Lilly's Alimta 'as effective as Taxotere'

US drug major Eli Lilly says that data presented at the American Society of Clincial Oncology's annual meeting held in Atlanta, Georgia, show that its anticancer drug Alimta (permetrexed) was as effective as Sanofi-Aventis' Taxotere (docetaxel) in terms of overall survival benefit.

The findings were part of a 571-patient, Phase III study evaluating the safety and efficacy of Alimta as second-line therapy in non-small cell lung cancer. The updated data, which were from a study originally reported in 2003, showed that Alimta patients experienced 8.3 months of median survival compared to 8.0 months for those on Taxotere.