AstraZeneca starts phase III Zactima study

AstraZeneca has announced that it has started to enrol patients for a new phase III trial of Zactima, a once-daily anticancer drug.

Investigators will compare the drug with erlotinib – marketed by Roche as Tarceva – in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

AstraZeneca says that over 1,150 patients are expected to join the study across 23 countries, as part of an “extensive” clinical programme to assess Zactima’s effectiveness in NSCLC patients.

Zactima will be compared with Tarceva for overall survival times, response rate, disease control, duration of response, effect on symptoms, safety and tolerability.

Peter Lanmuir, medical science director for Zactima, remarked: “Research in lung cancer has helped us identify specific pathways that play an important role in the development and progression of this disease.”

He added that treatments reflecting advances in research are now in development, allowing new drugs that target multiple pathways and modes of action to be compared to existing single-target treatments.

Zactima is one of five proprietary new chemical entities in AstraZeneca’s product pipeline.

The company has recently been involved in acquisitions and several collaborations with other companies in an effort bolster its pipeline, which has been adversely affected in the last two years by the cancellation of the development of drugs like Exanta and Galida.