Cancer drug Abraxane gets second US FDA approval

Washington, Dec 10 (IANS) New Jersey-based Celgene Corporation Monday announced the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Abraxane paclitaxel protein-bound particles for injectable suspension) (albumin-bound) for the first-line treatment of locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, in combination with carboplatin, in patients who are not candidates for curative surgery or radiation therapy.

Abraxane was first approved in 2005 for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer after failure of combination chemotherapy.

“Non-small cell is the most common type of lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in the United States,” said Mark A. Socinski, MD, Director, Lung Cancer Section, Division of Hematology/Oncology, University of Pittsburgh, and lead investigator of Abraxane phase II and phase III lung cancer trials.

“The FDA approval of Abraxane is exciting for healthcare professionals because it offers an important new treatment option for all types of non-small cell lung cancer patients, in an area that has seen few treatment advancements in recent years,” Socinski added.

The approval is based upon the results of CA-031, a phase III, multi-center, randomized open-label study where patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) received either Abraxane (100mg/m2) weekly plus carboplatin (AUC=6) every three weeks (nR1) or paclitaxel (200mg/m2) every three weeks plus carboplatin (AUC=6) (nS1).

“The study met its primary end-point demonstrating astatistically significantly higher overall response rate for patients in the Abraxane arm compared to those in the paclitaxel arm (33 percent vs 25 percent).

In the phase III study, Abraxane demonstrated a higher overall response rate as compared to paclitaxel for squamous cell carcinoma (41 percent vs 24 percent) and large cell carcinoma (33 percent vs 15 percent). Abraxane achieved a similar overall response rate to paclitaxel in patients with carcinoma/adenocarcinoma (26 percent vs 27 percent).

The most common adverse reactions (20 percent) of Abraxane in combination with carboplatin for NSCLC are anemia, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, alopecia, peripheral neuropathy, nausea, and fatigue.

Additional regulatory submissions have been filed in Japan, Australia and New Zealand with anticipated decisions in 2013.

IANS 2012-12-10 20:48:26