The launch of a new treatment for leukaemia was hailed today as another weapon in the battle against the illness.
Pharmaceutical company Schering Health Care said the drug for the most common form of adult leukaemia found in the West offered a lifeline to those of the 8,000 new patients diagnosed every year in Europe who failed to respond to conventional therapy.
It is the first monoclonal antibody to be approved and licensed for the treatment of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (B-CLL), an incurable illness that happens mainly in people over 50 years of age, it said.
"In trials this drug has been shown to be effective in one-third of heavily pre-treated patients," said Dr Peter Hillmen, consultant haematologist, Pinderfields General Hospital, Yorkshire.
The drug works in a different way from current therapies, which is why it is effective when standard chemotherapy fails, he said.
"It is a laboratory-manufactured monoclonal antibody that specifically targets the CD52 antigen present on 95 per cent of normal and malignant B-lymphocytes," he said. "The drug binds to the antigen, marking it for destruction by the body's immune system".
He said: "This new drug is a major step forward. It is the first drug to prove effective in advanced-case patients who have failed first-line and the gold-standard second-line treatment for B-CLL".
PA