A ton of cancer news out of ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology). We’ll get to those in a minute. First, all the other stuff:
Pfizer’s Chantix running into heavy weather – Hundreds of patients taking Pfizer Inc‘s anti-smoking drug Chantix have reported serious accidents, vision problems and heart trouble, researchers said on Wednesday, sending shares of the world’s largest drugmaker to their lowest level since 1997…more
Takeda continues making deals; partnering with Alnylam – The Japanese drugmaker will pay that upfront to become Alnylam’s strategic partner for five years to use RNA interference, which offers a way to turn specific genes on and off, to develop treatments for cancer and metabolic disease…more
Takeda’s alogliptin diabetes drug looking good – Takeda Pharmaceutical’s experimental diabetes treatment, a successor to its best- selling Actos drug, showed promising signs in clinical trials that could lead to U.S. sales approval, analysts tracking the company said…more
Angiomax, from The Medicine’s Company, gets a very encouraging result for angioplasty clot prevention – A new clot-preventing drug called bivalirudin is much more effective than existing drugs at stopping clot formation during balloon angioplasty for severe heart attacks, reducing the risk of death by a third, researchers reported Thursday…more
Osteoporosis drug wars: Amgen says it beats Merck – Biotechnology company Amgen Inc. said Wednesday that a head-to-head study showed its late-stage osteoporosis drug denosumab was more effective than a competing drug from Merck & Co…more
IMS predicting seven upcoming potential blockbusters – Despite hollow pipelines across the industry in 2008, seven drugs could hypothetically reach blockbuster status, according to Doug Long, director of industry relations at IMS Health…more
GSK’s experimental blood drug looking not much different from placebo – GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) experimental drug Promacta (eltrombopag) failed to significantly lower bleeding in patients with the rare blood disorder it was designed to treat, the FDA said…more
Antidepressants help stroke victims? – Preventive use of antidepressants slashes the depression rate of stroke patients by more than half and could help them live years longer, a landmark study out Tuesday suggests…more
Cutting Alzheimer’s risk by a quarter – Aspirin and related painkillers called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs all seem to work equally well to cut a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, researchers said on Wednesday…more
——-
Now, onto ASCO:
A KRAS act – Among the 5,000 studies being discussed by 30,000 oncologists at this weekend’s meeting of American Society of Clinical Oncology, listen for the buzz over a single gene. It’s called KRAS, and a growing body of evidence suggests that cancers with the standard form of this gene respond better to an important class of cancer drugs than tumors with a common mutation of the gene…more
Erbitux adds to survival in lung cancer – Lung cancer patients treated in a large clinical trial with ImClone Systems Inc’s Erbitux and chemotherapy lived about five weeks longer than patients treated with chemotherapy alone, according to study results released on Saturday…more
Lilly’s Gemzar very effective with pancreatic cancer – Eli Lilly and Co’s chemotherapy drug Gemzar more than doubled the overall survival for early stage pancreatic cancer patients five years after surgery to remove their tumors, according to results from a long-term study released on Saturday…more
Can Celebrex help prevent development of lung cancer? Maybe – A high dose of the arthritis drug Celebrex showed early signs that it may help prevent lung cancer in heavy smokers, U.S. researchers said on Sunday…more
Effective vaccine for brain tumor? – A cancer vaccine more than doubled the survival time of people with the most common and deadly type of brain tumor, U.S. researchers said on Monday…more
Cancer drugs – less is more? It’s the year of less at the big American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting. Rather than buzzing about some promising new drug or treatment, lots of docs are talking about when patients shouldn’t get treated with particular drugs…more
Novartis’ experimental RAD-001: very promising – Early proof-of-concept studies presented today show RAD001 (everolimus) may offer a novel treatment strategy for breast cancer by enhancing the efficacy of, and overcoming resistance to, several commonly used breast cancer treatments…more
Novartis’ Zometa helps stave off breast cancer – A drug used to strengthen the bones of women with breast cancer helped cut the risk of the cancer returning by 36 percent, European researchers said on Saturday…more
Merck’s experimental osteoporosis drug helps cancer patients – Drug maker Merck & Co. on Tuesday said a mid-stage trial of an osteoporosis drug in women with breast cancer reduced the breakdown of bone…more
Leave a Reply