Press Room
Acceptance Speech by Dr. Brian Druker
I would like to thank the Japan Prize Foundation and the members of the selection committee for this prestigious honor.
I am so honored to be in the company of such esteemed scientists as Dr. Akira Endo, last year's winners, Dr. Kishimoto and Dr. Hirano among many others. I also want to thank all of my colleagues and friends in Japan who participated in the clinical trials of Imatinib.
I am particularly pleased to share this award with my good friend and collaborator, Nick Lydon, and one of my personal heroes, Dr. Janet Rowley.
Like many in the rest of the world, I watched with great sadness at the devastation of the tsunami. I continue to have great admiration for the fortitude, grace and determination shown by the people of Japan.
I began my career in cancer research nearly 25 years ago with a dream of finding better cancer treatments. I believed the future was targeted therapies where we'd kill cancer cells without harming normal cells. To do this, I believed, we needed to figure out what was triggering the growth of cancer cells and fix it. At the time, this vision was not shared by many.
But I was fortunate, I found a collaborator, Nick Lydon who shared my vision. The project faced many hurdles including convincing a large drug company to go to clinical trials. I wasn't just a researcher, isolated in my lab, I was a doctor and I had patients who desperately needed this drug to live. In 1998, we started the clinical trials with this once a day pill and within 6 months every single one of our patients had their blood counts return to normal. It has been over 10 years and today patients who once had a life expectancy of 3 to 5 years, are now expected to live 30 years. With Imatinib we've turned a fatal cancer into a manageable disease.
One of the best rewards of my job is every week I get to see patients who are thriving because of our work. I get to hear their stories, hear about their children and grandchildren.
We live in a time of great promise. There are incredible opportunities in cancer research. What Imatinib tells us is that by understanding cancer we can develop effective treatments. Imatinib tells us we are on the right track but we can't be complacent. We can't be patient. We must seize this momentum to reach the finish line of curing cancer. Thank you again for this great honor.
