Lilly reports benefits of Alimta in NSCLC

US drug major Eli Lilly says that data from a Phase III study indicates that its anticancer agent Alimta (pemetrexed for injection), when used in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, was associated with less toxicity than the commonly used Gemzar (femcitabine HCl) plus carboplatin regimen. The findings were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.

The trial was a randomized, multicenter comparison of Alimta plus carboplatin with combined carboplatin and Gemzar, which is also manufactured by Lilly. The program enrolled 446 chemo-naive patients with either stage IIIB or IV NSCLC. Data from the 384 subjects analysed so far revealed that fewer patients in the Alimta arm experienced grade 3/4 thrombocytopenia that in the standard treatment group (48 versus 107). A similar pattern was seen for the occurrence of leukopenia and granulocytopenia, which was 44 vs 89 and 78 vs 98, respectively, in the two cohorts. The firm added, however, that at this point in the analysis, no difference in survival has been observed.

Gemzar in early-stage breast cancer