Health and economic benefits from new HRC-funded research

Health and economic benefits from new HRC-funded research

Two new research contracts announced today – one following up on a successful trial of a cheap oral gel for treating low blood sugar levels in newborn babies and the other developing new targeted drugs for stomach cancer patients – will boost both our nation’s health and bank balance.

“Two dollars is all it costs to produce the oral gel which has been shown to prevent brain damage in a newborn. This is a small price to pay, given that treating the 2,100 babies severely affected by low blood sugar levels in the neonatal intensive care unit each year costs the nation $9.4 million. The glucose gel can simply be rubbed on the inside of the baby’s cheek in this revolutionary, non-invasive treatment,” says HRC Chief Executive Professor Kath McPherson.

Distinguished Professor Jane Harding, a neonatal paediatrician and Dean of Research at the University of Auckland, has received more than $1 million from the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) for this project, which will follow-up babies treated with an oral glucose gel as newborns at two-years of age to ensure the safety and efficacy of the treatment before it’s introduced into clinical practice.

Professor Harding and her team have provided the first evidence-based strategy to treat low blood sugar levels that affects up to 15 per cent of otherwise healthy babies.

“The importance of this work cannot be overstated,” says Professor McPherson. “Such an intervention could prevent brain damage in babies, improve breastfeeding rates and long-term health, prevent major distress for affected families, and save our health system significant costs, potentially revolutionising the management of neonatal hypoglycaemia around the world.”

New drugs targeting aggressive stomach cancer are the focus from the team that the HRC previously supported to successfully find the gene for diffuse gastric cancer.Professor Parry Guilford from the University of Otago has also received funding in excess of $1 million to further his groundbreaking work in this area.

“Stomach cancer is an aggressive cancer with a very poor prognosis,” says Professor Guilford. “New drugs for treating advanced stomach cancer have the potential to benefit up to 400,000 new patients worldwide each year, including a disproportionate number of Māori and Pacific peoples.”

These drugs will provide potentially huge health and economic gains to New Zealand, according to Professor Kathryn McPherson. She adds that Professor Guilford has a proven track record in translating cutting-edge research to the cancer clinic.

“The Cancer Genetic Laboratory at the University of Otago, which Professor Guilford co-leads, generated the NZX-listed cancer biotechnology company Pacific Edge Ltd. Pacific Edge’s flagstone product is CxBladder; a diagnostic test for bladder cancer that was first introduced to our market in 2011 and is now also available in Singapore and the USA.”

The HRC funded the early research that formed the basis of Pacific Edge’s success, and continues to fund pioneering research by researchers at the Cancer Genetic Laboratory.

“Their findings have benefited many families worldwide, saved lives and gained international recognition. But it has been the group’s continued emphasis on protecting intellectual property while identifying new diagnostic biomarkers for a range of cancers that has made it possible for Pacific Edge to achieve ongoing success in delivering commercial cancer tests for early diagnosis and better treatment of cancer,” says Professor McPherson.

Professors Harding and Guilford are two of 33 researchers to receive a combined total of more than $34.5 million in project funding in the HRC’s 2015 funding round. The full list of all the successful HRC project recipients for 2015 is available on the HRC website: go to www.hrc.govt.nz/funding-opportunities/recipients (filter for ‘Researcher initiated proposals’, ‘Projects’, ‘2015’). Please note: this link will be live as of 6am on Thursday, 4 June 2015.

Information:
Professor Parry Guilford, University of Otago, Dunedin
The chemoprevention and treatment of diffuse gastric cancer
36 months, $1,189,286

Professor Jane Harding, the University of Auckland
Does preventing neonatal hypoglycaemia improve outcome at two years of age?
60 months, $ 1,599,837

ENDS

© Scoop Media