Lilly’s pegilodecakin fails pancreatic cancer trial

Eli Lilly’s pegilodecakin trial has been unable to improve pancreatic cancer survival.
In the trial, pegilodecakin was added to the widely-used FOLFOX regimen (folinic acid, 5-fluorouracil and oxaliplatin) as second-line therapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer patients who had progressed after first-line gemcitabine-based treatment, but the results weren’t able to show an improvement in the overall survival.
Lilly is still hopeful that its investment in pegilodecakin will pay off in other cancer types. Early-stage trials are ongoing in other advanced solid tumours including melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The combination of pegilodecakin with PD-1 is being look into via CYRPESS 1 and 2 (both at phase 2 trails). It’s thought that high concentrations of IL-10 will activate an immune response against cancer cells. It’s hoped that pegilodecakin will increase the activity of checkpoint inhibitors. The results will be due next year.