Packaging for cancer drug glivec (imatinib) 400mg film coated tablets, one of the first targeted cancer drugs used to treat chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) first approved in 2001, made by Novartis, c.2019.

This is the packaging of glivec, the brand name for the drug imatinib, made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis. Glivec (also known as gleevec in the United States) was one of the first targeted cancer drugs developed to treat patient's with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a form of blood cancer. It was first approved as a medicine in 2000. The drug packaging was donated by a blood cancer clinician at the Hammersmith Hospital.

American doctor, Brian Druker, experimented with many compounds to target and block a fused gene unique to patients with CML disease. The remarkable success of iminatib in trials in the 1990s spurred on investment in targeted therapy cancer research. Today, someone with this form of leukaemia who is disease free after two years of treatment has the same life expectancy as someone without cancer.

About the drug, a patient who took part in phase 3 clinical trials for imatinib said: “In January 1999 I was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) in accelerated phase. The prognosis was that the only possible treatment for me was a bone marrow transplant, and if a matched donor could not be found I would have only 12 months to live, as there was no other effective therapy. The shock of diagnosis and my prognosis was profound.

Through an internet forum for CML patients I learned that there was an experimental drug in clinical trial; however I would have to travel to the USA to access it. In August 1999 I travelled to Portland, Oregon, to take part in the trial. It was a risk but one worth taking. I responded to the drug, which quickly reduced the level of cancer cells in my marrow to much lower levels and I was able to return to the UK to continue treatment. That drug was imatinib (Glivec) and it saved my life.”