The once-a-day pill turned chronic myelogenous leukemia, or CML, from a certain death sentence into a manageable disease. Now data shows it's helped 83 percent of patients live 10 years or longer, even with side-effects that include a characteristic rash, nausea and fatigue.
And some may be able to stop taking the pills altogether, even though they are not cured, the original team of researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine Thursday.
"It's the first targeted personalized medicine that had ever been used. It was also the most successful," said Dr. Richard Silver, a hematologist and oncologist at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center who helped first test the drug in patients.
"This has been the thrill of my life," Silver told NBC News.
Before Gleevec hit the market, CML patients had three options: treatment with toxic chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant, or just dying. Even with treatment, patients rarely lived longer than three years. "It was really a death warrant," Silver said.
Gleevec worked so well and so quickly that the trial testing the drug against the older chemo regimen was stopped so everyone could get the pill. Food and Drug Administration approval was swift and now the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society estimates 36,000 to 100,000 Americans are CML survivors.
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