Avastin helps stem kidney cancer progression
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Genentech's cancer drug Avastin helped patients with advanced kidney cancer live twice as long as those on standard therapy alone, according to a study released on Saturday.
Until recently, there were few treatments for kidney cancer, but therapies are expanding significantly, including a Wyeth drug called Torisel that was approved just last month. Pfizer Inc.'s Sutent is now considered the standard of care as a first-choice treatment for advanced kidney cancer.
The 649-patient trial found that when Avastin, known generically as bevacizumab, was added to standard therapy, patients lived for 10.2 months without growth or spread of their cancer, compared to 5.4 months without the drug.
"I think Sutent and Avastin will become our first line agents," said Dr. Andrew Armstrong, an oncologist at Duke University who specializes in kidney and prostate cancer, who has no financial ties to the drugs' makers. The Avastin data "is quite impressive."
The study was released at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting on Saturday in Chicago.
The results may boost expand efforts by drugmakers Genentech Inc. and Roche Holding AG to expand use of Avastin to treat kidney cancer, a tough-to-treat disease that kills about 100,000 people annually around the world.
Avastin, which must be given as an infusion, also has a potential rival called pazopanib. Another study presented on Saturday at ASCO showed that pazopanib, a new pill made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc, shrank the tumors of 27 percent of patients and stabilized their growth and spread in 46 percent.
Avastin, the first drug designed to starve tumors of their blood supply, was originally approved to treat colon cancer, but is now cleared as therapy for lung cancer in the United States and for breast cancer in Europe.
Genentech reported total Avastin sales of $1.85 billion in 2006.
Broadening uses of approved drugs is common in cancer and is a major theme at the cancer meeting here. Drugs are usually first tested against advanced and hard-to-treat cancers, and gradually approved for use in earlier-stage disease.
Kidney cancer is hard to detect, and is usually diagnosed later in life. Early stages of the disease can be successfully treated with surgery but if recurrence occurs, the new crop of drugs will be useful.
Genentech's vice president for cancer research David Schenkein said the study signaled a "trend" toward improving overall survival. The company lacks enough data to prove the treatment extends overall survival, the highest clinical bar to reach, he said.
The study randomized patients to a treatment of Avastin plus a standard therapy called interferon, compared with a group on interferon alone.
The most common side effects linked to the Avastin arm of the trial were fatigue, loss of strength and protein in the urine.
In addition to Wyeth's Torisel and Pfizer Inc.'s Sutent, a third treatment called Nexavar sold by Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Bayer AG's is approved to treat kidney cancer.
