Genentech's Avastin gains in new cancer study

CHICAGO (CNNMoney.com) -- Genentech's blockbuster drug Avastin nearly doubles the survival time for extremely sick kidney cancer patients, according to new findings unveiled Saturday.

Treatment with Avastin added nearly five months to the survival time for patients with advanced kidney cancer, according to a late-stage study announced at the annual conference of the American Society for Clinical Oncology.

In related news, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Charts, Fortune 500), Sanofi-Aventis (Charts), and Cephalon also disclosed Saturday the latest research findings on their respective cancer treatment initiatives (see below).

In the Avastin trial, those who took Avastin lived for an average of 10.2 months without the cancer spreading, compared to 5.4 months of survival for those who did not take the drug, according to the study of 649 patients.

Dr. Bernard Escudier, lead researcher in the Roche-sponsored study and head of the immunotherapy unit at the Gustave Roussy Institute in France, said in a prepared statement that Avastin also showed a "strong safety profile."

Some 12 percent of the Avastin patients experienced fatigue, compared to 8 percent among placebo patients, as the most serious side effect.

The study results could help Genentech (Charts) expand sales for Avastin, which is currently on the market as a blockbuster treatment for colorectal and lung cancer. The drug is Genentech's second-biggest seller, with $1.7 billion in 2006 sales, a surge of more than 50 percent from the previous year.

Shiv Kapoor, analyst for investment research firm Montgomery & Co., said the Avastin results were "pretty strong" and showed that the drug is similar to Pfizer's Sutent, which came to market last year and analysts consider a potential blockbluster.

But Kapoor said Genentech would most likely market Avastin as a drug that cancer patients would take in addition to Sutent -- rather than instead of Sutent.

In other news, an earlier-stage study of Pfizer's experimental drug axitinib decreased the size of tumors in patients with thyroid cancer that had advanced despite other forms of treatment, researchers said.

The drug blocked tumors from growing in half of the 60 patients who participated in the study, and shrank tumors by as much as two-thirds in another 22 percent of patients.

Dr. Ezra Cohen, assistant medical professor at the University of Chicago and lead researcher for the study, said in a prepared statement that axitinib offers "an exciting new front in the treatment of advanced thyroid cancer. As recently as three years ago we had very little to offer these patients, and now we're seeing response rates at a level we've never seen with chemotherapy."

Axitinib is still years away from potentially hitting the market. The axitinib study was phase 2, meaning that the drug still has to pass phase 3 tests before Pfizer (Charts, Fortune 500) can submit it to the FDA.

Researchers also revealed study results for Sprycel, a treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia that Bristol-Myers launched last year.

The purpose of the study was to see how effective the drug is treating newly-diagnosed leukemia patients, a market currently dominated by the Swiss drug company Novartis (Charts) and its blockbuster Gleevec, which reaped $2.6 billion in 2006 sales.

Dr. Ehab Atallah, a leukemia fellow at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center who led the research in the Sprycel study, said the "Philadelphia" chromosome that marks the presence of leukemia disappeared in 23 percent of the 31 study participants after three months.

In addition, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (Charts) and the French drug company Sanofi-Aventis reported study results for their experimental drug VEGF-Trap and its effectiveness in treating ovarian cancer.

Dr. William Tew, assistant attending physician at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the lead researcher in the study, said tumors stopped growing in 71 percent of the 153 patients taking VEGF-Trap. Tumors shrunk in 8 percent.

The study results are early stage (phase 2) so the drug is years away from potentially treating patients. Sanofi and Regeneron plan to begin phase 3 studies in the third quarter of 2007 for treating various types of cancer.

Meanwhile, a separate study said that adding arsenic trioxide to standard leukemia therapy could extend survival in cancer patients.

A three-year study, led by Dr. Bayard Powell, an oncology professor at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, showed that 77 percent of patients taking arsenic trioxide (a compound containing arsenic and other chemicals) survived without their cancer spreading, compared to 59 percent without the compound.

Arsenic is a toxin that is also used as a traditional Chinese medicine and is marketed in the U.S. as part of a generic treatment for leukemia.

Cephalon (Charts) sells arsenic trioxide under the name Trisenox. The biotech does not break out individual sales for the drug in its earnings report, suggesting that it is not a major contributor to sales.