More Videos
SPECIAL REPORT
- U.S. Stocks Fall on Dubai Worries
- Black Friday at Best Buy
- Strategists on Dubai: Avoid 'Rash Moves' Now
- Longer Lines, Fuller Carts This Black Friday
- Dubai Stock Market Fear Has 'Legs': Dennis Gartman
- Obama's Emission Reduction Pledge Paints Future for Autos
- Is Super Bowl Halftime Act Too Old?
- Surprising Options Trades in TiVo Shares
- EA Sports Hopes to Pump Up Sales Through Pop-Up Locations
- Abu Dhabi Will Aid Debt-Fraught Dubai 'Case by Case'
- Banks With The Biggest Exposure to The UAE
- Dubai's Debt Woes Signal New Era for Creditors
- Next Week: Cash In Now Or Wait For A Santa Rally?
- Dubai Stock Selloff May Bring Buying Opportunity
- Longer Lines, Fuller Carts This Black Friday
- Big US Banks May Be Forced to Raise Capital: Bove
- Bank of America Amends Pay for Senior Executives
- Tiger Woods Out of Hospital After Accident
PHARMA'S MARKET VIDEO
RSS FEED
Pharma's Market
Text Size 
 |
AP |
This morning I did just that when Pfizer unveiled that Sutent appears to work so well on pancreatic cancer patients that the study's been stopped early to let the patients on placebo switch onto the real pill. But, as is the case with everything, the devil is in the details.
As I've blogged recently, pancreatic cancer is a tough nut to crack. Here, Pfizer's [PFE
Loading...
()
] test is on a specific, very rare form of the disease that has spread. It affects an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people in the U.S. each year. So, the market may not be huge, but it is nonetheless significant and perhaps, incremental progress in a difficult to treat cancer.
The name for it is a bit of a mouthful: advanced pancreatic islet cell tumors, aka pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. And it turns out this is apparently the same type of tumor that Apple's Steve Jobs [AAPL
Loading...
()
] is fighting. But we don't know if his cancer has spread. And, again, this particular study was on patients whose cancer is metastatic. If his cancer does fall into this specific category, I'm guessing if you're Steve Jobs you can get or have already gotten access to something like this or another experimental treatment or treatments. If he isn't part of the study, it would fall into the category of "off-label use." It's kind of a no-no, but it's a common practice by doctors who use or prescribe drugs for unapproved conditions.
Pfizer says Sutent, which is already on the market for kidney and digestive-system cancers, significantly increased what's called "progression free survival" in this study. That means people lived a longer amount of time without the cancer getting worse. The exact period will probably be released at the big oncology conference in the spring. PFE sold $847 million worth of Sutent last year, a 46 percent increase. In addition to this very rare form of pancreatic cancer, the company says it is also doing late-stage tests of Sutent on breast, lung, colorectal, liver and prostate cancers.
Pfizer shares are beaten down. And it needs every little positive piece of drug development pipeline news that it can get. That may explain why the stock is rallying this morning, even though this apparently affects a small, but needy patient population.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes