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Breast Cancer Halted By Novartis Drug From Easter Island
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-22/breast-cancer-halted-by-novartis-drug-from-easter-island.htmlChemotherapy robbed Rachel Midgett of her hair, appetite and energy as she battled breast cancer that had spread to her liver. After nine months on Novartis AG (NOVN)’s Afinitor, she ran a half-marathon in Las Vegas in December.
Midgett, 40, is scheduled to have surgery next month to cut the tumor from her liver after undergoing a previous operation to remove her breasts. The procedure could leave her disease- free for the first time since she was diagnosed in 2009.
“I’m a huge fan of Afinitor, it prolonged my life,” Midgett said in a telephone interview from her home in Houston. While on the drug, “I felt like a normal human being again.”
The medicine, which traces its origins to a bacteria that lurks in the soil around Easter Island and its mysterious stone monoliths, won U.S. approval for breast cancer last week. That green light could give Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez a welcome $1.5 billion sales boost just as some of the company’s top sellers lose patent protection, including the top-selling blood pressure pill Diovan and the cancer drug Gleevec.
