Roche’s Prostate Cancer Drug Fails in a Trial

Category Health | Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Roche Holding, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, said on Friday that its cancer drug Avastin did not help men with late-stage prostate cancer live longer in a clinical trial, another setback as the company tries to extend use of the blockbuster drug into new areas. The failure, announced on Friday, comes after a similar disappointment last month with Avastin in gastric cancer but success in ovarian cancer. Avastin, which works by starving tumors of blood, is already used to treat colon, breast, lung and kidney cancers, and had 2009 annual global sales of 6.2 billion Swiss francs (about $5.8 billion).

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