Bayer gets US FDA approval for liver cancer drug Nexavar

FRANKFURT - German pharmaceutical giant Bayer has gotten approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to sell its Nexavar cancer drug to fight the most common form of liver cancer, Bayer said Monday.
The drug, which has already been approved for sale in Europe, is to be sold as a treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma, or HCC.
It was also approved for sale in the United States to fight kidney cancer, and represents one of Bayer's biggest commercial hopes, with sales in the first half of 2007 of 107 million euros (157 million dollars).
On November 5, Bayer said it was suspending global sales of an anti-bleeding treatment, Trasylol, owing to the higher-than-average risk of death among patients using the treatment in a Canadian survey.
len/wai/nh

11/19/2007 14:34 GMT