A New Era in Anticancer Therapy/Imatinib?￠????A New Era in Anticancer Therapy

摘要

Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Association has granted Imatinib 1 st prize for prescription drugs in 2008. This review addresses the role of imatinib in anticancer therapy. Imatinib is the first member of a new class of agents that act by inhibiting particular tyrosine kinase enzymes, instead of non-specifically inhibiting rapidly dividing cells. It is currently marketed by Novartis as Gleevec (USA) or Glivec (Europe/Australia) as its mesylate salt. Imatinib, a synthetic tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is the first member of a new class of agents. The introduction of imatinib has brought a new era in anticancer therapy that is designed to interfere with a specific molecular target, usually a protein with a critical role in tumor growth or progression. Imatinib serves as a model for the development of other tyrosine kinase inhibitors and for targeted therapy in general.