In a recent finding that might lead Swiss drug-maker Novartis AG to begin positioning a new leukemia drug, Tasigna, as a replacement for its current best-seller Gleevec leukemia treatment, the initial results of a clinical trial have gone the way of the new drug!

Novartis is looking to replace its daily tablet Gleevec - the company’s second-ranking blockbuster drug that generated $3.7 billion in revenue in 2008 - because the drug would lose patent protection in the coming few years.

Reporting the complete results from a Phase III trial, Novartis said on Tuesday that Tasigna - generic name ‘nilotinib’ - proved to be better than the older cancer drug Gleevec - generic name ‘imatinib’ -, for deterring the progression of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).

The study that tested Tasigna against Gleevec pertained to the observation of 846 CML patients. Trials showed that, after a year of treatment, a blood test that measured the presence of the disease revealed a notable drop in the patients who had been administered Tasigna.

Statistically speaking, the chromosome that indicated the presence of CML disappeared from the bone marrow of nearly 80 percent of patients taking Tasigna, against 65 percent of those taking Gleevec.

Presenting the results of the study at the American Society of Hematology's annual meeting in New Orleans, Novartis said that Tasigna showed statistically noteworthy improvement over Gleevec in “every measure of efficacy.”