Sutent is an oral therapy belonging to a new class of drugs that attack cancer by inhibiting tumor growth and starving the tumor of blood, thereby reducing its ability to continue to divide and grow.
The European Commission's full marketing authorization is based on data from a large phase III trial. In this study patients received either Sutent or interferon-alfa (IFN alfa), the current standard of care.
Patients taking Sutent had prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) in first-line treatment for advanced kidney cancer. Patients in the Sutent arm experienced 11-month median PFS more than double the 5-month median PFS observed with IFN alfa.
“Sutent has the potential to provide real improvements on the current standard of care. With this first-line European approval, these benefits can be extended to even more patients,” said Dr Joseph Feczko, Pfizer's chief medical officer.