"When I started in 2001, no one was interested in Muckle-Wells, " recalls UCSF dermatologist Kieron Leslie.
Two months later Fishman hired rheumatologist Wright, who proposed testing Novartis' own antibody in Muckle-Wells.
Regeneron tested its own drug in 47 Muckle-Wells patients, and it helped all of them.
Regeneron's drug is given weekly and could be approved for Muckle-Wells and its milder cousin this year.
This month Novartis begins a follow-up trial in up to 40 Muckle-Wells patients.
Hoffman at UC, San Diego in 2001 pinpointed the gene mutation that causes Muckle-Wells and the inherited overreaction to drafts.
Souther's disorder is the milder cousin of Muckle-Wells syndrome, and the causes of both were unknown until a a few years ago.
In 2003 British researchers tested Amgen's interleukin-blocking rheumatoid arthritis drug, Kineret, in two Muckle-Wells patients who had not been helped by other drugs.
Wright proposed testing the drug in patients with a disease so rare that some of his superiors had never heard of it: Muckle-Wells syndrome.
Scots words like bairn (child), midden (dump), muckle (large) and even kilt (from the verb kjalta, meaning "to fold") are derived from Old Norse.
The exhibition in his honour, From the Moon to the Muckle Toon, was officially opened by David Stevenson - the second man to receive such an honour.
Novartis' promising Muckle-Wells drug--its antibody against interleukin-1, which it first aimed at arthritis--was one of the first drugs to benefit from Fishman's new testing regimen.
James Muckle, who manages a 32-unit apartment building in Sebastopol, Calif.
Yancopoulos, Regeneron's chief scientist, says he heard about the possibilities in treating Muckle-Wells and made an "impassioned plea" to Novartis to test Regeneron's drug for that malady.
And though the company earlier had spurned a biotech firm's proposal to jointly study Muckle-Wells, Wright convinced his bosses that the obscure disorder was the perfect test-bed for the new compound.
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