amgen has the following therapies in the pipeline:

 

•Denosumab: A fully human monoclonal antibody to treat bone loss and cancer-related bone destruction, denosumab specially targets RANK Ligand, an essential mediator of osteoclasts—the cells that break down bone. Denosumab is being studied in a range of bone-loss conditions, including postmenopausal osteoporosis, cancer treatment-induced bone loss, and the prevention and treatment of cancer-induced bone destruction.

•Motesanib: A highly selective oral agent, motesanib is being evaluated for its ability to inhibit angiogenesis (abnormal process of new blood vessel formation to provide a blood supply for tumors). Studies are being conducted for multiple tumor types, including non-small cell lung cancer.

•AMG 386: A potential therapy for a variety of cancers, including metastatic breast cancer, ovarian cancer and gastric cancer, AMG 386 is a recombinant Fc-peptide fusion protein (peptibody) also being evaluated for its ability to inhibit angiogenesis.

•AMG 655: A potential cancer therapy, AMG 655 is a fully human monoclonal antibody agonist designed to induce cell death (known as apoptosis) in sensitive tumor cells. Studies are being conducted for pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer and soft tissue sarcoma.