IPO Education Foundation Honors Top Inventors of 2011

Pfizer Inventors Recognized for Discovering Biomarker-Based Lung Cancer Treatment

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation will present the 38th Annual National Inventor of the Year Award on December 5, 2011, in a ceremony at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, to a team of inventors from Pfizer Inc. The remarkable group of scientists will be honored for their development of Xalkori® (crizotinib), the first new drug approved for lung cancer in the U.S. in more than six years. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in late August of this year under the agency's accelerated approval program.

Xalkori® represents a shift in lung cancer treatment, moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach toward personalized therapy. It is indicated for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has a genetic aberration called anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) as detected by FDA-approved test. This indicated is based on response rate. There are no data available demonstrating improvement in patient reported outcomes or survival with Xalkori®.

Lung cancer is responsible for more deaths each year worldwide than any other type of cancer. NSCLC accounts for about 85 percent of lung cancer cases. Current estimates indicate that in the United States, approximately 3-5 percent, or 6,500 to 11,000 patients with non-small cell lung cancer, carry this genetic aberration and may be candidates for the drug. Xalkori® works by inhibiting the protein produced by the ALK gene.

Xalkori® was developed at Pfizer's La Jolla, California research labs by a team spearheaded by Dr. J. Jean Cui, along with Lee Andrew Funk, Lei Jia, Pei-Pei Kung, Jerry Meng, Mitchell Nambu, Mason Allen Pairish, Hong Chen, and Michelle Tran-Dube. Xalkori® originally was developed for the inhibition of a gene known as c-Met. After Dr. Hiroyuki Mano, a Japanese researcher, showed a potential role of ALK in NSCLC (Nature 2007), the clinical team at Pfizer quickly moved to evaluate Xalkori® in patients who had ALK-positive NSCLC.

The National Inventor of the Year Award fosters the spirit of American innovation and highlights the protection offered by the patent system. The Award honors recent American inventors, having gone previously to inventors of the Jarvik Seven Artificial Heart, Bose speaker technology, Powercore® LED technology and other patented breakthrough inventions.

Members of the media can arrange to attend the December 5 ceremony by contacting Alison Baker at 202-507-4504.

About IPO Education Foundation

Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation, a non-profit subsidiary of Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), was established in 2005 to educate the public on the importance of intellectual property rights to the economy.

Donations to the foundation are tax deductible to the extent allowed by the law. To find out more about IPO Education Foundation programs or to make a donation, visit www.ipoef.org or call 202/507-4500.

SOURCE Intellectual Property Owners, Inc.