After a series of issues on the manufacturing front, it's good to see Genzyme (NASDAQ:GENZ) get some good news for a change.

This morning, the company announced positive results in testing its cancer drug Campath in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The drug is already approved to treat CLL as a monotherapy, but Genzyme is trying to expand its label to include dual therapy with another of its CLL drugs, Fludara. The latter drug faces generic competition from Teva Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ:TEVA) and Hospira (NYSE:HSP), among others.

In the trial, patients taking Campath plus Fludara took a longer time to see their cancers progress than the patients who took only Fludara. Genzyme didn't give the full details -- it's holding them for a scientific meeting -- but the results were statistically significant. Furthermore, this was actually an interim look at the data, so we may see a substantial extension of the progression of the disease when the final data comes out. The independent group looking at the data even recommended early closure of the trial, which might mean the improvement to progression-free survival (PFS) is very good.

This add-on strategy is a popular one -- Onyx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ONXX) and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) have used it for Nexavar and Sutent, respectively. It should also allow Genzyme to grab many of the doctors who prefer to use Fludara on their patients. Depending on how much PFS a combined Campath-Fludara treatment provides, Genzyme might even be able to get patients who would have gone on other CLL therapies, like Cephalon's (NASDAQ:CEPH) Treanda.

With the manufacturing issues wrapping up -- the company expects to be caught up on Cerezyme and Fabrazyme shortages in the first quarter of next year -- Genzyme can finally get back to the hypergrowth we've seen in the past.