This could cut into sales for Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Bayer 's Nexavar drug for kidney cancer.
It was approved in March for patients with advanced kidney cancer who failed other treatments.
Afinitor will share the kidney cancer market with three other new drugs, including Pfizer's Sutent.
The company looks to have a sure-fire new drug for kidney cancer patients who have failed other options.
Each year nearly 6, 000 people in the UK are diagnosed with kidney cancer - one every 90 minutes.
Initial trial results for Avastin in colon and kidney cancer were promising, prompting Genentech to start large-scale tests.
But, when physicians and payers have a choice of ten different kidney cancer drugs, the situation changes drastically.
Before the advent of the anti-angiogenic VEGFR inhibitors, kidney cancer cure rates were on the order of 5%.
FORBES: How Do Oncologists Sort Through All the New Anticancer Drugs?
The tumour samples were donated by patients with advanced kidney cancer being treated at London's Royal Marsden Hospital.
The Phase III trial will compare TroVax plus standard kidney cancer treatment and a dummy version plus standard treatment.
Rose Woodward from the Kidney Cancer Support Group described the situation as "appalling".
BBC: NEWS | UK | England | Cornwall | Trust refuses to fund cancer drug
Andy Crabb, who has kidney cancer, has paid out thousands of pounds for Sutent over the past few months.
In kidney cancer, Sutent shrank tumors by 40% in two midstage clinical trials.
Velcade, for instance, has posted promising but early results in several forms of lymphoma, lung cancer, and kidney cancer.
There will also be kidney cancer data related to SU11248 presented at ASCO.
Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Bayer are developing a drug, sorafinib, for kidney cancer.
But kidney cancer may be "the tip of the iceberg" for RAD001, says David Epstein, president of Novartis' cancer unit.
But last April, he started on a clinical trial of a new experimental kidney cancer drug from Novartis called RAD001.
Both are used now for kidney cancer, but have shown powerful promise in delaying the growth of nasty neuroendocrine tumors.
Nexavar is still a breakthrough medicine for liver and kidney cancer, but that will be cold comfort for Onyx shareholders.
Designed to treat kidney cancer, TroVax works by encouraging the immune system to attack a protein found in solid cancers.
Her decision to follow the guidance means the drug Sutent can be used as a first treatment for advanced kidney cancer.
"We've not seen results like these before, " says Cleveland Clinic kidney cancer specialist Ronald Bukowski, who has tested the Onyx drug.
In the United States, about 65, 000 new cases of kidney cancer and 13, 700 deaths from the disease are expected this year.
But as much as these drugs are a salve for kidney cancer and cancer patients, there is potential for abuse by athletes.
J. started taking Afinitor in early 2007 after his kidney cancer came roaring back inside his left lung and liver following surgery.
Regressions have most often been reported in melanoma and in kidney cancer.
Wyeth also sells a kidney cancer drug that is similar to RAD001.
"There are 7, 000 new cases (of kidney cancer) every year, " he said.
Just 3 percent of people in each group died of kidney cancer.
应用推荐