Boehringer Ingelheim's lung cancer compound granted FDA Priority Review

Hannah Blake

pharmaphorum

The US FDA has granted Priority Review for Boehringer Ingelheim’s New Drug Application for its investigational oncology compound, afatinib. The application for afatinib is currently under review for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation as detected by an FDA-approved test.

Afatinib has demonstrated a significant delay in tumour growth versus the best-in-class chemotherapy, which resulted in 11.1 months progression free survival (PFS) vs. 6.9 months in the comparator arm.

The FDA target action date for afatinib will now be in the third quarter of 2013.

"The acceptance of the NDA filing reinforces our ongoing commitment to oncology as we take the necessary steps to seek approval for our first cancer treatment, in an area of high unmet medical need. We are excited that the positive clinical data for afatinib* is now currently under review by both the FDA and EMA and look forward to working diligently with both agencies in the hope that people with lung cancer can soon benefit from this new treatment."

Prof. Klaus Dugi, Corporate Senior Vice President Medicine, Boehringer Ingelheim.

Afatinib is currently under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) following submission for Marketing Authorisation in Europe in August 2012. Boehringer Ingelheim strives to make afatinib available to patients around the world. Further submissions worldwide are currently under preparation.