Worse, Iressa failed to extend the lives of patients with lung cancer in two much larger tests involving over 2, 000 people.
Instead of aiming at broad tumor categories, such as all patients with lung cancer or colon cancer, the new medicines target specific subsets of patients whose tumors have particular gene mutations.
The vaccine showed a trend towards higher survival in its initial trial, is now in a final stage trial in 1300 patients with inoperable lung cancer.
But when the two drugs were combined in 12 patients with advanced lung cancer, tumors shrunk in 25% of the patients and stabilized in another 40%--much more impressive results than the two drugs produce alone.
In a study conducted with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and published in Nature Medicine, found that more than half of patients with lung and colon cancer might benefit from the test.
The group found that patients with small cell lung cancer did have signs of the antibodies.
Now Genentech says the drug also extends the lives of patients with certain types of lung cancer for two months when combined with chemo, based on an 877-patient clinical trial.
Louis, found that a 25% stronger dose of radiation used to treat patients with one type of lung cancer were more dangerous for the patients -- and less effective in treating the disease.
Tarceva has already produced promising results in a trial on patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had already been heavily treated with chemotherapy.
It shrunk tumors in 10 of 18 lung cancer patients with a particular gene mutation that occurs in 5% of lung cancers, often in younger nonsmokers.
In a study conducted with many patients in Japan, 28% of non-small cell lung cancer patients saw their tumors shrink with Iressa, compared with 10% of Caucasians.
Late in the trading day on Monday, March 14, Genentech shares were up 25% on volume more than triple its average for the past three months on news that data from a trial showed its cancer drug Avastin, approved to treat colorectal cancer since last year, extended lives of some patients with non-small-cell lung cancer an average of 2.3 months.
Its most promising cancer drug in testing helps just 5% of lung cancer patients with a particular tumor mutation.
One is crizotinib, for 5% of patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
In trials unveiled in May, Iressa shrank tumors in 10% or more of patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had failed other chemotherapies.
The first data on Iressa were promising: It seemed to help patients with non-small cell lung cancer when it was given on its own.
Results for patients with lung, prostate and ovarian cancer, however, did not differ significantly between rural and urban dwellers - a finding that Dr Campbell said could not currently be explained.
It wasn't until Tarceva extended the lives of patients with non-small cell lung cancer that it became clear that OSI and Genentech actually did have a potential blockbuster on their hands.
The study, of patients with non-small cell lung cancer who were also receiving chemotherapy, showed an increase in "local failure, " meaning cancer cells at the radiation site either weren't killed or began growing.
In another trial reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors reported that 57% of 82 lung cancer patients with the ALK gene alteration experienced dramatic tumor shrinkage with the Pfizer drug.
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Patients with a particular type of lung cancer, called squamous cell carcinoma, were excluded from the trial because a previous study had found that they were more likely than other patients to experience bleeding of the lungs with Avastin therapy.
Patients with advanced lung, kidney and skin cancer were among those who responded favorably, said Roy Herbst, an oncologist at Yale University, who headed the Roche study.
Next step: another final-stage trial with 600 more patients injected with antisense and Gemzar, Lilly's chemo drug for lung cancer.
At the end of two years, 22% of non-small-cell lung cancer patients who received Avastin with their chemotherapy were alive, compared to 17% who received only chemotherapy.
The drug did seem to help non-small-cell lung cancer patients live slightly longer compared with a control group.
Pfizer was able to get FDA approval for this drug based on a small trial with patients who were shown to have ALK dependent lung cancer.
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Only 6% of lung cancer patients and 45% of those with bowel cancer survive more than five years beyond diagnosis in Scotland.
Studies using tissue samples are difficult in lung cancer patients, but some will begin soon with Tarceva at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.
In a small midstage trial of the drug that ended in 2006, lung cancer patients lived years longer than is typical with the deadly disease.
Only 30% of lung cancer patients survived more than a year past diagnoses compared to 96% of those with breast cancer.
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