the WSJ is reporting that Pfizer Inc. (PFE) said its cancer treatment Sutent failed to meet its endpoint of improving overall survival for late-stage lung cancer in a late-stage trial, although it did improve progression-free survival.
Sutent, also known as sunitinib, has been one of Pfizer’s more successful drugs to launch in recent years. Approved for kidney cancer and certain gastrointestinal tumors, Sutent had $964 million in sales last year, but studies of the drug for other indications haven’t been home runs.
Monday, Pfizer said the latest study tested Sutent in patients with advanced lung cancer already taking erlotinib, a Roche Holding AG (RHHBY, ROG.VX) drug sold as Tarceva. The study failed to produce a statistically significant improvement in overall survival, its primary endpoint. However, it did reach its secondary endpoint, which was improved progression-free survival, or the length of time in which a patient is living with a cancer that doesn’t get worse.
Mace Rothenberg, a Pfizer executive of clinical development in the company’s oncology unit, said that reaching the secondary endpoint was still an important finding. “Over the next few months, we will conduct an in-depth analysis to gain further insight into these results and determine whether we can identify one or more subgroups of non-small cell lung cancer patients for a future trial in either previously untreated or recurrent disease,” he said.
Sutent significantly advanced kidney-cancer treatment when it came out in 2006, but Pfizer studies failed to improve a measure of survival in breast-cancer patients. The company continues to study the medicine in prostate tumors.
Pfizer shares were down 0.2% at $16.07 in after-hours trading. The stock has fallen 11% so far this year through the close.
