Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drugmaker, reportedly ended a late-stage clinical trial of its cancer drug Sutent, because it data showed the drug met its goal of slowing the progression of pancreatic cancer. Pfizer Inc. made the announcement on Thursday, following an independent safety board’s recommendation to stop the study.
“These and previously reported phase 2 data contribute to the growing body of evidence indicating activity with sunitinib in patients with pancreatic islet cell tumors,” Dr. Mace Rothenberg, Pfizer's senior vice president of medical development and clinical affairs, said in a news release.
According to Pfizer, more than 38,000 patients worldwide have been treated with Sutent in the clinical setting and trials. The drug has already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of certain kidney and stomach cancers.
How it works? Sutent is marketed as an oral drug and is designed to block molecules that help cancers grow and spread throughout the body.
The Phase III trials showed patients on Sutent stayed free of disease progression for longer than those on placebo, who were also receiving the best supportive care possible.
Pfizer said patients who were treated with Sutent were permitted to continue taking the drug, and those taking the placebo were allowed to replace it with Sutent.
“We are delighted by these findings which demonstrate that Sutent provides a benefit for patients with advanced, well-differentiated pancreatic islet cell tumors - a rare cancer with limited treatment options,” Mace Rothenberg, Pfizer’s senior vice president of medical development and clinical affairs at Oncology Business Unit, said in a statement.
Few people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but about 95 percent of those who suffer from this rare condition die from it, according to statistics. Early detection improves survival. Those who are diagnosed with early stage pancreatic cancer have a five-year survival rate. This type of cancer spreads rapidly and is rarely detected early.
The extremely lethal condition affects about 30,000 people each year.
In most cases, the condition has no symptoms, which puts pancreatic cancer on the list of under-diagnosed conditions because they can be easily missed. Current treatment options for the unusual cancer, with five to 10 annual cases per million people worldwide, are minimal.
In January, Pfizer stopped the stage study of an experimental drug, axitinib, which had been designed to treat advanced pancreatic cancer after trials showed no evidence of prolongic survival rate of pancreatic cancer patients. Even if the drug seemed to have effect on the hard to treat advanced pancreatic cancer in combination with chemotherapy and Pfizer decided to go on with the larger and more expensive study, Phase III trials, axitinib proved to be of no use in increasing the survival rate.
Pfizer said that it would try to figure out different compounds which might work in healing the pancreatic cancer, which has very few treatment options. The results of this trial on Sutent bring great hope for patients with pancreatic cancer.
