Sutent tops kidney-cancer drug scrips

Here's a quiz for you: Which kidney cancer drug is prescribed most for new patients? It's one of four newish drugs that came onto the renal-disease scene in recent years and quickly captured the market: Sutent [1] from Pfizer, Nexavar [2] from Bayer and Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Torisel [3] from Wyeth, and Avastin [4] from Genetech and Roche.

If you said Sutent, you're right. The Pfizer drug is "showing the most promise" as a first-line therapy, according to a new report from Datamonitor. But ironically, the most-prescribed second-line treatment--Nexavar--may not be the most effective choice in patients who started out on Sutent, the report states. Both drugs, you see, work by inhibiting angiogenesis, or blood-vessel growth. Torisel, on the other hand, targets a protein that's vital to tumor growth, and it's the only one of the fourth that's proven to increase overall survival, not just progression-free survival.

Regardless, there's still lots of room for new renal-cancer remedies, Datamonitor concludes. Experts think that, like other cancers, renal cancer will respond best to drug combinations rather than individual treatments.

- see this release [5] for more

Related Articles:
FDA approves Pfizer's Sutent for cancer. Report [1]
Pfizer's cancer drug Sutent shows promise. Report [6]
FDA approves Nexavar for kidney cancer. Report [2]
Bayer, Onyx announce disappointing Nexavar results. Report [7]