Dr. Norbert Voelkel Wins 1998 Scientific Progress Award

Washington, D.C., March 2, 1998: The PPH Cure Foundation announced today that its 1998 Scientific Progress Award would be granted to Dr. Norbert F. Voelkel, M.D., in recognition of his outstanding contributions toward a cure for Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH), a life-threatening disease affecting thousands of people. Dr. Voelkel is the Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Center and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

"We are very pleased to be able to recognize Dr. Voelkel’s extraordinary contributions toward curing PPH," said Martine Rothblatt, Program Director of the PPH Cure Foundation. "During the last year alone he has led team efforts which demonstrated the feasibility of using gene therapy to treat PPH, proved that monoclonal pulmonary endothelial cell growth occurs in patients with PPH, and accomplished the fastest-ever three dimensional computer modeling of diseased precapillary vessels. While accomplishing all of this he managed to save the lives of dozens of patients with intravenous prostacyclin therapy, conducted experiments that have paved the way for oral prostacyclin therapy, helped alert policymakers to the epidemic of PPH being caused by Redux and Phen-fen and trained a new generation of PPH specialists. Many of us marvel at how much Dr. Voelkel accomplishes for the PPH community, and we are extremely indebted to him."

PPH recently came to the nation’s attention when it was identified as one of the potential side effects of the now-withdrawn diet drugs Redux and Phen-fen. Many women who used the drugs to lose a few pounds ended up requiring either a lung transplant or lifelong, 24 hour-a-day intravenous infusions of prostacyclin - the only approved treatments for PPH. However, thousands of people develop PPH without ever having used diet drugs, and it is generally considered within the medical community to be a "mystery disease."

The PPH Cure Foundation is the world’s largest non-government funder of medical research into the causes and cures of PPH. The Foundation funds drug development and basic scientific research in the United States, Canada and Europe. The PPH Cure Foundation also publishes the Internet Journal of Pulmonary Hypertension Research at www.pphcure.org. Dr. Voelkel’s award and $25,000 honorarium for medical research will be given at the bi-annual meeting of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, June 19-21, 1998 at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Lakes Hilton, in Dallas Texas.