FDA Approved Pfizer’s New Breast Cancer Drug 'Ibrance'

On Tuesday after two months, as decided in an earlier regulatory meeting U.S. Drug and Food Administration (FDA) approved Pfizer’s crucial medicine that treats with an advanced deadliest type breast cancer in women.

According to Wall Street, the drug namely 'Ibrance' is one of the greatest and promising medicines in Pfizer's (NYSE: PFE) history. It is a new therapy that kills cyclin-dependent kinases (proteins in the body), which are actually the reason for the growth of cancer cells.

Ibrance is designed to provide treatment to postmenopausal woman in advanced stages of breast cancer. It can prove to be Pfizer’s major sale blockbuster. Analysts at Wall Street are expecting Pfizer’s to make almost $4 billion by 2020. Another forecast by JP Morgan claimed that the breast cancer drug will make around $350 million sales by the end of this year, and will exceed as much as $1 billion next year.

Ibrance is expected to be used with another older cancer treatment drug namely Letrozole. Pfizer reported that Ibrance would be sold at the price of $9,850 per month.

Dr. Richard Pazdur of Food and Drug Administration said that the combination of Ibrance and Letrozole is a new treatment option for women suffering from metastatic breast cancer. This cancer spread from one part to other part of the body.

FDA conducted a study based on 165 patients, and noticed that the use of Ibrance reduced the development and growth of breast cancer. On the other hand patients taking combination of both Ibrance and Letrozole on an average lived 20.2 months, showing results twice as more as women taking Letrozole only. However, the study is still in progress to figure out whether the use of Ibrance increased the survival time for breast cancer patients or not.

Some of the most common side effects by the use of Ibrance are decreasing white blood cells, fatigue, low platelets and red blood cell counts. National Cancer Institute stated that almost 233,000 were detected with deadly breast cancer in the United States last year, from that nearly 40 thousand have died.

 Chief medical officer of Pfizer said that it’s exciting to look at the capabilities of this new drug to help such a large number of patients fighting against this deadly cancer.

Chief Medical officer Deputy of the American Cancer Society, Lichtenfeld claimed that the impact and effects of this new drug Ibrance requires continuous monitoring— especially because of its accelerated approval. For instance, in 2011 FDA cancelled its approval of a drug named "Avastin” after giving it quick approval four years ago.