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3 News NZ Pharmac decides not to fund year-long Herceptin course New Zealand Herald, New Zealand - File photo / Glenn Jeffrey Government drug-buying agency Pharmac announced today it would not fund 12-month courses of the breast cancer drug Herceptin. ... Herceptin funding increase turned down Stuff.co.nz Herceptin decision due out TVNZ PHARMAC reaffirms confidence in 9 week Herceptin treatment Scoop.co.nz (press release) New Zealand Doctor Online - Stuff.co.nz all 38 news articles » Cancer Cures Find Biology-Physics Convergence With MIT `Genius' Bloomberg - Herceptin, for breast cancer, generated $4.6 billion in revenue, according to Roche Holding AG, the Basel-based drugmaker that also markets the medicine. ... Charities Aid Foundation Kidney patients denied 'too expensive' life-extending drugs Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - Nice previously faced controversy over its advice that Herceptin, the breast cancer drug, could only be used for advanced cases. ... Kidney cancer decision criticised Charities Aid Foundation Kidney cancer drugs fail to get NHS approval The Birmingham Post all 210 news articles » Goldman-Led Genentech's Avastin May Force Higher Bid (Update1) Bloomberg - 9 minutes ago Avastin is the world's third-best selling cancer drug, after Rituxan and Herceptin, which Genentech and Roche also sell together. ...DNA - OTC:RHHBY - SWF:RO Ariad Starts Phase II Study for Breast Cancer FDA news (subscription), VA - Aug 5, 2008 ... in patients with advanced breast cancer. The multicenter, single-arm study will evaluate the drug in combination with IV trastuzumab (Herceptin) in 33 ...ARIA Herceptin decision disappoints GP Campaigning GP Sue Walthert ... New Zealand Doctor Online, New Zealand - ?I?m really disappointed, especially because of the reason,? the Dunedin breast cancer survivor says. Pharmac says its Pharmacology and Therapeutics ... Uproar as NICE draft rejects four kidney cancer drugs Pharma Times (subscription), UK - 15 minutes ago He gave the example of Roche?s Herceptin (trastuzumab), used to treat women with early breast cancer, which costs ?20000 per patient but can extend ... Cancer patients in a bind over drugs Winnipeg Free Press, Canada - Aug 6, 2008 CancerCare Manitoba has a $29-million budget to administer intravenous cancer drugs like Herceptin this year. Dhaliwal said cancer specialists across Canada ... DHB's response to PHARMAC?s decision Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand - District Health Boards (DHBs) acknowledge the distress that breast cancer sufferers and their families face. Our clinicians and staff do the very best they ... The Money Times Monogram Announces Commercial Availability of the HERmark(TM ... FOXBusiness - Jul 8, 2008 Clinical data: Preliminary data from three cohorts of Herceptin-treated patients with metastatic breast cancer who were identified as "HER2 positive" by ... FDA clears Invitrogen breast cancer test CNNMoney.com Monogram to roll out breast cancer test, compete with Invitrogen Bizjournals.com FDA OK's Invitrogen genetic test for breast cancer Reuters San Diego Union Tribune - Wall Street Journal all 96 news articles »  IVGN - DNA - MGRM

Advanced breast cancer: Tykerb an alternative to Herceptin

A Phase III study has shown that Lapatinib ( Tykerb ) and Capecitabine ( Xeloda ) versus Capecitabine alone nearly doubled time to progression ( 36.9 weeks in the combination arm versus 19.7 weeks with Capecitabine alone, p=0.00032 ) in women with refractory advanced or metastatic ErbB2 positive breast cancer whose disease had progressed following treatment with Trastuzumab ( Herceptin ) and other cancer therapies.

In April 2006, GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK ) stopped enrollment of the study based on the unanimous recommendation of an Independent Data Monitoring Committee ( IDMC ) because it had met its primary endpoint of time to disease progression, and exceeded the predetermined stopping criteria outlined in the committee charter.

Tykerb , a small molecule that is administered orally, inhibits the tyrosine kinase components of ErbB1 and ErbB2 receptors.
Stimulation of ErbB1 and ErbB2 is associated with cell proliferation and with multiple processes involved in tumor progression, invasion, and metastases.
Overexpression of these receptors has been reported in a variety of human tumors and is associated with poor prognosis and reduced overall survival.

“ Because ErbB2 positive breast cancer may eventually progress during or following treatment with Trastuzumab, there has been a need for an effective alternative treatment that can successfully block the function of ErbB2 in another way,” said Charles Geyer, at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh and principal investigator for this trial. “ These results indicate that Lapatinib can provide a needed alternative when Trastuzumab no longer appears to be helping to control the disease.”

The international, multicenter, open-label study ( EGF100151 ) enrolled 392 patients who had advanced or metastatic breast cancer with documented ErbB2 overexpression and whose disease progressed following treatment with Trastuzumab and other cancer therapies.
The interim analysis included 321 patients ( 160 in the Lapatinib-Capecitabine arm and 161 in the Capecitabine monotherapy arm ).

Discontinuation due to adverse events was 14 percent in the Lapatinib-Capecitabine combination arm versus 11 percent in the Capecitabine alone.
The commonest adverse events in the Lapatinib-Capecitabine arm included diarrhoea, hand-foot syndrome and rash.
An asymptomatic relative decrease of greater than or equal to 20 percent in left ventricular ejection fraction ( LVEF ) occurred in 2.5 percent of patients on the combination arm and less than 1 percent of patients on Capecitabine; all patients recovered normal LVEF.

Source: 2006 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting