Taxol Drug

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said Tuesday that it would pay about $670 million to settle allegations that it unlawfully delayed competition for its BuSpar anti-anxiety medication and Taxol cancer therapy. The antitrust lawsuits accused the New York-based company of using patent law loopholes to block competition for BuSpar and Taxol. Drug purchasers, competitors and state attorneys general brought the lawsuits.

The U.S. government spent hundreds of millions of dollars helping develop Taxol, the bestselling cancer drug ever, but failed to get the money back for taxpayers, a government report issued Friday said. Drug maker Bristol Myers Squibb earned $9 billion from Taxol, which has been used to treat 1 million cancer patients, but the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, got back only $35 million in royalties, the U.S. General Accounting Office report found.

Taxol, a drug made from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, was found to halt or slow progression of tumors in more than half of 25 breast cancer patients enrolled in clinical trials at a Houston hospital. The study, led by Dr. Frankie Ann Holmes of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, found that three of 25 patients experienced complete remission of their cancer after treatment with taxol.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said Tuesday that it would pay about $670 million to settle allegations that it unlawfully delayed competition for its BuSpar anti-anxiety medication and Taxol cancer therapy. The antitrust lawsuits accused the New York-based company of using patent law loopholes to block competition for BuSpar and Taxol. Drug purchasers, competitors and state attorneys general brought the lawsuits.

Ivax Corp. faces a revived legal challenge to its generic version of the top-selling Taxol cancer drug, after a federal appeals court told a trial judge to reexamine the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the Ivax product. The ruling is the latest in a multifaceted legal fight involving Ivax, Taxol manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and American BioScience Inc., which says it has a patented method to reduce the drug's side effects. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. opened a second front Monday in its effort to maintain a monopoly over sales of the cancer-fighting drug Taxol, asking a New York court to intervene in a case in which the giant pharmaceutical company faced an unfavorable ruling from the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles last week. Bristol-Myers, which sells about $1 billion of Taxol annually in the U.S.

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. colluded with a tiny Santa Monica pharmaceuticals concern to block production of a price-slashing generic version of the cancer-fighting drug Taxol. The probe was disclosed Wednesday during a U.S. District Court hearing at which a federal judge decided that the government lacked jurisdiction in a patent dispute over Taxol. The ruling by Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr.

UCLA researchers report that they have opened the door to what may be the first effective treatment for a devastating inherited kidney disease that affects more than 500,000 Americans. Working with mice with a naturally occurring form of the disease, called polycystic kidney disease, the researchers have shown that the anti-cancer drug taxol can halt the growth of the cysts that cause the destruction characteristic of the disease.

Researchers said here Tuesday that they have cleared a crucial hurdle in the production of taxol, widely considered to be the most promising anti-cancer agent of the past 20 years. The new drug, which has proven highly effective in treating ovarian, breast and lung cancers, is currently extracted only from the bark of old Pacific yew trees in forests of the northwestern United States, home of the endangered spotted owl.

Researchers say that they have found the active ingredient of the cancer-fighting drug Taxol in hazelnuts, a discovery that could lead to alternatives to current production methods. "This is potentially good news for cancer patients," said Angela M. Hoffman, a member of the research team at the University of Portland in Oregon, who presented the study Wednesday at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Ivax Corp. faces a revived legal challenge to its generic version of the top-selling Taxol cancer drug, after a federal appeals court told a trial judge to reexamine the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the Ivax product. The ruling is the latest in a multifaceted legal fight involving Ivax, Taxol manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and American BioScience Inc., which says it has a patented method to reduce the drug's side effects. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.

American BioScience Inc., owner of a patent on Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s cancer-treatment drug Taxol, has sued the Food and Drug Administration for the second time over its approval of Ivax Corp.'s generic version of the drug. Bristol-Myers, Ivax and Santa Monica-based American BioScience also are fighting in federal courts in New York and Washington and in a Florida state court, with the FDA a defendant in the Washington suit.

A federal judge cleared the way for Ivax Corp. to sell a generic version of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s breast cancer drug Taxol. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington rejected a request by Santa Monica-based American BioScience Inc. that was aimed at blocking the generic version.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco has denied a petition from American BioScience Inc. that had threatened to delay Ivax Corp.'s plans to sell a generic form of Taxol, the world's best-selling cancer drug that is exclusively marketed by drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to stay an earlier decision by a U.S. district judge that was favorable to Ivax.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. opened a second front Monday in its effort to maintain a monopoly over sales of the cancer-fighting drug Taxol, asking a New York court to intervene in a case in which the giant pharmaceutical company faced an unfavorable ruling from the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles last week. Bristol-Myers, which sells about $1 billion of Taxol annually in the U.S.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Santa Monica-based American BioScience Inc. were given six days to try to stop a federal judge's order that could clear the way for a generic version of Bristol-Myers' breast cancer drug Taxol. U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. in Los Angeles said he would delay until Wednesday an order he issued this week that would force Bristol-Myers to remove American BioScience's Taxol-related patent from the Food and Drug Administration's list of valid patents.

Vestar Inc. to Help Develop Cancer Drug: The San Dimas company said it will develop and sell Taxol under an agreement with Towers Phytochemical Ltd., a closely held Canadian drug company. The two companies will sell the drug first in Canada if it wins regulatory approval there, Vestar said. It will also try to develop an improved version of Taxol by encapsulating the drug in tiny globules of water and fat.

The U.S. government spent hundreds of millions of dollars helping develop Taxol, the bestselling cancer drug ever, but failed to get the money back for taxpayers, a government report issued Friday said. Drug maker Bristol Myers Squibb earned $9 billion from Taxol, which has been used to treat 1 million cancer patients, but the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, got back only $35 million in royalties, the U.S. General Accounting Office report found.

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. colluded with a tiny Santa Monica pharmaceuticals concern to block production of a price-slashing generic version of the cancer-fighting drug Taxol. The probe was disclosed Wednesday during a U.S. District Court hearing at which a federal judge decided that the government lacked jurisdiction in a patent dispute over Taxol. The ruling by Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr.