Attendees at this morning’s RCPN meeting were privileged to receive an inspirational talk from David Downs. Amongst a significant number of other activities, David is a cancer survivor, patient advocate and ambassador for the Malaghan Institute. It was largely the cancer journey and science work being done that he concentrated on in this talk.
Seven years ago David was given a year to live following discovery of lymphoma and a tumour that grew to the size of a basketball. The initial indication that it was a ‘good cancer’
with 80% chance of survival had proved to not be totally accurate and after 4 types of chemo had been used David was told it was maybe time to cease treatment and get his affairs in
order. With a very positive attitude (eg for his innumerable medical appointments he came to refer to them as not ‘going to hospital’, but rather ‘going on holiday’, and also requiring any visitors to come in fancy dress) David wrote 60 blogs for stuff, and credits these for saving his life – a VP at Pfeizer read them and put David on to Harvard Medical School where he became involved in a trial that has appeared to have worked. The apparent silver bullets are known as CAR T Cells and at $1.1B/gm are (behind anti-
matter) the second most expensive substance in the world. Malaghan work currently includes doing a phase 2 trial involving this and have estimated it could be only several years away from becoming available mainstream. A real challenge besides funding the trial (currently of the $12M trial cost half is still to be raised) is getting the results accepted by pharmaceutical companies. Davids outlook on life is clearly hugely positive, and as evidenced by his meeting this afternoon with the PM he obviously has access to useful contacts.
with 80% chance of survival had proved to not be totally accurate and after 4 types of chemo had been used David was told it was maybe time to cease treatment and get his affairs in
order. With a very positive attitude (eg for his innumerable medical appointments he came to refer to them as not ‘going to hospital’, but rather ‘going on holiday’, and also requiring any visitors to come in fancy dress) David wrote 60 blogs for stuff, and credits these for saving his life – a VP at Pfeizer read them and put David on to Harvard Medical School where he became involved in a trial that has appeared to have worked. The apparent silver bullets are known as CAR T Cells and at $1.1B/gm are (behind anti-
matter) the second most expensive substance in the world. Malaghan work currently includes doing a phase 2 trial involving this and have estimated it could be only several years away from becoming available mainstream. A real challenge besides funding the trial (currently of the $12M trial cost half is still to be raised) is getting the results accepted by pharmaceutical companies. Davids outlook on life is clearly hugely positive, and as evidenced by his meeting this afternoon with the PM he obviously has access to useful contacts.
Those interested in looking at other presentations David has given (including a very entertaining TEDx Talk) could start with the below link: David Downs (celebrityspeakers.co.nz)