Cancer drug 'supplied before approval given'

Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca illegally supplied the cancer-fighting drug Gefitinib to doctors in Japan more than a year before the government had approved its use, Japan’s largest newspaper reported today.

The Anglo-Swedish company began offering the drug free of charge to doctors at 89 clinics and hospitals in December 2000 – three months before clinical trials ended – and 286 lung cancer patients took it, the Yomiuri newspaper said, citing unidentified sources.