About RVL: Spotlights

Inhaled nitric oxide Treatment

For many years nitric oxide (NO) gas - not to be confused with the anesthetic nitrous oxide - was considered a dangerous pollutant. Then in the mid-1980s three US researchers, including Massachusetts General Hospital’s Warren M. Zapol, MD, discovered that the body naturally used NO to transmit key signals in the pulmonary, cardiovascular and other systems.

Subsequent NO studies showed that among its many functions was to relax the muscles surrounding blood vessels and reduce blood pressure. The first clinical application studied at the MGH was treatment of a rare, potentially fatal disease in infants - persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN). In 1999 the USFDA approved inhaled NO for the treatment of PPHN and other hypoxic respiratory failure in newborns.

“Smart” Drug Infusion Pumps

Massachusetts General Hospital transformed patient care with the introduction of a “smart” drug infusion pump—an invention that was conceptualized and deployed hospital-wide at MGH and has proven highly useful in clinical care. The invention was motivated by an awareness of tragic events involving complex drug dosing calculation errors and misprogrammed drug infusion pumps.

The MGH, along with industrial collaborators, set out to design and refine what has become known as the “smart” infusion pump, an electronic device that contains an updated, hospital specific electronic library of hundreds of intravenous drugs and infusion protocols embedded in the pump’s software.

To help move this revolutionary technology out into the marketplace a nonexclusive licensing program was developed, which provided access to the intellectual property to several major dug infusion pump manufacturers, including Alaris Medical Systems, Hospira (formerly Abbott Laboratories), Braun Medical and Sigma International.

HCM CardioChip™ Test

The HCM CardioChip test examines eleven genes known to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a primary disorder of the myocardium that can cause sudden cardiac death. Developed at the Harvard Medical School-Partners HealthCare Center for Genetics and Genomics (HPCGG) the custom-designed microarray tests for genetic mutations.

With the launch of the HCM CardioChip in November 2007, HPCGG’s CLIA-approved laboratory became the first clinical laboratory in the world to offer a comprehensive gene sequencing test based on microarray technology. Development of the array was made possible under Partners HealthCare’s strategic alliance with Affymetrix, Inc. Other microarray tests at HPCGG include the Noonan Spectrum Chip™, DCM CardioChip™ and OtoChip™.

Cacimimetic CaR Activator

Brigham and Women’s Hospital Investigators, Edward Brown, M.D. (Endocrinology) and Steven Hebert, M.D. (BWH Nephrology) discovered a novel bovine extracellular calciumsensing receptor (CaR) in 1993. The CaR is present in key cells that maintain calcium homeostasis in the body. In collaboration with scientists at NPS Pharmaceuticals, NPS and BWH filed jointly owned patent applications claiming the use of CaR molecules to screen for potential pharmaceuticals for the treatment of diseases/sickness linked to extracellular calcium imbalance [e.g. kidney disease, hyperparathyroidism (HPT), etc.].

After more than a decade of research and development by NPS and its corporate partners, Amgen and Kirin Brewery, Sensipar, a calcimimetic CaR activator that decreases parathyroid hormone levels, received FDA approval in March 2004. Sensipar is being marketed by Amgen to treat secondary HPT in patients on dialysis for kidney failure and those with parathyroid cancer. This class of compound represents a first-in-class treatment for a clear unmet medical need. (Image courtesy J. Yang, Ph.D)

E-Poly™ Vitamin E Infused Joints

Total replacements for hips and other joints were developed in the late 1960s, but it soon became apparent that hip implants could start loosening about 5 years after surgery and would eventually fail completely. A team led by William Harris, MD, DSc of the Massachusetts General Hospital investigated this complication and found that long-term friction of the implant's head against the polyethylene-lined joint socket would break off small particles of polyethylene. The body's immune system reacted against these foreign particles, eventually destroying adjacent bone tissue and causing the implant to loosen - a condition called periprosthetic osteolysis. Orhun Muratoglu, PhD, co-director of the Harris Orthopædics Biomechanics and Biomaterials Laboratory (OBBL) at MGH found that oxidation could be blocked by diffusing the antioxidant vitamin E throughout the polyethylene material.

The first-generation highly crosslinked polyethylene was approved by the FDA for use in implants in 1999 and has been licensed to Zimmer and Biomet.

Enbrel®

Enbrel® (etanercept) is a fully human, soluble, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor fusion protein based in part on intellectual property developed by Brian Seed in the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Molecular Biology. People with an immune disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, or psoriasis, have too much TNF in their bodies. Enbrel acts by binding to and neutralizing TNF.

Enbrel is among the most successful biotech drugs on the market. It is manufactured by Amgen, and is marketed in North America by Amgen and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Wyeth affiliates market Enbrel outside of North America.