Merck KGaA and Pfizer's Avelumab Fails to Meet Endpoint in Lung Cancer Trial -- Update
February 15 2018 - 09:55AM
Dow Jones News
(Adds Merck KGaA comment and additional avelumab trial in
seventh paragraph.)
By Sonia Amaral Rohter
Merck KGaA (MRK.XE) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE) said on Thursday that
avelumab, a cancer immunotherapy, failed to meet the primary
objective of a phase 3 trial in patients with a type of lung
cancer.
The trial didn't meet the endpoint of improving overall survival
in patients whose tumors are PD-L1 positive, the companies
said.
The Javelin Lung 200 trial compared avelumab to docetaxel, a
chemotherapy drug, in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung
carcinoma, or NSCLC, whose cancer had progressed after receiving
another form of treatment.
Avelumab, marketed as Bavencio, has been approved to treat
Merkel cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer, and urothelial
carcinoma, a type of bladder cancer.
There are other clinical trials investigating avelumab alone or
in combination with other treatments for lung cancer, and clinical
programs evaluating it in other tumor types.
"We will continue to progress the broad avelumab program,
exploring various indications," said Chris Boshoff, head of
immuno-oncology for Pfizer.
Despite the setback, avelumab still has blockbuster potential,
said Luciano Rossetti, global head of research and development at
Merck KGaA's biopharmaceutical division. The results of another
trial, Javelin Lung 100, which is investigating avelumab as a
first-line therapy in NSCLC, are more important, he said, and those
results are expected by mid-2019.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide,
according to the World Health Organization.
Merck and Pfizer are co-developing and co-commercializing
avelumab.
Write to Sonia Amaral Rohter at
sonia.amaralrohter@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 15, 2018 09:40 ET (14:40 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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