Local biotech's cancer drug produced bad test results

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 13, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

News that a cancer drug produced by Genentech has had some bad test results should not affect plans at a major manufacturing plant in Oceanside. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

It sounds like deja vu. Last year a drug to be produced at the $400 million manufacturing plant in Oceanside was pulled by the FDA after several subjects in final testing died. But news of seven deaths in trials of Genentech's cancer drug Avastin does not affect plans to manufacture the drug at the Oceanside plant, according to Christina Becker of Genentech. She says will Avastin is still approved for advanced colorectal cancer patients.

AVASTIN: "And we'll be filing with the FDA this year to expand that indication to metastatic breast cancer, so that is not changing at all. The plant should be up and running in 2007."

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Becker says the patients who died were using Avastin in combination with another drug.

Genentech's Oceanside plant employs several hundred people, and biotech courses at local college are preparing students to take new manufacturing jobs there next year. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.