Aug. 23, 2010 at 5:15 p.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Pharmaceuticals
By Dow Jones Newswires
Pfizer Inc. said its cancer treatment Sutent failed to meet its endpoint of improving overall survival for late-stage lung cancer in a late-stage trial, though it did improve progression-free survival.
Sutent, also known as sunitinib, has been one of Pfizer’s more successful drugs to launch in recent years. Approved for kidney cancer and certain gastrointestinal tumors, Sutent had $964 million in sales last year, but studies of the drug for other indications haven’t been home runs. Get the full story »
July 16, 2010 at 10:15 a.m.
Filed under:
Government,
Pharmaceuticals
By Dow Jones Newswires
The Food and Drug Administration questioned the benefit of using Roche Holding AG’s top-selling cancer drug, Avastin, in breast cancer.
The agency said the magnitude of an improvement seen among women being treated with chemotherapy drugs plus Avastin compared with women being given chemotherapy alone “is not clinically meaningful.” The agency also said there were more serious side effects such as bleeding seen among women being given Avastin. Get the full story »