In a much awaited move, the European Commission has cleared AstraZeneca's thyroid cancer pill Caprelsa. It can make huge difference in the life of patients who are dealing with aggressive and symptomatic medullary thyroid cancer (MTC). It took almost three months for the authorities concerned to approve the treatment for advanced MTC.

Earlier, the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use had given green signal to the oral kinase inhibitor.

In order to reach at the conclusion, Phase III trial was conducted in which 331 patients with advanced MTC were examined. It was found that all those patients’ disease had progressed and spread to other parts of the body. The team concluded that those who consumed the pill were able to reduce the risk of progression of the disease by as much as 54%.

The same drug was recognized for treating advanced non-small cell lung cancer earlier, but it was in October 2009 that the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker pulled back marketing applications for Caprelsa, which at that time was known as Zactima. The reason of withdrawal was told to be ineffectiveness of the drug to escalate survival rate among the patients.

It is being believed that there has not been much change seen in the way the disease affects patients. Despite all the shortcomings in identifying the rare disease, the drug is expected to bring out some positive changes in the time to come.

It has already been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in April last year, and with this approval, it is hoped that the drug maker would be able to raise sales of the drug. If reports are to be believed, there could be as many as $120-$130 million drawn from the sale of the drug.