Iressa News and Research

RSS

CancerDrugsDirect.com provides customers access to affordable cancer medications

When someone is diagnosed with cancer, the effects can be devastating both physically as well as financially. Recent studies have shown that many cancer patients are foregoing care because of the skyrocketing cost of cancer treatments.

22 Apr 2010

High OOP costs discouraging many cancer patients from filling prescriptions

A new study presented today at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's 22nd Annual Meeting finds that one in six cancer patients with high out-of-pocket (OOP) costs abandons their medication. The study by Prime Therapeutics (Prime), a thought leader in pharmacy benefit management, found patients with an OOP cost greater than $200 were at least three times more likely to not fill their prescription than those with OOP costs of $100 or less.

12 Apr 2010

USPTO issues Notice of Allowance for menadione to prevent skin rash in patients taking EGFR inhibitors

Hana Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical company focused on strengthening the foundation of cancer care, today announced that it has received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the use of menadione to prevent and treat skin rash in patients taking biologic and small molecule epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors, such as Erbitux® and Tarceva®, for anti-cancer therapy.

31 Mar 2010

AstraZeneca Canada's IRESSA receives approval for treatment of NSCLC

AstraZeneca Canada announces the recently approved indication for IRESSA(R), a once-daily oral targeted therapy for the first-line treatment of patients with locally advanced (not amenable to curative therapy) or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have activating mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase (EGFR-TK). In conjunction with this approval, AstraZeneca is also announcing the availability of a diagnostic test which can now determine a patient's EGFR mutation status, representing a new era in personalized lung cancer treatment in Canada.

17 Mar 2010

Combination treatment strategies may benefit patients with non-small cell lung cancer

Even when their tumors are shrinking in response to therapy, some non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients have a scattering of cancer cells that are undeterred by the drug, causing the tumor to resume its growth, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center scientists report in the January issue of Cancer Cell.

20 Jan 2010

AstraZeneca and Dako Denmark A/S enter into collaboration agreement

AstraZeneca and Dako Denmark A/S announced today that they have entered into a collaboration agreement to develop companion diagnostic tests for multiple AstraZeneca oncology projects, including biologics and small molecules, in various stages of discovery and development.

18 Jan 2010

New compound may halt drug-resistant lung cancer

The ability to make, test, and map the atomic structure of new anti-cancer agents has enabled a team of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists to discover a compound capable of halting a common type of drug-resistant lung cancer.

24 Dec 2009

Cost of Avastin a deterrent for non-small-cell lung cancer treatment

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that the cost of Roche/Chugai's Avastin, followed by concerns about its efficacy and side-effect profile, are cited most frequently by surveyed oncologists as the factors preventing their use of Avastin for non-small-cell lung cancer treatment in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

18 Dec 2009

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center awards $50,000 to three young investigators

Three young investigators who have taken significant steps toward advancing the understanding of cancer will be the recipients of this year's Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research, a prize awarded biennially since 2001 to scientists under the age of forty-six by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

30 Sep 2009

Winners of Paul Marks Prize 2009

29 Sep 2009

Iressa (gefinitib) chemotherapy combination proves safe for head and neck cancer patients

Patients undergoing treatment for advanced head and neck cancers may respond well to the addition of gefinitib to chemotherapy, according to a study sponsored by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and chaired by Ethan Argiris, M.D., associate professor of medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and co-leader of the Head and Neck Cancer Program of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI).

31 May 2009

Cancer drugs erlotinib and gefitinib might treat alcoholism

A class of drugs already approved as cancer treatments might also help to beat alcohol addiction. That's the conclusion of a discovery in flies of a gene, dubbed happyhour, that has an important and previously unknown role in controlling the insects' response to alcohol.

22 May 2009

Gefitinib just as effective as chemotherapy for lung cancer

Gefitinib, also known as Iressa, the once-promising targeted therapy for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, has proven as effective as chemotherapy as a second-line therapy for the disease with far fewer side effects, according to an international Phase III clinical trial, led by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

20 Nov 2008

Circulating tumor cells can reveal genetic signature of dangerous lung cancers

Using a miniature laboratory-on-a-chip device, a team of investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital, led by Daniel Haber, M.D., Ph.D., and Mehmet Toner, Ph.D., both members of the MIT-Harvard Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE), has developed a method that detects and analyzes the genetic signature of rare tumor cells in the bloodstream.

9 Jul 2008

Microchip-based device determines the genetic signature of lung tumors

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have shown that an MGH-developed, microchip-based device that detects and analyzes tumor cells in the bloodstream can be used to determine the genetic signature of lung tumors, allowing identification of those appropriate for targeted treatment and monitoring genetic changes that occur during therapy. A pilot study of the device called the CTC-chip will appear in the July 24 New England Journal of Medicine and is receiving early online release.

3 Jul 2008

Report says cancer clinicians should understand and consider the economic impact of new interventions

Cancer clinicians should understand and consider the economic impact of new interventions, which often have substantial costs, according to a report appearing in the July/August issue of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

2 Jul 2008

Targeted therapy can improve outcomes for lung tumors

The first U.S. clinical trial using genetic screening to identify lung tumors likely to respond to targeted therapies supports the use of those drugs as first-line treatment rather than after standard chemotherapy has failed.

20 May 2008

New mechanism identified for resistance to targeted lung cancer drugs

An international research team, led by investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), has found a new way that some lung tumors become resistant to treatment with targeted therapy drugs like Iressa and Tarceva.

27 Apr 2007

New methods for treating lung cancer cells that have become resistant to new anti-cancer agents

Researchers at the Ireland Cancer Center of University Hospitals Case Medical Center have developed methods for treating lung cancer cells that have become resistant to new anti-cancer agents.

24 Apr 2007

New test identifies patients who benefit from targeted cancer drugs

New lab test accurately identified patients who would benefit from treatment with the molecularly-targeted anti-cancer therapies gefitinib (Iressa, AstraZeneca) and erlotinib (Tarceva, Genentech).

13 Jun 2006