Eleonore Thun-Hohenstein WHO’S AFRAID OF A CURE FOR CANCER?

Obstacles and ‘Coincidences’ Pile Up

If, initially, certain occurrences could be explained as unpleasant coincidences, as time passed something like a system could be discerned. For instance when, remarkably often, post sent abroad or from foreign scientist colleagues did not arrive or when faxes ‘got lost’ because the connection could not be made no matter how often tried. Nowicky also had the feeling that his telephone was bugged. From then on, he used a telephone box on the Ringstrasse for important telephone calls, even though there was a telephone box just opposite his flat. He did not trust that one either. He sent important post from distant post offices. One may have thought that he was suffering from paranoia.

Then something happened which could no longer be explained away as a mere coincidence. At the time, Nowicky was doing further research into the alkaloids of greater celandine at the laboratory at the Technical University under the wing of Professor Gutmann. Gutmann confirmed to me that Nowicky often continued working on his experiments late into the night. He had found twenty-six new substances which he intended to send to the Canadian scientist, Professor Andrejs Liepins, at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. The two had been corresponding for some time and Liepins had recently reported interesting in vitro results for Ukrain.

Nowicky took a sample from each of the twenty-six substances, which were stored in numbered bottles in the laboratory, and sealed these in small glass phials. He sent the package via the DHL parcel delivery company. The containers were packed in full view of an employee of the company into transparent packaging which was then stuck down and the whole was then sealed in a large parcel. A list of contents was appended. Before the package arrived, Liepins was informed that it was damaged – and it was indeed, but in a curious way. The outer packaging had been opened on two sides and six of the glass containers had been cut out from the transparent inner packaging.

Professor Liepins took photographs of the damage and told Nowicky the numbers of the missing phials over the telephone. Nowicky promised to send these substances again. The numbers were not in sequence and seemed to have been removed at random. However, to his great astonishment Nowicky found that exactly the same numbered phials had disappeared from his laboratory. The only result of investigation was that the package must have been damaged on the flight between Brussels and USA.

The missing substances were no great loss when one knew how to reproduce them, and they were also of no greater significance than those that remained. Nowicky saw this as ‘psycho-terror’. ‘That was someone who wanted to show me their power.’

Professor Liepins also warned him not to underestimate the influence wielded by the large pharmaceutical companies – not only on university clinics. He advised Nowicky to approach general practitioners. After all, these large companies had invested millions in the development of cytostatica and would hardly be pleased to have to write off these sums before they were amortised.

Nowicky’s first experience of these powers was in 1984 at the chemotherapy congress on Rhodes, to which the president had invited him personally. He was scheduled to talk about research into Ukrain. However, upon arrival he was told that his talk had been cancelled due to ‘pressure of time’. Nowicky left the congress office disappointed and then by chance met the president, George Daikos, who asked him what time he would be speaking. When he discovered that no time had been set aside for Nowicky, he hurried to the office and insisted that Nowicky be allowed to deliver his talk. Nowicky later discovered that sponsoring pharmaceutical companies had threatened to cut off funding if Nowicky spoke at the congress.

There had previously been a short period when the giants of the industry had courted him. It was quite soon after the first sensational results for Ukrain had been published. Cancer specialists discovered that there was a new drug which was completely non-toxic, which enabled tumours and metastases to be seen due to its fluorescence, which attacked only cancer cells while leaving healthy cells undamaged and which had no side effects such as hair loss or nausea. It was then that a series of large pharmaceutical companies lined up to buy the patent and Nowicky’s knowledge, offering what were enormous sums for a lone researcher – up to one hundred million dollars.

The first was the company which produces Thiotepa, a substance required for the production of Ukrain. The lure was 80 million dollars. Later, many others followed, including such large concerns as Hoffmann-La Roche and Bristol Myers. In spite of increasing bids, Nowicky obstinately refused all offers although at that time his own means were very limited. Nowicky was unwilling to sell his invention at any price – incredible as that may seem in view of the temptation of the enormous sums involved. He saw these offers as confirmation of his work. Since then, he has attributed some difficulties which he has met on his way to the long arm of the powers he had sent packing.

It is certainly doubtful whether some incidents were entirely within the law. While writing his thesis and working in the laboratory at the Technical University, where Professor Gutmann confirmed that he worked ‘like a man obsessed’, there were other unpleasant occurrences apart from the theft of the six phials with samples. One of these was the disappearance of all the alkaloids which he was investigating, not only from the laboratory but also from the safe of the Technical University. Another was the wilful dilution of a solution. He would have had to stand guard at his place in the laboratory day and night. However, as though to compensate for these setbacks, Nowicky was greatly helped when a cleaning lady moved one particular solution to a different place. His subsequent use of it cut short potentially lengthy investigations.

However, as the time came for Nowicky’s oral examination for his doctorate, he had to contend with more than small hindrances. In March 1993 Nowicky handed in six copies of his dissertation to the university, as prescribed. From there his work was passed on to be examined by Dr. Thomas Kroyer, a specialist in alkaloids, and Professor Gutmann. Both confirmed to Nowicky that they could only evaluate his work positively. Professor Robert Ebermann from the University of Agriculture, whose opinion Gutmann had asked, agreed. The deanery fixed the examination date for 6 May 1993.

However, as Nowicky arrived on that day he was told that the examination had been cancelled. He had previously received an informal telephone call informing him of this but there was nothing in writing. It could have been a trick to make him miss the exam.

He began to understand better what was going on when he was given a form and asked to name two new experts to evaluate his work.

The examination candidate, who had put on his best suit for nothing, decided not to draw in his horns. He discovered from Gutmann that the deacon, Professor Stachelberger, had instructed the two professors not to hand in written reports. Without a written – positive – expert report candidates are not permitted to take the oral examination.

Nowicky found out that the deacon had told Gutmann that he (Gutmann) was no alkaloid specialist and he could ‘embarrass himself’. Since Gutmann was an internationally recognised chemist with several doctorates and was a co-author of specialist publications covering 80% of the topics dealt with in Nowicky’s dissertation and was cited as a reference in two others, this was simply incredible.

This was of course all of no use, since professors are bound by the instructions of their deacon and could not help the rather desperate examination candidate who had been brought down at the last hurdle. He now knew that he would lose another semester. In addition Gutmann was about to receive professor emeritus status which would mean that Nowicky would lose his patron and would have to start from scratch.

But Nowicky did not give up. In his years in Vienna Nowicky had already had to suffer too many infringements of the law. He therefore decided first to investigate if this was not a similar case. As soon as he began to study the laws applying to universities he found the relevant paragraph in which the regulations for examinations are laid down. Here Nowicky discovered that the university teacher, the author of a dissertation has chosen to oversee his work, must also deliver a specialist report. The second report could be made by a specialist of a closely related subject. The exam candidate asked for an appointment with the rector.

However, the matter was also taken up from another side. Dr. Norbert Rozsenich, department head at the Ministry of Science heard about the case, which he also could only categorise as a breach of law, and as a higher authority brought an abrupt end to these delaying tactics.

Because the wheels of academe turn slowly, exam dates are a rarity at the end of term and enthusiasm to compensate for this infringement of the law was not bubbling over, Nowicky had to wait until autumn to take (and pass) the oral examination and finally be awarded his doctorate. His other academic qualification, as an electronics engineer, received from the Polytechnic Academy of Lvov had received nostrification by the Technical University of Vienna in 1975 at the time when Nowicky became an Austrian citizen. Since with the end of his studies Nowicky also lost his laboratory place at the Technical University, he set up his own laboratory and did not even tell good friends its address. He could not shake off the suspicion that his telephone was bugged and that he was being watched. It happened repeatedly that his telephone remained silent for hours and that callers could not get through. There were also calls which when answered, there was nobody there.

One malicious act, which was never cleared up, could even have been fatal. On 10 October 1993 he drove home with a friend, parked his car on his street and briefly went up to his flat before continuing his journey. When he came back to the car he noticed a strange pungent smell which he then traced to the tyres. Acid had been poured over them.

If, as usual, he had remained at home, he would not have noticed the smell next day and at some point the acid would have eaten through the tyres. His sister and Professor Liepins from Canada were witnesses.

Throughout the year Nowicky lived in continual fear of losing his emergency accommodation. In the meantime a third child was born and the two-roomed flat became more cramped. Despite several lawyers he hired in the forlorn hope of attaining justice and thereby compensation, the eviction order was not rescinded. The apartment he had been forced to leave remained empty.

Nowicky realised that he had to buy a flat. He also recalled that a Ukrainian farmer, who was said to be able to see into the future, had prophesied that in 1992 he would become a house owner. It was not a house but a spacious flat which he was finally able to buy after a series of strange occurrences which were never explained.

It was November 1992 and Nowicky was harbouring justified doubts about the farmer’s prophesy when he saw a notice on a building in the Margaretenstrasse: ‘300m² for sale’. It was like a twist of fate.

He immediately contacted the agent and was told that other potential buyers were interested in the flat and the owner, who lived in Germany, would be coming to Vienna a few days later to decide to whom to sell the property.

Nowicky went to his bank, a branch of the Länderbank, now Bank Austria, to ask for a loan. He was told that a loan would be possible and he waited impatiently for the owner to arrive. Although the flat had previously been used as a large showroom for hairdresser’s equipment and needed considerable adaptation, Nowicky was not put off. With the help of friends and relations he would manage it.

On the day of meeting the owner arrived and Nowicky was in with a good chance. The man from Germany had been in Ukraine and had good memories of the country. More particularly he had been forced to leave his home country, Romania, many years previously and therefore knew of the difficulties faced by emigrants. He agreed to sell to Nowicky. With a solicitor, in the presence of the agent, it was agreed that the purchase price should be paid by 3 December, within a few weeks; otherwise the flat would be sold to someone else.

Nowicky left the agent’s office with the owner of the flat he had – at least theoretically – bought. They walked a little way together and talked about various subjects. As they said goodbye the owner told Nowicky that he should not worry about the date of payment. If he had not raised the purchase price by 3 December he would still have an option until the end of the month. There were no witnesses to this conversation. Nowicky was not at all anxious – the bank had officially approved the loan. The day before the purchase was to go through he received a telephone call from the bank. To his amazement he was told that he could unfortunately not be granted the loan. However, if he had already entered into a binding agreement he was advised to appeal.

In answer to Nowicky’s astonished ‘Why?’, he was given the mysterious information, ‘Check your post, there you will find the answer.’ In his post he found a letter from the tax office saying that he had to make a back payment of € 72,000 tax on property.

With overdue tax payments it was clear that there could be no loan from the bank. But where this tax payment came from remained a complete mystery to him. He would have to own property with a value of € 7.2 million to receive such a tax demand – and there was no question of that.

He then went to his accountant who was also mystified. However, a few days later, after 3 December, the purchase date agreed in the presence of witnesses, he received a dryly worded letter from the tax office that the demand had been a mistake.

Whoever had instigated all this, it did not work out. Nowicky was able to point to the verbal agreement which the owner confirmed.

Nowicky now had no desire whatsoever to walk into any more traps and he managed to raise the purchase price with the help of friends and his wife’s family. Now he finally had an apartment from which nobody could throw him out. After protracted renovation work the family was able to move in two years later.

He was, of course, not protected from other nasty surprises. One of these was provided by his bank as he wanted to close a deal for Ukrain in Thailand.

A Thai pharmaceutical company wanted to make an agency agreement for Ukrain in Asia following the ever more frequent reports on the drug at international conferences. Nowicky was to send a large amount of Ukrain ampoules to Thailand as soon as the company had transferred payment to his account. He needed confirmation from his bank that there was in fact an account in the name of Nowicky. However, the bank refused to confirm this and thereby ruined a potentially very lucrative deal.

A similar fate met a deal with Kuwait, where clinical studies had been carried out with good results. Nowicky was supposed to deliver a large amount of Ukrain. This time the Ministry of Health objected to the official confirmation that a company registered in the name of Dr. Nowicky actually existed. At this time Nowicky had had approval since June 1988 to enter his firm on the register of companies. However, he had not yet done so. The health authorities were therefore formally within the law. In this case, the kind of advice whose lack the Ministry of Science had so criticised was clearly indicated. The two registration officials at the health authorities who knew Nowicky from many meetings would only have had to phone him to tell him to register the company in order then to confirm its existence.

In this way the deal with Kuwait was successfully obstructed – and thereby also further clinical studies - which could have helped cancer patients.