Cancer drugs' success

Cancer drugs' success ::

Scientists discovered a new gene mutation that determines to the bowel cancer drugs Erbitux and Vectibix. Experts already knew that Erbitux, developed by ImClone and sold by Bristol Myers Squibb and Merck KGaA, and Vectibix, from Amgen, only work in tumors containing the normal, or wild-type, version of a gene known as KRAS. Now a second gene, called BRAF, has also been shown to be involved, though to a lesser extent.
KRAS mutations explain about 30-40% of cases in which patients fail to respond to Erbitux and Vectibix but results of a study presented by Federica Di Nicolantonio of the University of Turin School of Medicine in Italy suggest that BRAF mutations may account for another 12%.

Experts have argued about the market impact of using genetic markers as way to pre-select patients for treatment with costly modern cancer drugs.