Overview

Leukemia is a cancer involving blood or bone marrow, where the normal maturing process of the white blood cells is defective. Immature white blood cells multiply rapidly in an uncontrolled manner. According to the characteristics of the disease, clinicians can differentiate between acute and chronic leukaemias.
With the acute leukaemia forms, the number of immature, dysfunctional white blood cells increases very rapidly, while the numbers of red blood cells and platelets responsible for the blood clotting process decrease. Without treatment, a life-threatening condition may occur. In contrast, with the chronic forms, a patient's condition may remain stable over several months or years.

Depending on what type of blood cells is affected - granulocytes or lymphocytes - both acute and chronic leukaemias are subdivided into the lymphocytic form and the myelogenous form. On this basis four main forms of leukaemia have been identified: ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukaemia), AML (acute myelogenous leukaemia), CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukaemia) and CML (chronic myelogenous leukaemia).

For the time being, BlackSwan Pharma is concentrating on the development of a new substance for the treatment of the most common form of leukaemia - chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).