Strong data on Erbitux in novel combos to be presented at ASCO

Studies to be presented at the forthcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Orlando, Florida, at the end of the month, show that  German drugmaker Merck Serono's leading oncology product Erbitux  (cetuximab), when added to standard chemotherapy or radiotherapy  regimens, significantly improves treatment efficacy in metastatic  colorectal cancer, squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck and  non-small cell lung cancer, without significantly affecting overall  quality of life.

Other study findings at ASCO will highlight Erbitux' potential in a  number of new cancer types, such as gastric and biliary, in combination  with a range of different standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy  regimens.

Erbitux in combination with irinotecan/5-fluorouracil/folinic acid for  the first-line treatment of advanced gastric cancer was well tolerated  with encouraging survival data. This novel combination regimen yielded  an overall tumor response rate of 42%, with median progression-free  survival and overall survival times of 8.5 and 16.6 months,  respectively.