A parade of three dozen physicians, nurses, patients, advocates and family members overwhelmingly endorsed the continued availability of Avastin (bevacizumab) for metastatic breast cancer during the first day of the FDA's unprecedented hearing on its proposal to withdraw the drug's approval for the indication. But in a slew of legal and scientific data, representatives from the FDA's Office of New Drugs and Center for Drug Evaluation and Research laid the groundwork for an unflinching rejection of the request by Genentech Inc., of South San Francisco, and parent company Roche AG, of Basel, Switzerland, to continue marketing the drug for metastatic breast cancer while Genentech pursues new studies to support Avastin's use in the indication.