Genentech Inc said on Sunday its blockbuster cancer drug, Avastin,
showed encouraging results for patients with the most aggressive
form of brain cancer.
(file photo from
Xinhua)
Genentech, the largest U.S. maker of cancer drugs, said 36
percent of patients treated with Avastin alone and 51 percent
treated with a combination of the drug and chemotherapy lived
without the disease advancing within six
months.
The announcement came after a successful Phase II trial in which
bevacizumab showed clear improvements of the patients' survival
rate.
In the Phase II trial, the drug, administered alone or with
chemotherapy, demonstrated an encouraging six-month survival rate
for patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common
and aggressive type of brain cancer.
"The findings suggested that at six months, more patients
had lived without their cancer advancing when Avastin was
administered as a single agent or in combination with chemotherapy,
than what we would normally expect," Timothy Cloughesy, the lead
investigator for the study, said in a statement.
"These findings exceeded our expectations," said Hal Barron,
Genentech's senior vice president of development, in the
statement.
Bevacizumab was developed by Genentech and is marketed in the
United States by Genentech and elsewhere by Swiss drug maker Roche,
which is Genentech's parent company, under the brand name
Avastin.
Bevacizumab, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
in February 2004 for use in colorectal cancer, was the first
commercially available angiogenesis inhibitor. This class of drugs
stops tumor growth by preventing the formation of new blood
vessels. The main side effects of the drug are hypertension and
heightened risk of bleeding.
According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), the five-year
survival rate for patients with GBM is only three percent,
and, more importantly, has not changed in more than 25 years as
newer treatments proved ineffective. The ACS also estimates there
will be 20,500 new cases of brain cancer and 12,740 brain cancer
deaths in 2007.
(Agencies via Xinhua November 19, 2007)
