NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The FDA approved a drug combo from Celgene that slows the spread of blood cancer, the biotech said, which could help push the treatment to blockbuster status.

A combination of the drug Revlimid and a steroid known as dexamethasone got the green light from the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for multiple myeloma, a specific type of blood cancer, said Celgene.

Revlimid was already FDA-approved and on the market to treat a different type of blood disorder, known as myelodysplastic syndromes. The newly-approved indication could give Celgene (down $0.40 to $46.83, Charts) a boost in sales, especially since it helps the biotech corner the market for blood cancer treatment. Rachel McMinn, analyst for Piper Jaffray, projected that Revlimid sales would total $271 million in 2006 and $1.7 billion in 2010.

Revlimid would be used by patients who failed another treatment from Celgene for multiple myeloma, called Thalomid. Thalomid, which is also approved as a treatment for leprosy symptoms, totaled $389 million in 2005 sales and helped drive Celgene's 42 percent overall sales growth last year, to $535 million.

There is no cure for multiple myeloma, which kills 12,000 Americans a year, with 14,000 newly-diagnosed cases annually.

Despite its eight years on the U.S. market as an FDA-approved drug, Thalomid has a notorious past. The drug's base compound, thalidomide, was used as a painkiller for pregnant women in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s and was blamed for causing horrible birth defects, including missing limbs. Research as shown the pill to be useful in treating other diseases, and pregnant women are banned from using it, with strict restrictions on sexually active women.

Celgene, based in Summit, N.J., is the fastest-growing tech company in the drug industry.

Related: Celgene boosted by drug feared in '60s