He was inspired by a patient with sarcoma who recovered after suffering an acute bacterial infection.
"Sarcoma is just the head of the train, " says Ariad founder and Chief Executive Harvey Berger.
Its AP23573 pill has shown amazing promise in sarcoma, which kills 5, 000 people each year.
People who are HIV-positive are more likely to have both Castleman disease and Kaposi's sarcoma.
Kirk, who owns a majority stake in Intrexon, stands to make a bundle if the sarcoma drug works.
FORBES: A Biotech Billionaire And His Radical DNA Drug That Kills Cancer From Within
Final stages trials in sarcoma could yield results in 2012, while a small trial in lung cancer just started.
FORBES: A Biotech Billionaire And His Radical DNA Drug That Kills Cancer From Within
Gleevec is showing potential in prostate cancer and Kaposi's sarcoma, among other diseases.
In an initial trial last year, the drug delayed growth of sarcoma by about three months versus standard treatment.
FORBES: A Biotech Billionaire And His Radical DNA Drug That Kills Cancer From Within
Such viruses include the human papilloma virus, which can lead to cervical cancer, and Kaposi's sarcoma, which affects patients with HIV.
According to Cancerbacup, some 100 children develop neuroblastoma and around 60 children develop osteosarcomas or Ewing's sarcoma in the UK each year.
Take the case of Ariad Pharmaceuticals and its sarcoma drug ridaforolimus, which succeeding at preventing tumor growth in a clinical trial announced today.
Carolyn Boone had a rare form of cancer, a sarcoma that started in her uterus and spread to her liver and lungs even after she had a hysterectomy.
Ziopharm already has a drug for sarcoma in final-stage trials.
FORBES: End Of An Era: The Last Herper-Langreth Biotech Story
"Langerhans cell sarcoma is extremely rare, with only 40-50 reported cases in the literature, and only one other case of it arising from his particular type of leukaemia (acute lymphoblastic), " the spokesperson said.
Code-named AP23573 and now in middle-phase trials of 176 patients, it is aimed at an awfully small market:Only 12, 000 to 13, 000 new cases of sarcoma are diagnosed each year, compared with 213, 000 new cases of breast cancer.
One person who taught me a great deal about being fearless was my childhood friend, Jennifer Goodman Linn, a Duke and Harvard Business School graduate and marketing executive who, this week, at just 40 years old, lost her seven-year battle with a soft tissue cancer called sarcoma.
应用推荐