Moffitt signs deal for experimental treatment

TAMPA — Moffitt Cancer Center reached a licensing agreement with Celgene Corp. that gives the public company the exclusive rights to an investigational cancer treatment.

Dr. Alan List, Moffitt's CEO and president, and Dr. Sheng Wei, a senior member of Moffitt's immunology program, developed a treatment to help patients withbone marrow and blood cell cancers, known as myelodysplastic syndromes, and potentially other diseases. The new therapy may also have applications for autoimmune diseases, inflammation and enhancement of anti-cancer immune responses.

Patients with myelodysplastic syndromes have rare cancers where bone marrow stops producing healthy blood cells. More than 50,000 people are diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndromes in the United States each year.