FDA Clears Drug for Kidney Cancer

(AP)  Biotech drugmaker Genentech Inc. said Sunday the Food and Drug Administration approved its cancer treatment Avastin for a new use against a form of kidney cancer, marking the sixth approval for the blockbuster drug.

Avastin is already approved to treat certain types of lung, breast and colon cancer.

FDA regulators cleared the injectable treatment for advanced renal cell carcinoma, the most common form of kidney cancer. Roughly 50,000 new cases of the disease are diagnosed in the U.S. each year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

South San Francisco, Calif.-based Genentech is owned by drugmaker Roche, based in Basel, Switzerland.

Avastin was Genentech's top-selling product last year with revenue of $2.69 billion. However, sales growth has been slowing. Analysts say the drug is likely reaching a saturation point in the market and will need additional FDA approvals to continue growing.

In April, a study showed Avastin failed to prevent colon cancer from recurring in patients who had undergone surgery, sending Roche shares lower in trading.

Initially approved in 2004, Avastin was the first drug to fight cancer by choking off blood flow to tumors. Such "targeted therapies" were considered a significant advance beyond chemotherapy.

[rf35]

I hope this kind of drug will be found to work for many types of cancer. It seems to be a far less invasive way to rid the body of tumors than traditional surgery and is certainly far above chemo, which is almost as bad as the disease in many cases. Now if there were only a way to control the costs of drugs and other medical treatments, it could actually benefit more than just those with oodles of money or very generous insurance policies.

[tincup356]

Approved by the FDA,,,,,in other words the lobby payment was accepted and the drug was approved with out research and development.......which they will claim was BILLIONS,,,,just to justify charging out the kazoo for this medicine,,,,,,,,I bet it isn't 5 years before they have a major recall on this drug due to unknown side effects,,,,,it seems like the song and dance is played out over and over with these drug companies,,,,,,,,thia last year they recalled a number of their miracle drugs that had been approve by the FDA ,,,,BUT for some reason research and development did not catch many problems caused by those drugs,,,,,,,,How many billions were made at top prices for those "unsafe " drugs?,,,,what was the real reason they were approved in the first place?,,,,,my guess would be they falsified test results and paid bribes to the FDA.......it wouldn't surprise me if they did all of that intetionally with full knowledge that they were unsafe to begin with ,,,,but who cares ,,,it was just peoples lives they were gambling with,,,that is the way our government looks at the people anyway....they don't represent us so why should they care,,,,"We the People" don't pay lobby dollars.