Although not conclusive yet, a new combination of drugs from AstraZeneca looks like it could tackle lung cancer. Not only that but it boosts the immune system too.
European drug controllers have suggested extensive use of AstraZeneca’s IRESSA healing for lung cancer because AstraZeneca’s cancer medicine was expressed as a “large hope” in the fight against cancer and the medicine corporation said a so-called label update to IRESSA meant a patient could get treatment with IRESSA after a blood test without any hesitation.
Avoiding a multi-billion dollar takeover from Pfizer recently, AstraZeneca kept moving ahead with their products like this drug combination. The new drugs are called MEDIA736 and tremelimumab. How much a dose each patient needs is still questionable as experimentation continues, also if any side effects emerge benign or detrimental.
In case if your medical doctor is not capable to evaluate the mutation level of a tumor, then patients’ right to use the potentially life-changing drugs such as IRESSA to fight against cancer,” AstraZeneca Chief Medical Officer Briggs Morrison said in a report.
The ESMO aka European Society for Medical Oncology was the location where the results of the experimentation was announced. Only 24 patients were treated so far bu the results looked promising. The ESMO chief Pascal Soriot had stated earlier that the numbers for the experimentation would be limited so for now it will take some time for more experimentation and results to come in to finally clinch whether this one-two punch of drugs is the answer everyone is hoping for. These early results also were pointed out to be not only efficient but safe so far.
Immunotherapy healing method is the most recent part of cancer research and broadly tipped to become a market worth tens of billions of dollars in annual sales and combinations are observed by several oncologists as the greatest way to use the latest drugs but some time this method does not work for all patients.
As more experimentation gets underway we’ll see if this combination of drugs from AstraZeneca pans out. As Pfizer is still waiting in the wings to pounce on them they both have to wait several months, usually three according to UK law before negotiations for a takeover can resume. Originally AstraZeneca balked at the price Pfizer had put on the table and now that they have a potentially winning hand with this new drug combination that price per stock may go up raising the price to the offer from Pfizer from $118 billion to far more. A treatment that works against lung cancer would be highly welcomed as it’s the number one cause of death from cancer sufferers.
It’s not clear if the drugs have to be taken during one treatment or for a lengthy time. More of that data will come out in months or years to come but if successful it would be a major boon for AstraZeneca and sufferers from lung cancer and stockholders.
AstraZeneca expects to have more perfect and positive consequences later this year and also plans to start an essential clinical examination with the blend either late this year or at the start of 2015 for cancer patients.