Word: herceptin
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Whereas traditional drug companies focus on developing chemical compounds, the biotech industry prefers to use biological ones--hormones, proteins and other substances that either already exist in the body or can be created from scratch. Examples include interferon, the clot buster tPA and the new breast-cancer drug Herceptin...
...story. TIME readers do too, and about 3,000 of them write every year with some variation on the five ws: "What information do you have on the effects of oil spills on the environment?" "Where can my wife get treatment with the new anticancer drug Herceptin [TIME, Oct. 5]?" "Who's been on your cover the most times?" (Richard Nixon...
...have the disease but are at high risk of developing it. The panel did not endorse the idea, however, that tamoxifen actually "prevents" breast cancer, saying only that it might help reduce the risk over the short term. In the second, more straightforward decision, the panel urged approval of herceptin, a gene-based treatment for some forms of advanced breast cancer...
...herceptin, anything that can help women in the advanced stages of breast cancer is good news. It's not a cure and does nothing for the 70% of cases that don't involve the so-called HER-2 gene. But the drug has been in desperately short supply, and FDA approval should improve that situation...
...drug, Herceptin--the first to target a genetic defect in breast-cancer cells--has shrunk tumors by turning off the signal that tells cells to divide. In a study, Herceptin increased survival an average of three months for women with advanced cancer. Researchers hope for more dramatic effects if it's given at earlier stages of the disease. Herceptin might get fda approval as early as this fall...