Even when a tumor is all but eliminated by Taxol, a few cells with mutated microtubules that are invulnerable to the drug can remain, growing into more deadly tumors.
In the meantime, the sales force Bristol developed to market Taxol, a wonder drug in its time, may be idle.
Among Schering's pipeline drugs are a new formulation of Taxol, for breast cancer, and a drug co-developed with Novartis that was hoped to be a pill version of Genentech 's (nyse: DNA - news - people ) Avastin.
Taxol comes dissolved in a solvent so potent it melts standard iv tubing.
FORBES: Patrick Soon-Shiong and one of cancer's biggest riddles.
The biology drug company researchers use as a starting point can come from the NIH, but in only a few cases Taxol springs to mind has the NIH actually taken a medicine close to getting approved.
Taxol sales grew 40% a year since 1993, but they fell 14% in the first quarter.
Taxol, once hailed as a cancer wonder drug, will soon face generic competition.
But Soon-Shiong says his drug is more effective than Taxol, precisely because of a quirk in the albumin coat.
FORBES: Patrick Soon-Shiong and one of cancer's biggest riddles.
Ivax's generic version of Taxol has been on the market for over a year.
And when Taxol fails to kill off all cancerous cells, a tumor can grow back with resistant mutations, unimpeded on its morbid path.
Bristol-Myers never had a patent on the active ingredient in Taxol.
The drug is Taxol, Bristol's brand name for paclitaxel, a trace compound found in the bark of the Pacific yew tree in the northwestern U.S. During the 1970s researchers for the U.S. government's National Cancer Institute discovered that paclitaxel stops the growth of some cancerous tumors.
Bristol-Myers Senior Vice President Andrew Bodnar compares the situation with Erbitux to the chemotherapy agent Taxol, which was initially approved only for ovarian cancer, a relatively uncommon tumor.
It's a variation on the well-established breast cancer drug Taxol, which works by inhibiting cell division.
FORBES: Patrick Soon-Shiong and one of cancer's biggest riddles.
"Definitive studies to show it is better than Taxol have yet to be done, " says Eric Winer, a top breast cancer researcher at the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute.
FORBES: Patrick Soon-Shiong and one of cancer's biggest riddles.
Von Hoff, who was an early proponent of testing the drug, says that he was convinced that Abraxane might be a better drug when it helped patients who had not responded to Taxol.
FORBES: Celgene's Abraxane Extends Life By 1.8 Months In Advanced Pancreatic Cancer
It is racing with Novartis to produce the first oral therapy for MS. Ivax is also developing a new epilepsy drug and an oral version of the cancer drug Taxol, which must usually be injected.
But Crooke plowed ahead, embarking on a 53-patient trial combining his lung cancer drug with traditional chemotherapies Carboplatinum and Taxol.
Dr Michael Seckl, a medical oncologist, and his team at the hospital found that treating cancerous cells with Taxol and stem cell infusion - an advanced form of bone marrow transplantation - was successful.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence, a government body set up to study the efficacy of drugs and treatments, is currently looking at Taxol.
应用推荐