Action to Cure Kidney Cancer

Background

Interleukin-2 (IL-2) was initially investigated by a number of labs as a T-cell growth factor and subsequently developed as a medical therapy for kidney cancer and melanoma in the early 1980s by Steven Rosenberg at the National Institutes of Health. It won Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in 1992 and has been marketed since then under the name Proleukin by the Chiron Corporation based in Emeryville, California. In 2006, Chiron merged with Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

There are now five drugs that are FDA-approved for kidney cancer: Nexavar (2005), Sutent (2006), Torisel (2007), Afinitor (2009) and Interleukin-2 (1992). There are also other targeted agent drugs in the pipeline that will likely be approved in 2010. It remains to be seen if the availability of therapies will have an impact on the number of patients who enter clinical trials, where new drugs are developed. Currently only 3% of kidney cancer patients enter clinical trials.