CHMP recommends Avastin with chemotherapy and gemcitabine for Ovarian Cancer

Roche announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has adopted a positive opinion for the use of Avastin (bevacizumab) in combination with chemotherapy (carboplatin and gemcitabine) as a treatment for women with recurrent, platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer has the highest mortality rate of all gynaecological cancers. Almost 230,000 women worldwide are diagnosed with this cancer each year, many of them with advanced disease that returns after initial treatment. Patients are said to have �platinum-sensitive� disease if their ovarian cancer returns more than six months after completion of the last platinum-based chemotherapy. In platinum sensitive disease, Avastin has demonstrated in a phase III study (OCEANS) that those women who received the combination of Avastin and chemotherapy and then continued Avastin alone, lived significantly longer without their disease getting worse (progression-free survival) compared to those who received chemotherapy only.