Robert Schneider | Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

Posts Tagged ‘Robert Schneider’

Cancer drugs proving worth

Posted in CANCER BIOLOGY & Innovations in Cancer Therapy, tagged Chemotherapy, Clinical trial, Crizotinib, New York University, Pfizer, Reuters, Robert Schneider, Vemurafenib on March 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Cancer drugs proving worth

Reporter: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

INSIGHT – Cancer drugs proving worth earlier in testing
By Bill Berkrot and Ransdell Pierson | Reuters – Mon, Feb 25, 20

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/insight-cancer-drugs-proving-worth-earlier-testing-060402726–finance.html?goback=%2Egde_72923_member_217729560/

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Michael Weitz was out of options. The Californian had endured chemotherapy, radiation and surgery but his lung cancer still spread to his bones and brain. He was entered into a Phase I study – the earliest stage of human testing for a new medicine – of crizotinib. The drug works for about 4 percent of advanced lung cancer patients with a mutated form of a protein called ALK.

Weitz, now 55, is cancer-free after three years of taking the drug now sold by Pfizer as Xalkori after an unusually swift development process.

It typically has taken a decade and $1 billion to bring a new treatment to market. But in the last two years a handful of cancer drugs – including Onyx Pharmaceutical Inc’s Kyprolis for multiple myeloma, Roche’s Zelboraf for melanoma, and Pfizer’s Xalkori – were approved in about half that time because of improved genetic screening, more definitive Phase I trials and the dire need for new, effective treatments.

“We hope to be able to shave years off the time it takes to get final approval and save hundreds of millions of dollars per drug,” said Robert Schneider, director of translational cancer research at New York University Cancer Institute.