The New York Times, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio and other leading media outlets recently featured the promising results of a clinical trial of VX-770, a potential drug that targets the underlying cause of CF.

VX-770 is being developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and was discovered in collaboration with the CF Foundation.

The story in The New York Times highlights the marked improvement in lung function shown among trial participants receiving VX-770, and notes that 22 years after the CF gene was discovered, a drug designed to correct the basic defect might be nearing the market.

“I've been doing clinical trials for 30 years in CF and these are amazing results,'' Dr. Bonnie W. Ramsey of the University of Washington, and a lead investigator in the trial, says in the story.

The CF Foundation's pioneering model of venture philanthropy to accelerate drug development is the focus of a Boston Globe column, “Hope Is in the Pipeline.” Treatments targeting the basic defect in CF, the columnist wrote, “probably wouldn't exist at all if the Cystic Foundation didn't begin funding work on them more than a decade ago.”

Quoted by the Globe on the trial results, Robert J. Beall, Ph.D., president and CEO of the CF Foundation, said: “We've had some successes, but this is a major milestone.”

In addition, an interview with a participant in the VX-770 clinical trial aired on the National Public Radio current events show Here and Now. Detroit resident Emily Schaller, 29, who has CF, described how she noticed dramatic improvements in her breathing shortly after the trial began.

Additional Resources

• Read The New York Times story
• Listen to the interview on NPR's Here and Now