The chemotherapy drug paclitaxel (taxol), used in breast, ovarian, and lung cancer treatment, is derived from Taxus brevifolia. As it was already becoming scarce when its chemotherapeutic potential was realized, the Pacific yew was never commercially harvested from its habitat at a large scale; the widespread use of the paclitaxel (taxol) was enabled when a semi-synthetic pathway was developed from extracts of cultivated yews of other species. Unlicensed pharmaceutical production use of closely related wild yew species in India and China may be threatening some of those species.
==Common name==
* '''English''' - Pacific yew
== References ==