A committee of the Food and Drug Administration has recommended the approval for Avastin to be marketed as a breast cancer drug be pulled. The first clinical trial of the drug showed good results although another round of testing shows no effect on breast cancer. The FDA hasn’t explained whether the drug could be pulled or not year. If the drug loses its approval from the FDA, the manufacturers, Roche, might lose quite a bit. Source for this article – Avastin as breast cancer treatment may get disapproved by the FDA by Personal Money Store.
Avastin is the best selling cancer drug ever
Avastin is the name of Bevacizumab which is a cancer med. Blood vessels no longer grow with what can also be called an angiogenesis inhibitor. The hormone vascular endothelial is stopped from producing and blood vessels can grow no longer. The Los Angeles Times, reports that the drug was approved in 2008 by the FDA as long as more studies were done to prove it works. Making the drug is Roche and Genentech which had a second round of testing that didn’t show effectiveness in stopping cancer with the drug. The drug sells about $ 6 billion worth annually, and up to $ 1 billion of that is for breast cancer patients.
Pain felt by Roche
Market Watch reports that Genentech, Roche Holding Inc., dropped 4.1 percent within the stock market after the recommendation came from the FDA group. There was also a lawsuit recently against an additional drug the company makes called Accutane which treats acne. Even if it doesn’t help breast cancer specifically, it has helped numerous other cancers.
Drug will continue
Things like cancer have a hard time finding medications to help them. There may well one day be a cure for cancer, but it will take a long time. Even if the FDA no longer approves Avastin, it will still sell, just less.
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Los Angeles Times
latimes.com/news/health/sns-health-avastin-breast-cancer,0,2730048.story
Market Watch
marketwatch.com/story/roche-shares-drop-after-fda-ruling-on-avastin-2010-07-21 Bevacizumab en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevacizumab
