The drug: Pertuzumab
The disease: Breast cancer
The developer: Roche
Peak projections: $1.8 billion (Bank Vontobel)

Roche has seen sales of the cancer drug Avastin slide since U.S. regulators questioned the benefits of the drug against breast cancer last year. Yet CEO Severin Schwan has highlighted the company's batch of blockbuster hopefuls as evidence of the Swiss drug giant's promising future, and the experimental breast cancer drug pertuzumab recently made the chief executive's list of key prospects.

Pertuzumab, a monoclonal antibody drug, would add to Roche's arsenal against HER2-positive breast cancer, which now features the big seller Herceptin. In July, the company said that it would file for approval of pertuzumab in the U.S. and Europe later this year, after delivering impressive data from the pivotal "CLEOPATRA" study of the drug.

In the key study, patients on a combo of pertuzumab, Herceptin and chemo lived "significantly" longer without their cancer getting worse versus those who took Herceptin and chemo without the experimental drug, meeting the primary endpoint of the trial, Roche said. The company explains that pertuzumab has synergies with Herceptin, as the two drugs home in on different regions of the HER2 protein, and the combo could further stymie cellular signaling that enables cancer to thrive.

"Pertuzumab adds value to Roche's breast cancer franchise, as it increases the efficacy therapies on top of standard of care Herceptin," said Vontobel analyst Andrew Weiss, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. If the drug works as advertised, the bank estimated peak sales of 1.5 billion Swiss Francs ($1.8 billion).

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