A lung cancer drug currently being tested by Eli Lilly and Co., has been raking in positive results from a late-phase patient trial. The announcement has led to an initial 3 percent bump in Lilly's pre-market share prices, as well as renewed hope for cancer patients.
Ramucirumab, a biologic drug created within living cells (as opposed to a cocktail of chemicals), will likely be vetted for use in gastric cancer cases later this year, according to analysis by Dr. Tim Anderson of Sanford C. Bernstein. It's expected that the drug will be approved in both the United States and Europe, topping out at around $850 million in gastric cancer treatment sales each year.
However, it's not just gastric cancer that ramucirumab could viably treat. Lilly has been testing the drug on a range of malignant tumors, with lung cancer the subject of the most recent study, entitled REVEL. REVEL is the third test involving ramucirumab, and the first to focus solely on lung cancer patients. With the participation of 1200 late-stage patients suffering from squamous or non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer, ramucirumab was used in conjunction with docetaxel, a chemotherapy medication, versus docetaxel paired with a placebo. Patients who took the ramucirumab combination experienced both longer survival spans (though Lilly hasn't disclosed the average duration) and more sluggish tumor growth. "These data reinforce our confidence in the overall ramucirumab development program. If approved, necitumumab could be the first biologic therapy indicated to treat patients with squamous lung cancer," said Dr. Richard Gaynor, Lilly Oncology's senior vice president for product development and medical affairs.
It's anticipated the ramucirumab will be available as an alternative treatment for patients who have already been through treatment, unsuccessfully. If it does become available in the United States, it's projected that sales will reach approximately $1 billion per year from lung cancer treatments alone, as the disease accounts for a whopping 30 percent of cancer cases in the country. Of those cases, 85 percent are non-small cell lung cancers.
Though there is a risk of developing blood clots from ramucirumab and firm numbers verifying the drug's effectiveness are yet to be released, the progress of the study - compounded by the lack of viable treatments for late-stage lung cancer patients - are both indicative of the drug's seemingly inevitable approval. "There is no quantification of the magnitude of the benefit, but given the dearth of therapies to treat this segment of lung cancer patients, achieving overall survival highly likely means the drug will be approved," said Anderson in his report to investors.
