QLT: Wait and see

A Data and Safety Monitoring Committee recommended last week that QLT Inc. suspend enrollment in two Phase III studies of tariquidar in non-small cell lung cancer due to safety concerns. But QLT maintains that only one half of the risk/benefit calculation is currently known, and thus the company is sticking to its expectation of submitting an NDA in 2005.

QLT (TSE:QLT; QLTI, Vancouver, B.C.) received North American rights to tariquidar (formerly XR9576) from Xenova Group plc (LSE:XEN; XNVA, Slough, U.K.) (see BioCentury, Aug. 20, 2001).The compound inhibits P-glycoprotein, a membrane protein that pumps chemotherapeutics out of cancer cells. QLT is testing tariquidar as an adjunctive treatment in combination with first-line chemotherapy to treat stage IIIb/IV NSCLC in a total of about 1,000 patients. ...