2001 continued

Things seemed to be on a pretty even keel, even if progress was not quite as fast as we might have liked.

Then came the news of the Genzyme/Novazyme merger in August 2001. I have already dealt with the Novazyme story in earlier posts and don't propose to re-hash the whole sorry story again here.

This was swiftly followed by the news that Pharming had gone into receivership.  Thankfully, as noted before, they survived to fight another day. Genzyme acted to ensure that there was a continued supply of the rabbit enzyme for those patients receiving it, though it was clear that they would now be even more keen in transitioning those patients to the CHO enzyme as soon as possible.

Nevertheless, it raised a lot of concerns - we appeared to have been on one course and now everything was, once again, up in the air. Thankfully, an AMDA patient meeting was scheduled for September 2001, in San Antonio, Texas. As well as being the first opportunity for may US patients to get together, Genzyme had undertaken to participate and answer questions.