Cancer Drug Avastin Approved to Treat Top Form of Kidney Cancer

Avastin, the Roche cancer drug, can now be also be used in conjunction with another drug to fight the most common form of kidney cancer, the Food and Drug Administration has ruled.

The FDA approved Avastin to treat patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma when the drug is used along with the cancer drug Interferon Alpha. A recent late-stage clinical study of Avastin found patients given a cocktail of the two drugs lived nearly twice as long without seeing their disease worsen when compared to patients given only Interferon Alpha, the company said today.

As many as 58,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with kidney cancer each year and about 13,000 Americans die annually from kidney cancer, making it the eighth most common form of cancer in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. Men are slightly more likely than women to contract kidney cancer.

The new FDA approval is just the latest bit of good news for the makers of Avastin.

In May, the FDA approved the drug for treating glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer that affects about 10,000 people in the United States. The FDA expedited the approval process because it has been more than a decade since a new therapy for glioblastoma was given the go-ahead.

Avastin has been available in Europe since late 2007 and used as a first line of treatment against advanced kidney cancer. Just last week, the European Commission approved its use as a treatment against breast cancer.

But it hasn’t been all positive developments for Avastin.

In April, it was reported that Avastin had failed in a clinical trial designed to test the drug’s ability to substantially prolong the lives of people with early-stage cancer colon cancer, officials said.

Still, Avastin remains a top seller for Roche and its marketing partner, Genentech, for treatment of breast, lung, and colorectal cancers. The drug compiled about $2.69 billion in U.S. sales in 2008.

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