| Genentech's Gamble
In the 12 years since Arthur D. Levinson took over as CEO of Genentech (DNA), the company has released seven new drugs, including three multibillion-dollar cancer treatments. But Wall Street types are still breathing down Levinson's neck, nagging him to come up with the next big idea. On Dec. 4, the pressure intensified when advisers to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration voted against approving Genentech's colon cancer drug, Avastin, for breast cancer. The company's stock plunged 10%. The need to innovate has led other pharmaceutical CEOs to hire consultants and craft new management strategies in a desperate effort to come up with more blockbusters. This approach irks the 57-year-old ex-biochemist. "I'm sick of the word 'innovation,'" he said earlier this year. As the drug industry grapples with patent expirations and a chronic lack of exciting drugs in the pipeline, Levinson faces a unique challenge—living up to his own track record.
Breast Cancer Radiation Won't Hurt Immune Health
FRIDAY, Oct. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Neither of two commonly used radiation treatments for early-stage breast cancer has any negative effect on a patient's immune system, concludes a Loyola University Health System pilot study. "One of the first questions a woman newly diagnosed with breast cancer asks is, 'What impact will radiation have on my body?' This study helps allay some fears," lead author Dr. Kevin Albuquerque, a radiation oncologist, said in a prepared statement. .
Scientists Develop New Drug To Outflank Cancer Resistance, UK
A new drug has shown promising results against breast and prostate cancer cells and tumours that are resistant to conventional hormone-based treatments, according to research published in the British Journal of Cancer.
Cancers such as breast and prostate cancer are often fuelled by sex hormones, such as oestrogen or testosterone. Hormone therapy for breast or prostate cancer aims to reduce the levels of these hormones in the body, "starving" the cancer of these signals and halting tumour growth. Some cancers are resistant to this treatment from the outset while many build up a resistance to these drugs over time, their growth becoming hormone-independent - such cancers are a major challenge to treat.
Now, researchers have shown that a new drug - STX140 - directly targets hormone-independent cancer cells by initiating a natural suicide process within them.
New computational technique can predict drug side effects
Early identification of adverse effects of drugs before they are tested in humans is crucial in developing new therapeutics, as unexpected effects account for a third of all drug failures during the development process. Now researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have developed a novel technique using computer modeling to identify potential side effects of pharmaceuticals, and have used the technique to study a class of drugs that includes tamoxifen, the most prescribed drug in the treatment of breast cancer. Their study is currently available on line at PLoS Computational Biology. Conventional test methods screen compounds in animal studies in advance of human trials in the hope of identifying the side effects of promising therapeutics. The UCSD team � led by Philip Bourne, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology at UCSD�s Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Lei Xie, Ph.D., of the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD � instead uses the power of computational modeling to screen specific drug molecules using a worldwide repository, the Protein Data Bank (PDB), containing tens of thousands of three-dimensional protein structures.
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