Boehringer Ingelheim files for lung cancer drug approval

Boehringer Ingelheim has submitted its new oncology product nintedanib to the European Medicines Agency for regulatory approval.

The newly-filed marketing authorisation application pertains to the use of the oral triple angiokinase inhibitor in combination with docetaxel for the treatment of patients with locally advanced, metastatic or recurrent non-small cell lung cancer of adenocarcinoma tumour histology after first-line chemotherapy.

Nintedanib plus chemotherapy has been shown in clinical trials to be the first lung cancer treatment to extend patient survival beyond one year in a broad population of adenocarcinoma patients after initial chemotherapy had failed.

Further worldwide regulatory submissions are planned, as Boehringer Ingelheim plans to make the product as widely available as possible.

Professor Klaus Dugi, corporate senior vice-president of medicine at Boehringer Ingelheim, said: "We are proud that nintedanib, a compound out of our innovative oncology research programme, is the second compound in our portfolio to be filed with the European Medicines Agency."

This comes after the company's new lung cancer therapy Giotrif was approved by the European Commission last month.