After years of speculation about the promise of vaccines against cancer as a way to use the immune system against the tumor, States STATES will soon see its first cancer vaccine hit the market. earlier today the US Food and Drug Administration announced that it gave the green light for Provenge, a treatment for advanced prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. the vaccine is designed to operate by extracting the patient's own immune system cells from the blood and exposing them to a protein called prostatic acid phosphatase in the laboratory. When the cells are reinjected they stimulate T cells to attack the patient's tumors.
Provenge, made by the biotechnology company Dendreon, is one of a wave of new therapies against the extraordinarily expensive cancer in tests clinics, extended survival only modestly. Patients who got it lived about 4 more months, nearly 26 months in total, than those who did not go, but, say business leaders, is still more than any other therapy was successful for this disease in a randomized trial. The vaccine is given in three injections; each costing $ 31,000, for a total treatment tab of $ 93,000, the company said today.
A number of other anticancer drugs, such as Avastin and Tarceva, cost tens of thousands of dollars a year and help patients live a few weeks or a few more months. The modest benefit in part reflects the enormous challenge of treating metastatic disease that is poorly understood and difficult to combat. New treatments are also more expensive to manufacture. Provenge executives say they already have a big bet, breaking ground on two manufacturing facilities even before the treatment was approved. In the first year of production, they still expect the demand exceeds supply of vaccines.
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