The vagaries of drug development are such that even carefully
thought out clinical programs can fail. Thus Antisoma plc says it has no regrets about the way it and partner Novartis AG have run development for ASA404, which failed last week in a Phase III
trial in non-small cell lung cancer.
The partners halted the
international Phase III ATTRACT-1 trial in 1,200 previously untreated NSCLC
patients after an interim analysis showed there was "little or no prospect"
that ASA404 plus carboplatin and Taxol paclitaxel would meet the primary
endpoint of significantly improving overall survival (OS) vs. placebo plus
chemotherapy.