Lilly’s Alimta ready for UK launch
pharmafile | November 2, 2004 | News story | |Â Â Â
Lilly's chemotherapy drug Alimta is to be launched in the UK for the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer usually caused by exposure to asbestos.
Alimta (pemetrexed) gained European marketing approval in September for two cancer indications: as a first-line treatment for mesothelioma and as a second-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
To be used in combination with cisplatin, Alimta will be launched in the UK by the end of this year or early 2005 as the first ever chemotherapy treatment licenced to treat malignant pleural mesothelioma in Europe.
Professor Hilary Calvert, of the Northern Institute of Cancer Research, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, said: "This form of cancer is usually diagnosed at an advanced stage, at which point treatment with radiation therapy or surgery is not an option. Most of the patients I see have a life expectancy after diagnosis of only a matter of months."
Most mesothelioma patients have a life expectancy of five months at the time of diagnosis. The drug does not represent a cure, but a recent clinical trial showed patients on Alimta and cisplatin lived 30% longer than those treated with cisplatin alone (12.1 months versus 9.3 months). Just over 50% of patients treated with Alimta/cisplatin were alive a year later compared to 38% treated with cisplatin alone.
Professor Calvert said: "Until now there has been no licenced chemotherapy available and patients have been more likely to have treatment aimed to relieve the symptoms rather than to control the disease."
Alimta works by blocking specific enzymes thought to play a role in the rapid growth of these lung tumours and is injected about every 21 days.
Incidences of mesothelioma are increasing rapidly in the UK – there are over 1,700 people suffering with the condition and that figure is set to climb to a peak of 2,500 patients in 2015.
Clinical research of Alimta is also ongoing in first-line non-small cell lung cancer, and in small cell lung, breast, colon, ovarian and gastric cancers and in combination with radiation.
