Strike Three As Novartis’s Ilaris Swings And Misses In Lung Cancer

Anti-Inflammatory Drug Fails In A Third Setting

The final Phase III readout for Ilaris (canakinumab) in NSCLC, this time in the adjuvant setting, missed the primary endpoint. One more lung cancer trial is under way, a Phase II neoadjuvant study.

Target shot opportunity dartboard performance — The third Phase III miss for Ilaris in NSCLC is in the adjuvant setting • Source: Shutterstock

Novartis AG has long held out hope that its anti-inflammatory drug Ilaris (canakinumab) would be an effective treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but three Phase III clinical trials have now proved the company wrong. The big pharma announced on 15 August that the interleukin-1beta (IL-1β) inhibitor did not meet the primary endpoint of disease-free survival (DFS) versus placebo in the Phase III CANOPY-A trial testing the biologic as an adjuvant therapy.

Ilaris previously missed the primary endpoint of overall survival (OS) in the Phase III CANOPY-2 trial versus docetaxel chemotherapy in patients with advanced or metastatic NSCLC in March 2021. (Also see "Novartis Hit By Canakinumab NSCLC Miss" - Scrip, 9 March, 2021

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