TASIGNA o Novartis protegiendo su "joya de la corona" : GLIVEC

By Neil MacLucas and Anita Greil

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

ZURICH -(Dow Jones)- Novartis AG (NVS) said Friday a study showed that its cancer drug Tasigna is more effective than older treatment Gleevec, underpinning hopes that the new blood cancer treatment will be able to make up for lost sales when the Swiss drugmaker's second-best selling drug loses patent protection in a few years.

Novartis, based in Basel, said that after 18 months of treatment, in the group of patients who were given Tasigna, fewer experienced a worsening of the disease and fewer people died, than in the comparison group. People in the comparison group were treated with Gleevec, a Novartis drug that has become the standard treatment for a type of blood cancer known as Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia.

The data will be presented to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, or ASCO, annual meeting in Chicago on June 7.

Gleevec, known as Glivec outside the U.S., is Novartis' second-best selling drug after heart drug Diovan, generating close to $4 billion in sales last year.

When Gleevec loses patent protection in a few years, Tasigna will probably be able to compensate for the expected slump in sales from this key product, analysts say. Without patent protection, drugs can be copied and sold at lower prices by generic companies.

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