Roche Holding, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, on Friday announced that its cancer drug Avastin failed to help men suffering from late-stage prostate cancer live longer in a clinical trial, extending another setback to the company as it seeks to extend use of the blockbuster drug into new areas.

The miss, announced on Friday, emerges after a similar disappointment last month with Avastin in gastric cancer but success in ovarian cancer.

Roche shares registered a slip of 2.2 percent by 1130 GMT as investors revised down speculations for Avastin, a closely watched drug which many analysts cite to emerge as the world's biggest-selling pharmaceutical in a few years' time.

Avastin, which treats the disease by starving tumors of blood, is already used to treat colon, breast, lung and kidney cancers, speculated that prostate cancer could propel the potential annual peak sales by between 500 million Swiss francs ($464.3 million) and 1 billion.

However, Deutsche Bank analysts posted that the failure signified that 0.5 to 2 percent might need to be come off consensus sales estimates for Roche and 1 to 4 percent from core earnings.

Roche is revealed to disclose further details on recent clinical trials with Avastin at the 2010 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting later this year.