Axcan launches Photofrin PDT in UK
The UK Medicines Control Agency has granted Axcan Pharma marketingauthorization to sell its Photofrin (porfimer sodium) photodynamic therapy for the treatment of late-stage lung cancer and advanced oesophageal cancer. The drug is intravenously injected into patients and concentrates in tumor cells, where it is activated by a non-thermal laser light which initiates the production reactive oxygen species that destroy the cells.
Photofrin is currently marketed in Canada and the USA, and is approved in 17 European countries, as well as in Japan. Axcan said it intends to launch and market the product in the UK through its own sales and marketing team and will use Sinclair Pharmaceuticals as the UK distributor. The firm acquired worldwide rights to Photofrin from originator QLT PhotoTherapeutics (Marketletter May 8, 2000).
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