Lilly Breast Cancer Drug In League With Pfizer, Novartis Shows New Study Data

Lilly Breast Cancer Drug In League With Pfizer – study says

Eli Lilly, which is amidst of revamping its approach to drug development, has now announced updated results from a late-stage study known as MONARCH 3.

The firm’s experimental breast cancer drug abemaciclib significantly cut the risk of disease progression in a late-stage trial, bolstering the drug’s potential to become a new source of growth for the Indianapolis pharma’s oncology business.

Abemaciclib, like Pfizer’s Ibrance and Novartis’s Kisqali, belongs to a class of oral medicines called CDK 4/6 inhibitors that block cancer cells’ ability to divide and proliferate.

Experts at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) congress in Madrid said the experimental drug’s efficacy was comparable to that of rival drugs from Pfizer and Novartis already on the market.

MONARCH 3 tested abemaciclib in combination with either anastrozole or letrozole as a first-line treatment for women with hormone receptor-positive (HR+), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HER2-) advanced breast cancer.

According to interim data unveiled over the weekend, adding abemaciclib to treatment led to a nearly 60% response rate in patients with measurable disease, versus 44% for those treated with an aromatase inhibitor alone.

The results put abemaciclib roughly on par with

Pfizer’s Ibrance (palbociclib) and Novartis’ Kisqali (ribociclib) in the first-line setting, although cross-trial comparisons are always challenging.

Lilly believes abemaciclib’s ability to be dosed continuously could be an advantage over those two drugs, as could its flexibility in being paired with either anastrozole or letrozole.