The drug worked best in tumors were non squamous
The drug worked best in tumors that were non-squamous, had mutations in a gene called KRAS, or did not have genetic mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor, according to data presented here at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
The trial showed that treatment with ARQ197 and Tarceva improved overall survival by 24 percent compared to treatment with Tarceva and a placebo, but the results were not statistically significant.
In the sub-group of patients with non-squamous lung cancer, those given the combination therapy lived 47 percent longer. Non-squamous is the most common type of non-small cell lung cancer.
ARQ197 is part of a potential new class of cancer drugs designed to block a protein, called C-met, involved in cancer cell growth and survival.
ArQule said in March that the drug, in combination with Tarceva, led to a 66 percent improvement in the amount of time patients lived without their cancer worsening, compared with use of Tarceva alone, but the results were not statistically significant.
Data presented on Saturday showed that patients with normal, or wild-type, epidermal growth factor receptor, who were treated with ARQ197 lived an average of 13.7 weeks without cancer progression, compared to 8.1 weeks for the control group.
Patients with mutations to the KRAS gene lived an average of 9.7 weeks when treated with ARQ197 and only 4.3 weeks when treated with Tarceva alone.
This really does validate C-met as a viable drug target, said George Zavoico, an analyst at McNicoll, Lewis and Vlak.
Tarceva, which is designed to target EGFR, is sold by Roche AG and OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Future trials are still under discussion, said Dr. Joan Schiller, chief of hematology and oncology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and a trial investigator.
There are a number of possible study designs, she said.
ArQule, in partnership with Japans Daiichi Sankyo, is testing ARQ197 in several different types of cancer.
Reporting by Deena Beasley, editing by Matthew Lewis source