FDA approves GSK’s Votrient (NYSE:GSK)

It was a nice Monday morning for GSK when they made an announcement that the Food and Drug Administration has voted in the favor of their new cancer drug Votrient. The GSK officials announced that the FDA has approved Votrient (pazopanib) that will be used for the treatment of patients suffering from advanced renal cell carcinoma also known as RCC, a kind of kidney cancer. The announcement had a direct impact over the shares of GSK as they rocketed upwards and boosted the overall confidence of GSK.

RCC is supposed to be the most common malignancy of the kidney and one that is highly resistant to chemotherapy and while the treatment for the cancer diseases has improved in the past few years, there is still a need for better therapies and diseases like RCC is a major challenge which still needs to be tackled. Votrient is a daily oral medication which helps prevent the growth of new blood vessels which blocks the growth of kidney cancer tumors that need new blood vessels to survive.

FDA’s Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee reviewed the data from the Phase 3 clinical trials that showed that Votrient does have a good impact on patients suffering from kidney cancer and hence have gone ahead and supported GSK’s Votrient drug.