Marking a grand success for the drugmaker Pfizer, its medicine Inlyta for patients suffering from advanced stages of kidney cancer has reportedly bagged a green light from the drug regulators in the United States, thereby marking a significant escalation in the efforts being made by the drug manufacturer with the intent of offsetting the sales of Lipitor.

Earlier on Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claimed that the drug, dubbed generically as axitinib, is fairly influential in providing effective treatment for patients who fail to respond positively to other drugs meant for treating kidney cancer.

The advanced stage of kidney cancer begins from the lining of the small tubes present in the patient's kidney. Inlyta works effectively by clogging the way of some definite type of receptors which can potentially prove influential for the growth of cancer.

In its statement, the FDA claimed that Inlyta is the seventh medicine which has been successful in gaining approval for the treatment of advanced kidney cancer since the year 2005.

In a recently released statement, while expressing his opinion regarding the effectiveness and the reason behind Inlyta being approved for use against advanced kidney cancer, the director of the office of oncology products for FDA, Richard Pazdur, said: "Collectively, this unprecedented level of drug development within this time period has significantly altered the treatment paradigm of metastatic kidney cancer, and offers patients multiple treatment options".

Earlier during the last year, in excess of 61,000 people in America were screened for kidney cancer, and nearly one out of every five of the total number of people diagnosed for the disease was termed liable of dying due to the said ailment, as per stats released recently by the American Cancer Society (ACS).