Boehringer Ingelheim begins Vargatef trials

Boehringer Ingelheim has has announced that new drugs for the treatment of cancer are entering the third stage of clinical development.

Furthermore, the company says that a first-in-class polo-like kinase 1 inhibitor will soon move onto stage two of advancement.

The oncological treatments, known as LUME-Lung 1 and LUME-Lung 2, will reportedly evaluate the molecule as a second-line therapy in combination with standard chemotherapy treatment and be used in patients suffering from advanced non-small-cell lung cancer.

According to the company, those who suffer from this type of cancer have few options for treatment and this “significant advance” signals progress in development of drugs for these conditions.

Dr Nasser Hanna, associate professor of medicine in the oncology division at the University of Indiana, said that the trails were a “stepping stone in the quest to combat the world’s most common fatal malignancy”.

He went on to point out that lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide and said that the need to work on new treatments has never been more urgent than now.

In related news, the results of a trail of a stroke prevention drug have been announced at the 80th American Heart Association annual congress, with the primary outcomes of the study focused on the incidence of stroke and systemic embolism.