Lilly Cancer Drug Shouldn't Be Started in New Patients, FDA Says
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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Eli Lilly & Co.’s cancer drug Lartruvo shouldn’t be started in new patients and those already taking it should ask their doctors if they should continue, U.S. regulators said, following a key study that failed to show the medicine prolonged lives.
The drug for soft tissue sarcoma, a relatively rare and hard-to-treat type of tumor, was given accelerated approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2016 based on promising data from an early-stage study. The company was required to complete a larger trial to confirm the benefits. Lilly announced last week that the late-stage study didn’t meet its main goal of showing the drug improved survival in patients with advanced or metastatic disease.