Then came Gleevec, from Novartis (nyse: NVS - news - people ).
There is the occasional breakthroughs like Gleevec from Novartis that extend survival for years.
Government regulators today cleared Gleevec, Novartis' oral treatment for a rare but life-threatening type of leukemia.
Cancer drug Gleevec gives chronic myelogenous leukemia patients a 24-month survival rate of 92%.
Since then, Gleevec, known as Glivec outside the United States, has only looked more promising.
One is Tasigna, now approved for the minority chronic leukemia patients who are resistant to Gleevec.
Novartis rose to prominence thanks to the success of the blockbuster leukemia drug Gleevec.
Two new "super Gleevec" drugs are nearing the market--dasatinib from Bristol-Myers Squibb and nilotinib from Novartis.
Vasella was intrigued: He knew from Novartis' tests of Gleevec that kinases were good drug targets.
Although Revimid may behave somewhat like Gleevec, its development couldn't have been more different.
But as little as 5% of CML patients taking Gleevec see their cancer completely disappear.
One cause of doubt: patients in the trial could still have been responding to Gleevec.
But Gleevec only helps in two relatively uncommon tumors, chronic myeloid leukemia and stomach lining cancers.
The problem: His leukemia cells contained a mutation that made them resistant to Gleevec's effect.
In one big trial 89% of Gleevec patients were still alive after five years.
The protein targeted by Gleevec is always present in a rare cancer called chronic myelogenous leukemia.
More than three-fourths of CML cases, according to some studies, retreat when hit with Gleevec.
Gleevec blocks this protein but only when a flap on the protein is in the closed position.
For every Gleevec, there are dozens of drugs that fail to live up to their early promise.
For a while, it was as if a new breakthrough cancer drug hit every year: Gleevec, Erbitux, Avastin.
But this may be a tough sell, as Gleevec works so well that most patients live years longer.
It'd be hard for you to believe that a drug like Gleevec, which is a drug for cancers.
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It took advantage of X-ray crystallography that charted the precise three-dimensional structure of how Gleevec binds to Bcr-Abl.
Luckily, doctors think they can tell which tumors can be treated with Gleevec by using a diagnostic test.
In India, for instance, the Supreme Court recently rejected a patent for Gleevec.
When it came out with Gleevec for leukemia, Novartis thought it was only going to be a modest seller.
Gleevec is showing potential in prostate cancer and Kaposi's sarcoma, among other diseases.
The next target for Gleevec is glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer.
Like Gleevec, the ImClone drug is at first being targeted to a population that is currently without much hope.
For instance, Gleevec is also effective in a certain form of stomach cancer if a particular molecular marker is present.
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