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news.Thanks to good performances from Aromasin and Sutent, Pfizer has been able to boast of a number of encouraging trial results at the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology conference.
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At the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, Pfizer presented data from a trial evaluating Aromasin in breast cancer and from several trials investigating Sutent in a variety of different cancer types.
Beginning with Aromasin, new, overall survival data from a landmark international study, named Intergroup Exemestane Study, show improved overall survival for breast cancer patients who switched from tamoxifen to Aromasin compared with those who stayed on tamoxifen alone.
The data showed that women with hormone-receptor-positive early stage breast cancer who switched to Aromasin after two to three years of tamoxifen had a 17% lower risk of dying than those who continued to take tamoxifen.
Patients who switched to Aromasin also had a 24% lower risk of breast cancer recurrence, a 17% reduction in the risk of metastasis and a 44% lower incidence of cancer in the other breast.
Sutent trials, meanwhile, have resulted in a number of promising findings. For example, early data presented at ASCO suggest that Sutent shows significant overall response rates as a single agent in patients with previously treated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The overall response rate with oral Sutent in this patient group was 9.5% (6 out of 63 patients were partial responders).
In renal cell carcinoma (RCC), new data from the largest, randomized phase III trial ever conducted to compare two agents in the treatment of advanced RCC show that Sutent was associated with significantly longer median progression-free survival than IFN-alpha treatment (46 weeks for Sutent, compared to 22 weeks for IFN-alpha).
Treatment with Sutent also resulted in superior overall response rates, including partial response in patients treated with Sutent (31%) versus IFN-alpha (6%).
Finally, updated data from a phase III gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) trial presented at ASCO show a threefold increase in time to progression (TTP) in Sutent patients (28 weeks) compared to those treated with placebo (8.7 weeks) prior to crossover.
These Aromasin and Sutent results are clearly good news for Pfizer, which devotes over 12% of its R&D investment to discovering and developing innovative therapies for various cancer types.