New 'Smart' Cancer Drug

AFP news service reports:

LONDON (AFP) - A new "smart" cancer drug that fights tumours on two fronts is to be launched in Britain, according to a newspaper report.

Sutent, produced by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, has been licensed to treat kidney cancer, which affects about 6,600 people in Britain every year, and gastrointestinal stromal tumours, diagnosed in about 900 people here every year.

Early trials also suggest that the drug may be effective against breast, lung and pancreatic cancers, the Times reported on Monday.

The new drug is not cheap, however, costing about 2,400 pounds (3,500 euros, 4,500 dollars) per patient per month, and cost pressures in Britain's National Health Service (NHS) may limit its use, the Times said.

Sutent inhibits a critical enzyme that signals cells to multiply and is overactive in some cancers, and also starves tumours of nutrients necessary for their expansion by preventing the growth of blood vessels.

It is the first drug that combines both methods, the Times said.

The drug caused tumours to shrink in 40 percent of patients with advanced kidney cancer who were not responding to other treatments, and stabilised their size in a further 28 percent of cases, according to the paper.

Perhaps if the drug companies did not spend so much on needless public advertising the costs of the drugs would be low enough so those who really need them could get them.