Parents of critically ill boy petition drug company for help

The parents of Maverick Bench and hundreds of social media followers have asked a drug company for help as the Benchs' 8-year-old son continues his battle against aplastic anemia at a Denver hospital.

Logan and Colleen Bench of Kila posted a tearful video on Facebook Wednesday evening, asking for members of Maverick’s Army — his support group on the social networking site — to help as Maverick is in desperate need of medicine needed to help fight the adenovirus (a common virus that can cause cold-like symptoms) that is attacking his severely weakened immune system. Maverick’s doctors have suggested their last hope may be the use of the drug Brincidofovir, but Maverick’s doctors say the drug is not available to them at this time.

Brincidofovir was originally produced in the United States by the company Chimerix, but the production and distribution rights were later sold Japanese-owned Symbio Pharmaceuticals. The Bench family has been told by their doctors that Chimerix still has the drug, but only for use with smallpox patients.

The family asked for help in an email and online messaging campaign in an attempt to convince either company to allow Maverick’s use of the drug on what his doctors are calling compassionate use treatment. As of Thursday afternoon, however, the Bench family said the drug manufacturer had asked the Bench family to pull back its social media plea because the company has been overwhelmed with calls.

The pressure put on by the family and their more than 18,000 followers on Facebook seems to have gotten Chimerix’s attention, as the company contacted the Benches Thursday to say they have been in contact with Maverick’s medical team in Denver and that the volume of messages received had all but shut down the company for the day.

“He is still considered stable but critical," Maverick's mom Colleen told the Inter Lake Thursday. "His liver is shutting down, though, and the level of toxins in his body are increasing. It has escalated to what they call hepatic encephalopathy, where the toxins are affecting his brain function now.

“Apparently the team here at CHC made contact with someone in the (Chimerix) company but we are still being denied even for compassionate use. They said they will continue to try.”

While the family waits, there has been a small ray of hope as the doctors have arranged to have Logan’s blood drawn Thursday afternoon and sent to a lab in New York, where the hope is they will be able to produce a more viable T-Cell treatment to fight the virus. A previous such treatment using blood from an anonymous donor failed.

The family says they can only hope the current treatments can help Maverick continue to fight until the treatment can be produced, which could take a week or more.

“We need to get his liver function to reverse or there isn’t a whole lot else we can do,” Colleen said. “We’re hoping the drugs he was given will be enough to at least buy us a few extra days.”

For more information about Maverick, visit the Maverick’s Army group on Facebook.

Reporter Jeremy Weber may be reached at 758-4446 or jweber@dailyinterlake.com.