Chiron Corp. also sells a product for relapsing multiple sclerosis and its interleukin-2 is used to treat metastatic kidney cancer and melanoma. It is working on IL-2 for HIV and has a number of projects aimed toward improving vaccines for hepatitis, flu and other illnesses. Genentech Inc. , the most famous and oldest-surviving of the biotech companies, has 16 products in 26 clinical trial programs. Genentech is emphasizing heart disease and cancer, plus has an injectible treatment for allergic asthma and seasonal allergies in the works. McCamant pointed to cancer as a disease area where consumers may experience some dramatic new hope relatively soon.
Cancer treatments account for about one-third of the drugs in human studies.
Companies focus on these areas first because they can show the usefulness of a drug in the shortest amount of time. In the meantime, they can begin trials to study which treatments can truly extend life or even cure the more common cancers. Herceptin, for example, was approved first for women who were extremely sick and had already failed other treatments. But new research indicates that it might actually work best when used early on and in combination with chemotherapy. Genentech is also studying the effects of combining another chemotherapeutic agent with Herceptin in order to attack the cancer swiftly and effectively.