Interestingly, scientists said, neither Afinitor nor pertuzumab on their own are especially effective against breast cancer.
Afinitor will share the kidney cancer market with three other new drugs, including Pfizer's Sutent.
Afinitor, Torisel and other MTOR drugs are the product of a four-decade research odyssey.
Afinitor comes with increased side effects, including mouth dryness and shortness of breath in some patients.
Novartis hopes it can pull off something similar with Afinitor, if on a smaller scale.
Now it hopes Afinitor will be its next cancer bestseller, says David Epstein, who leads Novartis' cancer drug business.
Afinitor is approved for breast cancers that are not caused by the protein.
Novartis said it plans to file with regulatory agencies around the world seeking approval for Afinitor to treat metastatic breast cancer.
J. started taking Afinitor in early 2007 after his kidney cancer came roaring back inside his left lung and liver following surgery.
Afinitor, known generically as everolimus, is approved for kidney cancer and for neuro-endocrine pancreatic cancer, the type that felled Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs.
It has high hopes for its new kidney cancer drug Afinitor, which helps patients whose disease is resistant to Pfizer's kidney tumor drug Sutent.
Several small trials hint that Afinitor may help restore the effects of Roche's breast cancer drug Herceptin in tumors that have become resistant to it.
Novartis studied Afinitor in a study of 724 patients who randomly received either Afinitor plus the breast cancer drug Aromasin or a placebo plus Aromasin.
One encouraging area for Afinitor is stomach cancer, which afflicts 21, 000 patients in the U.S. (and is more prevalent in Asia, where salty foods are common).
In a 54-patient trial in Japan, Afinitor temporarily halted tumor growth in 55% of patients, according to results presented at a meeting of cancer specialists in January.
In an unusual move, it plans to test Afinitor simultaneously on five other tumor types, including stomach, breast and neuroendocrine tumors (the type Apple's Steve Jobs has suffered from).
Researchers said the new findings for both Afinitor and pertuzumab were sufficient to begin testing it in earlier-stage cancer, before the disease spreads to other parts of the body.
Marketing executive Nicholas Passariello of Denville, New Jersey started taking Afinitor in early 2007 after his kidney cancer came roaring back inside his left lung and liver following surgery.
Afinitor delayed disease progression in patients with kidney cancer by a modest three months in a 416-patient trial led by Robert Motzer, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
"Afinitor is another example of the value of continuing to study drugs in additional types of cancer after their initial approval, " said Dr. Richard Pazdur, director of the FDA's cancer drug office.
应用推荐