An experimental drug first developed by a Canadian doctor could offer hope to the 30,000 or so Canadians who suffer from ulcerative colitis.

Colitis is a painful condition that produces inflammation and ulcers in the large bowel or colon. The ulcers cause bloody diarrhea along with severe abdominal pain and cramps.

"They flare up so there are open, raw ulcers in your large intestine. So you can imagine how painful that would be," says Gina Lupson, who suffers from the condition.

The disease can strike anyone at anytime and there is no cure. What's more, Canada is believed to have one of the highest incidence rates of colitis and the related Crohn's disease in the world.

There are treatments available but they don't work for all patients. And the corticosteroid therapy frequently prescribed cause adverse effects.

The traditional drug therapies didn't work for Lupson, but the new test drug did.

"By the time they administered a second dose, I was in total remission. And in fact I stayed that way for roughly a year and a half," she says.

The drug is so experimental it doesn't yet have a name; just MLN02. Its effects are detailed in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

In an all-Canadian study of the drug on 181 patients with mild to moderately active colitis, the drug improved symptoms in 66 per cent of patients, and triggered a full remission in 33 per cent with few side effects. And that was in just six weeks of treatment.

"This has the potential in a major way to really change the way we treat patients with ulcerative colitis," says Dr. Hillary Steinhart of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital.

MLN02 is a humanized monoclonal antibody and is designed to keep immune T-cells from moving from the blood to the intestine, where they trigger inflammation and ulcers.

All the more intriguing is the fact this drug was developed almost two decades ago by Canadian immunologist Andrew Lazarovits, who thought the drug would help transplant patients.

He died of a brain tumour six years ago before seeing its potential in colitis.

But patients like Gina can't continue to get it because it still requires more testing and government approval. That could take several years. As a result, her colitis has worsened.

"If I could do anything to make the drug available to people suffering like me, I would do it," she tells CTV News.

Her only solution now is surgery to remove part of her colon, a drastic solution for a problem that someday a drug developed by a Canadian may treat.

With a report from CTV's Avis Favaro