its only a matter of time

(this article from forbes.com) do not be out of this stock when pgl stitch up a deal, thanx to the people who panicked lately, cheers

The Biggest Cancer Drug Ever?
Matthew Herper, 04.15.05, 4:40 PM ET

NEW YORK - Which of the great minds behind the breakthrough cancer drug Avastin should win the Nobel Prize in medicine?

Should it be Harvard Medical School's Judah Folkman, who came up with the idea of fighting cancer by starving tumors of growth? Or should it be Napoleone Ferrara, the Genentech scientist who discovered the protein Avastin blocks?

Either way, it looks as if maybe the Swiss Academy should be watching--because last night, Avastin proved effective in a third cancer. The Genentech drug has slowed down colon tumors, non-small cell lung tumors and now breast tumors, and has opened up more areas for development of future medicines. By figuring out how cancer wreaks havoc on the body, scientists are finding ways to fix what's broken.

The breast cancer results come as a particular surprise, because Avastin had previously failed in an extensive clinical trial on breast cancer. At the time, many financial analysts thought the drug was a goner. Then came a stunning extension of life in colon cancer patients. And now, the drug, in combination with the chemotherapy Taxol, allows patients with early-stage breast cancer an average of four months without their disease progressing. "That's huge," says Kathy Miller of the Indiana University Cancer Center, who conducted the clinical trial.

It's important to remember, Miller says, that the extra four months is much like the average return in a mutual fund. Individual patients are like stocks--some will get no benefit at all, and others will see their lives extended much more dramatically. "Our next challenge will be to try to identify the patients most likely to benefit from this drug," says Miller.

Why did the results differ from the previous failed trial? One reason, Miller says, is that these patients weren't as sick. Also, Taxol, the Bristol-Myers (nyse: BMY - news - people ) cancer drug now available as a generic, may work better with Avastin than the older chemotherapies used in the last trial, although that remains unproven.

The benefits of Avastin do not come cheap. For the average colon cancer patient, the cost of treatment with Avastin is more than $40,000. (The cost of treatment varies depending on how long the drug prevents cancer from progressing.) For lung and breast cancer, twice the dose is used. It normally takes about six months for breast cancer to progress. Given that, a course of Avastin treatment is likely to cost $80,000.

Sales of the drug could give a major boost to Genentech. Shares jumped 19% to almost $70 on the news of the breast cancer trial, which was stopped early for efficacy. Geoffrey Porges at Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, wrote in a note to investors that the new data could add $1 billion to Avastin's peak sales. It's not absurd to talk about Avastin eventually bringing in $6 billion, which would make it the biggest cancer drug ever.

Avastin is one of several drugs likely to garner attention at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology next month.