Expensive colorectal cancer drug to go on sale

From the Globe and Mail:
A pharmaceutical company that refused to market one of the world's most expensive cancer drugs due to a cost dispute will sell its medicine to Canadians after all – at a price lower than it had wanted.

Marc Osborne, spokesman for Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada, confirmed that cetuximab will be marketed some time this year at a price agreed to by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board.

But he said the decision to launch had largely to do with studies showing the drug can prolong the lives of metastatic colorectal cancer patients, in addition to patients with certain head and neck cancers.

“The price issue is behind us,” Mr. Osborne said in a telephone interview from Montreal. “We're going to work at making sure it's available to Canadians beyond the special access program.”

Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada took the unusual move about two years ago of deciding not to launch the drug because the price it wanted to charge was found to be too high by the federal board that regulates the cost of patented medicines to ensure they are not excessive. ...more

MDs uncover another weapon to wield in the cancer fight

From the Ottawa Citizen:
A Canadian-led international study of patients with advanced colorectal cancer has added "one more tool" for them: a drug that extends their lives by an average of six weeks, and which may also help to cure patients if it's used early in the disease.

So far, Cetuximab has only been tested in patients for whom all other treatments have failed. Their cancer has spread, and chemotherapy no longer helps.

The patients in the study lived an average of six months on the drug Cetuximab as opposed to an average of four and a half months without it. However, while it helped 31 per cent of them significantly, it didn't help the rest at all. A mutation in one gene appears to make the difference. ...more