Subsequent to Thursday’s Forbes article, many other media outlets have picked up the story on BMS-354825. Headlines like “Cancer Patient Did Not Take No for an Answer”. You might wonder How the heck did all these reporters learn about the miraculous results? as BMS hasn’t disclosed anything about phase I and phase II results?

Well, ascribe it to the ever increasing power of bloggers, private citizens keeping online diaries for everyone to read. In most cases, it is quite difficult to find these freewheeling writers, but in the case of BMS-354825, Forbes writer Robert Langreth certainly has helped to push the PR machinery into high gear.

“Bristol-Myers won’t discuss the results of the trial until it reports them at a scientific meeting in December. But a patient in the trial, Jerry Mayfield, is writing a Web diary detailing the drug’s early effects on him and other patients.”

I visited his diary, and I have to admit, this is like real-time clinical trials. Sure, as Jerry admits himself, his diary is “no scientific proof of the safety or efficacy of BMS-354825 in CML”, but from a public relations standpoint, this is pure gold for BMS. And it’s free.

I just wonder what the future will hold for clinical trials, with every patient starting to detail their trials & tribulations….