The drug is now made using chemicals from yew tree needles. However, having a new source of the active ingredient, paclitaxel, is compelling, said Steve Tighe, senior pharmaceutical analyst at Merrill Lynch. He said much more information is needed before anyone can say if it can be used against cancer. It took nearly 30 years after paclitaxel was found in yew trees to get Taxol on the market. The latest discovery is still in the lab.
Many questions remain unanswered.
Gram for gram, hazelnuts carry just one-tenth of the chemical that yew trees do, researchers said. Taxol and the yew needles used to make it are not in short supply. Controversy surrounded the drug when the Food and Drug Administration first approved it in late 1992 because Pacific yew trees, its only known source, were being cut down to make it. But Bristol-Myers quickly found a synthetic production method that starts with the needles of European and Asian yews. No trees die and the needles are plentiful.