R&D In Brief

Pfizer halts figitumumab lung cancer trial: Pfizer has stopped a late-stage trial of its insulin-like growth factor 1 inhibitor figitumumab (CP-751,871) in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, losing the lead in the new oncology space (1Pharmaceutical Approvals Monthly May 2008). Pfizer is continuing with an ongoing trial combining figitumumab with Roche/Genentech's Tarceva in NSCLC; a third planned Phase III trial has not yet started. The Phase III lung cancer trial was halted after the independent data safety monitoring board detected an imbalance in serious adverse events, including fatalities, in the '871, carboplatin and Taxol arm. Pfizer, which has made a major push into oncology, has faced other recent setbacks in cancer, with failed trials of Sutent (sunitinib) in breast cancer and the investigational axitinib in pancreatic cancer (2"The Pink Sheet" DAILY, April 2, 2009)