Karnataka - Bangalore   

New anti-cancer drug launched

Bangalore: Biocon Limited and Abraxis BioScience on Friday announced the launch of Abraxane, a medicine for treatment of breast cancer, in India.

The new drug is a nanotechnology based anti-cancer medicine that will extend the survival period of patients.

It is administered as albumin-bound particles of approximately 130 nanometers and costs 60 per cent less than that available in some western countries, where it has already been in market for sometime.

Announcing the launch, Biocon managing chairperson and managing director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw told presspersons that the drug takes advantage of albumin, a natural protein that acts as the body’s key carrier of nutrients and other water-insoluble molecules and accumulates in tumour tissues.

Aimed at providing breakthrough therapeutics to cancer patients in India, the drug is a significant advance in taxane therapy for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. From January 2005, when the drug got approved by the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration, more than 20,000 patients have been treated with the drug. That apart, more than 1,000 patients have been administered the drug during clinical trials, she said.

The Drug Controller General of India approved it in October 2007 on the clinical trial data. Biocon is marketing the product in India, she said.

Neil Desai, vice-president (R&D) at Abraxis BioScience said the drug had demonstrated superiority in progression free survival over both Taxol and Taxotere injections in recent clinical trials. Two clinical trials were conducted in India and a success rate of 43 per cent and 50 per cent was recorded in the first and second trials respectively.

The drug is available as a single-use 100 mg vial in India, he added.

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