Avastin for lung and breast cancer?
Things keep looking better and better for Genentech and Avastin. As I reported just last week, enrollment in an Avastin clinical trial has re-opened, and now Genentech is hoping to gain FDA approval for the drug to be used for some lung and breast cancers.
That makes Genentech the company to beat in cancer research, and Pfizer, Wyeth, and Amgen are all gunning for them. Pfizer's Sutent is showing some promise in some kidney and lung cancers, and Amgen's AMG 706 will be compared directly to Avastin trials beginning in the near future. Sutent and a Wyeth drug, Temsirolimus, both target tumor angiogenesis.
It is truly wonderful to see the incredible advances made in cancer research in the last couple of years. The field of oncology has been virtually turned on its head, and the rapid progress looks as though it will continue into the near future as Big Pharma and biotech fight it out. And when Big Pharma and biotech compete, everyone wins.
[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, ASCO, Avastin, GSK, cancer, oncology, Sutent, Genentech, Pfizer, Temsirolimus, biotech, biotechnology, Big Pharma, Wyeth[/tags]
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[...] Competitors in other areas, Genentech and Amgen are working together on a Apo2L/Trail, a compound which triggers the "death receptors" on certain cancer cells. Human Genome Sciences is testing two competing drugs, HGS-ETR1 and HGS-ETR2, which do essentially the same thing. And still a fourth is being worked on at Astellas Pharma, YM155. [...]
Pingback by OnThePharm » Triggering cell death to kill cancer — June 4, 2006 @ 9:38 pm