Genentech’s cancer drug Avastin is now facing a halt in approval for expanded use because of its price tag, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.

Avastin or bevacizumab is a therapeutic antibody designed to inhibit the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein. More exactly the drug simply interferes with the blood supply to a tumor, thus cutting its ability to grow and spread in the body.

The FDA approved the drug for use in patients with advanced lung, colon, and breast cancer. The medication can cost up to $100,000 per year and, although that expensive, the drug may only help people live longer by just a few months.

According to Dr. Leonard Saltz, a colon cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the “incremental benefit”of Avastin “may be more modest than we want to admit,” the United Press International quoted him as saying.

The drug gives patients a sense of well-being and the ability to carry out daily tasks without exhaustion or pain. The symptoms of cancer are reduced only in cases when the disease is not that aggressive. That’s why one cannot completely justify its cost, the FDA said, thus wondering the approval for expanded use of the drug.

However, Avastin is being tested in as many as 450 clinical trials for about 30 types of cancer, according to a report in the New York Times. About 100,000 Americans take Avastin, according to its manufacturer.

“The quest is to eliminate the disease. And, yes, there is going to be a cost to that,” Arthur D. Levinson, Genentech's chief executive officer said, supporting the whopping cost of the drug.