GLG News by Oncologists Specializing in Hematologic Malignancies in the U.S.

Roche has elected not to provide information on the cost effectiveness and clinical effectiveness of Avastin in breast cancer to the medicine advisory board of the British government.  As such, the drug will not be able for first line treatment of these diseases in Britain.

In a recent JCO article, Laptanib showed clinical efficacy and acceptable safety in a non-randomized trial involving newly diagnosed patients with advanced oe metastatic breast cancer. Larger trials are needed to confirm efficacy and explore if it is more potent than Genentech's Herceptin. For now,...

Avastin's recent FDA approval for m-breast cancer ( m-BCA) was lukewarm at best with no overall survival benefit yet and modest PFS data. European regulatory agencies usually require cost efficacy data and more strict data, which are not readily available for Roche/Genetech. The British market is not...

Tarnsgene's cancer vaccine TG 4010 increased response rates and progression free survival when added to chemotherapy in patients with advanced small cell lung cancer. The overall survival rates and time to progression were not much different in the 2 treatment groups. The vaccine is novel and efficacy...

The efficacy of the immunotherapeutic" vaccine" Trovax in 3 separate small phase II trials in combination with interferon alpha or IL-2 was modest at best. With availability of 3 targeted agents for this disease ( Nexavar, Sutent, and Torisel) , the chances of such as an agent are very limited.

China, buoyed by its recent economic boom, is invading industrilaized nation markets with many generic compounds , from pain killers to AIDS drugs. Chinese drugs are cheap, but have reputation for poor quality , especially with recent heparin fiasco. India has had a good track record with generics and...

For the first time in decades, several drugs like Temodar and Avastin and tumor vaccines ( Avant and others) have shown increased overall survival even in adavnaced and recurrent brain tumors as glioblastoma multiforme. Several agents are in the pipeline, and more Big Pharma involvement is expected...

The epidermal growth factor antagonist Erbitux did not improve response rates in newly diagnosed patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer ( NSCLC).  Many patients had hypersensitivity reactions to Cetuximab, which has to be content with its role in colon cancer treatment and to some extent...

In a clinical trial from MD Anderson, Celgene's oral immunomodulatory agent , Revlimid showed a modest, yet impressive, overall response rate of 32% in patients with refractory, heavily pre-treated CLL. With already proven efficacy in other hematological malignancies, like multiple myeloma, myelofibrosis,...

The Chinese government funded many manufacturing plants for biologics about 15 years ago, and many are bankrupt because of noninforced patent laws