Tag Archives: Cancer

First Orphan Launch a Challenge for AstraZeneca

By Ben Comer | Published: August 2, 2011
Four months after AstraZeneca received FDA approval for vandetanib, a treatment for inoperable medullary thyroid cancer, the company announced the drug’s trade name: Caprelsa. FDA said other proposed names – Zactima, for example – too closely resembled other currently marketed proprietary names. Getting FDA approval on a brand name for vandetanib, AstraZeneca’s very first orphan drug, isn’t [...]
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Cancer Testing Times: One Thing the UK Will Not Be Cutting

By Julian Upton | Published: October 27, 2010
Buried among the savage, £83 billion-worth of cuts announced by the UK coalition government’s controversial Comprehensive Spending Review last week was confirmation that the Department of Health would not be taking forward the previous government’s pledge to introduce a one-week target for cancer testing. Under the Labour government, the time that it took for a patient [...]
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Options for Oncologists Get Tougher

By William Looney | Published: August 4, 2010
How does the business of oncology practice fare today? The National Comprehensive Cancer Care Network (NCCN), which allies 21 of the world’s leading cancer care and research centers in developing state-of-the-art practice guidelines, decided to ask that question in a survey it conducted among several hundred oncology specialists earlier this year. The results, a sobering [...]
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Advisory Panel Rejects Avastin For Breast Cancer Treatment

By George Koroneos | Published: July 21, 2010
An FDA advisory panel on Tuesday voted 12–1 to discontinue Avastin (bevacizumab) as a treatment for advanced breast cancer due to post-market studies stating that the treatment does not to increase patient lifespan by any significant length of time. This is a huge problem for Roche who purchased the treatment as part of its merger with [...]
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Avastin Study Shows Promising Data for Cancer Patients

By George Koroneos | Published: June 8, 2010
Genentech released the results of its Phase III Avastin study showing that women that take the ovarian cancer treatment in tandem with chemotherapy had a 39 percent improvement in the likelihood of living longer without the disease worsening than patients being treated with just chemotherapy. The data was released at the annual meeting of American Society [...]
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