Roche: Avastin fails pancreatic cancer study

Roche has revealed that Avastin, its cancer treatment, failed to meet the necessary endpoints of a phase III trial evaluating the drug’s effectiveness on pancreatic cancer.

The trial was cancelled after independent data experts said that in the time remaining for trial, it was unlikely that a significant difference would emerge in Avastin’s effect on survival times.

Roche stated that the study was not cancelled due to safety concerns and that the existing indications for Avastin, which include breast cancer and lung cancer, would not be affected since previous studies proved the drug’s effectiveness for those diseases.

Eduard Holdener, head of global development at Roche, said the pancreatic cancer trial results would not deter the company from investigating the effectiveness of Avastin in other cancers.

He remarked: “Pancreatic cancer has a very high mortality and a short life expectancy and treatments that may improve survival are desperately needed.

“We will be further evaluating the data to understand potential reasons why this combination therapy did not lead to a clinical benefit in this trial.”

“It is important to note that Avastin is the first and only anti-angiogenic therapy with demonstrated significant survival benefits in the three most common cancer types: colorectal, lung and breast cancer,” he concluded.

Avastin is being researched for use in 25 types of cancer and the total development project will include 40,000 patients worldwide.

The drug was first filed in Europe early in 2005 as a first-line treatment for advanced metastatic colorectal cancer.

Avastin was created using monoclonal antibody technology – an increasingly common source for new drugs as it allows the targeting of specific types of disease pathways. Many of the larger drug companies, including Roche, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, have invested in research firms that investigate further uses of the technology.

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