The Sahlgrenska Academy, faculty of health sciences at the University of Gothenburg, research group has discovered a new cancer gene. The gene causes an insidious form of glandular cancer usually in the head and neck and in women also in the breast. The discovery could lead to quicker diagnosis and more effective treatment. The cancer caused by this new cancer gene is called adenoid cystic carcinoma and is a slow-growing but deadly form of cancer.

GlaxoSmithKline has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the Votrient (pazopanib) drug. The drug is approved for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), a form of kidney cancer. The FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) had earlier voted unanimously in favor of the drug due to encouraging results from the phase III trial.

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals has not received the FDA approval for the supplementary marketing application for its advanced metastatic colorectal cancer drug Fusilev. Fusilev is already approved for use after high-dose methotrexate therapy in osteosarcoma. It is also approved to decrease the toxicity and counteract the effects of impaired methotrexate elimination and of inadvertent over dosage of folic acid antagonists.

OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc said that the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has given a “fast track designation” for the company’s metastatic prostate cancer drug candidate. The OGX-O11 drug, also known as custirsen sodium, when combined with first-line docetaxel (chemotherapy) treatment, has been given the designation, which is only given to drugs “that may provide a significant improvement in the safety or effectiveness of the treatment for a serious or life-threatening disease.”