Interviewee: Brian Druker. Brian Druker talks about Bud, the first patient restored to health by Gleevecâ„¢. (DNAi Location: Applications > Genes and medicine > Drug design > Bud's story > The first clinical success)

Bud is so amazing. It's an incredible story because on my birthday in 1996 The Oregonian published an article about our pre-clinical work and I had my picture on the front page of our local newspaper. Bud saw that article and contacted me and said if you ever go to clinical trials I want to be the first. And he was. But he was at 25 milligrams and it didn't work. But as we reached effective doses I actually lobbied Novartis. Can we bring back the original group of patients and obviously I had Bud in mind and so in April of '99 we put Bud on an effective dose and his blood counts for the last three and a half years have been completely normal. And it's just so amazing to see Bud and his wife and how well he's done, how well he feels and how much joy of life he has.