Celebrating The Success of Velcade | 14 Years Later

Last week, Veristat attended the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MassBio) forum titled “Evolution of an Academic Discovery: First Person Account of the Development of Velcade®”.   

This event focused on reviewing and celebrating the success of Velcade, a breakthrough product for patients with multiple myeloma and other hematologic cancers. Today, Velcade is considered the gold standard of care for patients with multiple myeloma and is approved in over 90 countries worldwide.

This forum had a special significance for Veristat, since we were involved from the beginning of the clinical program in the design and analysis of the pivotal trial, and in the creation of the submission documents.  Veristat co-founders John and Barbara Balser were acknowledged for their role, as well as that of the entire Veristat team, as major contributors to the scientific collaboration underlying the submission process that lead to regulatory approval.    

The discussion was led by Julian Adams, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer & President at ClaI Biotechnology Industries; Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Alfred Goldberg, PhD, Professor in Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School; and David Schenkein, M.D., Chief Executive Officer at Agios Pharmaceuticals. They provided a fascinating glimpse into the efforts of numerous dedicated scientists and clinicians who took this product from an idea at Harvard Medical school to a biotech startup that faced  the tumult of mergers and acquisitions, and who championed the product from inception in the laboratory through clinical development and on to successful approval in record time. This was a well-attended forum that provided incredible insights into the dedication required to bring a ground-breaking therapeutic to patients in need.

"We at Veristat are proud and honored to have played a part in this success story of Velcade, one today’s most important and life-saving oncology therapies."  

-John Balser, PhD, President, Veristat

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