Wyeth Pharmaceuticals terminates phase III trial

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals has announced the termination of a clinical trial involving its drug temsirolimus and women with metastatic breast cancer.

Specifically, the trial was related to the use of the drug in association with letrozole, a breast cancer therapy, for treatment of postmenopausal women with metastatic breast cancer.

The phase III Horizon trial was ended following advice from an Independent Data Monitoring Committee, which said that the trial was unlikely to attain the hoped for level of efficacy.

“While not the anticipated outcome, it is unfortunately not unusual for cancer drugs to work in some tumour types and not others, or even work in only some specific subpopulations of cancer patients,” says Dr Gary L Stiles, executive vice president and chief medical officer, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

“We remain committed to studying temsirolimus in other cancer indications.”

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals has said that two other phase III trials involving temsirolimus are continuing ? one in relation to renal cell carcinoma and the other in relation to mantle cell lymphoma.

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