What is zolair?

Question

My doctor recommended some mew asthma medicine for me to use.. I would like to know more about it before I consider it.

Answer 1

The maker of the drug, Genentech, spells it Xolair, although some places, like CNN's website spell it Zolair.

For a pretty thorough description of the drug, here's a link to the page about it on Genentech's website: http://www.gene.com/gene/products/information/immunological/xolair/index.jsp

For another perspective, here's an excerpt from a CNN interview:
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EON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The FDA advisory panel has approved a new medication to treat asthma brought on by allergies, and some are calling this a major advancement in the treatment of allergies.
Our medical news correspondent Elizabeth Cohen checks in now with our "Daily Dose" of health news for us this morning.

How big is this news?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This would be big. If the FDA goes on to approve it, which it's expected that it would since it's gotten through this committee, it could be very big for people who suffer from allergic asthma, because it takes a whole different twist on how to treat it. Now 17 million Americans suffer from asthma. There are 5,000 deaths a year. Most of those who suffer have allergic asthma. In other words, it's caused by allergens that are in the air. This new drug is called Zolair (ph), and it acts on anti-IGE (ph) antibodies. So unlike some other treatments, it actually gets to the key underlying cause of allergic asthma.

You take a shot. You can see the shot here, every two to four weeks. It is not for children. I know many people when they hear asthma, they think of children. It is not for children. And in addition, it would be expensive. So you can bet that insurance companies are not going to let just anyone get it, because it's a very expensive drug.

HARRIS: How expensive is very expensive?

COHEN: It could be as much as $10,000 a year.

HARRIS: $10,000 a year? That's why it's not for children. What about side effects? Any side effects that we have to be worried about if this does actually hit market?

COHEN: Yes, there could be side effects, and actually, that's the reason why it's not for children, not because of the cost. We like to spend money on children. That's OK. But they didn't approve it for children, because there are concerns about safety. In the clinical trials that they did that they presented to the FDA, they found that patients were more likely to get cancer when they were on the drug, compared to patients who were given a placebo. If you take a look at the numbers, they are not huge -- .5 percent of the people who took the drug got cancer, compared to .2 percent of the people who were given a placebo.

Now while this is not a huge difference, the company, Genentech, which is marketing this drug, says many patients may ultimately have adverse effects, because this was a study. So the numbers who got cancer were very, very small. When you give it to many, many people in the community, those numbers go up.

HARRIS: Thanks, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cohen. We'll learn some more about this new drug later on.
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Answer 2

Omalizumab Pronunciation

Answer 3

here you go.......you are spelling it wrong, which might be the problem if you tried to look it up.

Omalizumab
Pronunciation: oh mah LIZ uh mab
Brand Names: Xolair

Answer 4

I think it is the new asthma shot. I heard it works pretty good but might be expensive.