{"entity":{"id":"bud-romine","kind":"person","name":"Bud Romine","aka":[],"tldr":"A retired railway engineer from Oregon with chronic myeloid leukaemia, he was the first person to take the drug that became Gleevec, in June 1998, after reading about Brian Druker's research in a newspaper.","summary":"Bud Romine, from Tillamook, Oregon, had chronic myeloid leukaemia when he read a 1996 newspaper account of Brian Druker's laboratory work at Oregon Health & Science University on a compound that switched off the BCR-ABL kinase. He wrote to Druker asking to be treated and, in June 1998, became the first patient dosed in the phase 1 trial of STI571, later imatinib. The trial went on to show that nearly every patient at effective doses achieved a normal blood count, a result without precedent in cancer drug development, and the FDA approved imatinib in May 2001 in under three months of review. His letter and his willingness to be first are part of the documented history of the drug at OHSU and in accounts such as Jessica Wapner's The Philadelphia Chromosome.","asOf":"2026-09-09","links":[{"label":"OHSU Knight Cancer Institute","url":"https://www.ohsu.edu/knight-cancer-institute"},{"label":"Imatinib (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imatinib"}],"tags":["hero","patient"],"related":[],"cancers":["cml"],"sections":[],"technologies":["kinase-inhibitors"],"targets":["bcr-abl"],"drugs":["imatinib"],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":["oncogene-addiction"],"trials":[],"people":["brian-druker","janet-rowley"],"bottlenecks":["b-trial-enrolment"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"First patient in the imatinib (STI571) phase 1 trial","specialisms":["Chronic myeloid leukaemia","Clinical trial participation"],"profiles":[{"label":"OHSU Knight Cancer Institute","url":"https://www.ohsu.edu/knight-cancer-institute"},{"label":"Imatinib (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imatinib"}],"papers":[]},"route":"/people/bud-romine/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"cml","kind":"cancer","name":"Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML)","route":"/cancers/cml/"}],"technology":[{"id":"kinase-inhibitors","kind":"technology","name":"Small-molecule kinase inhibitors","route":"/technologies/kinase-inhibitors/"}],"target":[{"id":"bcr-abl","kind":"target","name":"BCR::ABL1 (Philadelphia chromosome)","route":"/targets/bcr-abl/"}],"drug":[{"id":"imatinib","kind":"drug","name":"Imatinib","route":"/drugs/imatinib/"}],"term":[{"id":"oncogene-addiction","kind":"term","name":"Oncogene addiction","route":"/terms/oncogene-addiction/"}],"person":[{"id":"brian-druker","kind":"person","name":"Brian Druker","route":"/people/brian-druker/"},{"id":"janet-rowley","kind":"person","name":"Janet Rowley","route":"/people/janet-rowley/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-trial-enrolment","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Trials enrol too few, too slowly","route":"/bottlenecks/b-trial-enrolment/"}]}}