Erbitux Prolongs Life In Lung Cancer Study
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // May 31st, 2008 // 11:58 am
A clinical trial of 1,125 lung cancer patients who were treated with ImClone Systems’s Erbitux and chemo lived about five weeks longer than patients treated with chemo alone, according to a study released at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting. Here is the abstract.
The results could make Erbitux, which is currently approved for colon tumors and head and neck cancer, the preferred therapy for half of non-small cell lung cancer patients who can’t take Genentech’s Avastin due to side effects.
Patients getting Erbitux plus standard chemo had a median survival of 11.3 months, compared with 10.1 months for those given only chemo. In all, 36.3 percent responded to the combo, compared with 29.2 percent who improved after getting only chemo. Erbitux increased survival by 1.4 months in white patients, who made up 84 percent of the trial population, according to Merck KGaA, ImClone’s partner.
“Patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer have limited treatment options and life expectancy is short,” lead researcher Robert Pirker, associate professor of medicine at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, tells Bloomberg News. “The survival increase shown in this study is an important step for these patients.”
However, Roy Herbst, chief of thoracic oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, tells Reuters that, while any additional survival time is good news for patients, the trial results, nonetheless, represent only “a modest improvement in survival.”
With the five-week improvement, doctors treating patients who can’t take Avastin will choose Erbitux, adding more than $700 million in annual U.S. sales and boosting shares by 35 percent, according to Cowen analyst Eric Schmidt. “I think that is a solid result. Wall Street was looking for a survival benefit of four to six weeks,” he tells Reuters. “This is going to drive a lot of use.”
“Only one in five (lung cancer) patients get Avastin,” ImClone ceo John Johnson tells Reuters. “There is a large group that is going to have a biologic drug available to them for the first time.” Martin Birkhofer, vp of oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb, ImClone’s US marketing partner, says FDA approval will be sought to treat lung cancer.
While the Erbitux data wasn’t as positive as an earlier trial with Avastin, the patient mix wasn’t the same, Herbst tells Bloomberg. That makes it impossible to compare the meds to one another. As a result, he says docs and patients will have a choice of drugs, and the decision may come down to side effects, the dosing and further analysis of the data.
“This is important, but I think that more work needs to be done to see which patients really benefited and who should get it first,” Herbst said.
elliottg
Erbitux is over 10,000 per month. How much is the treatment going to cost in total? Multiply by 10 to get the cost per life year. This kind of price for such minimal benefit is not going to benefit either the patient or ImClone.
Lilli
Will we ever learn the cause of causes of cancer and will doctors and ever admit and suggest cancer is caused by many of of the active and inactive ingredients in our medications, food, cosmetic products. and many other products we use daily? No! Because our society cares more about power and money then humanity.
Mr. Atoz
Cancer has been around killing humans since the days of early man, not since all the doomsday hypsters came about who blame the ills of society on evil men who live in cprporate caves and spill their poisons onto eager consumers. Granted, there are some products that do cause cancer and there are many people who get lung cancer who never smoke. It is still mainly a roll of the genetic dice but don’t tell that to the blameless society. At least their are some trying to combat it with sound science and not superstition. We still have a long way to go, like all other developments, it takes time.