Astex Pharma ends lung cancer drug development

Hannah Blake

pharmaphorum

Astex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced that clinical development of its lung cancer drug, amuvatinib (MP-470), has been discontinued.

Amuvatinib is a multi-targeted tyronsine kinase inhibitor and was being investigated in Phase 2 clinical trials, called ESCAPE (TrEatment of Small Cell lung cancer with amuvatinib in combination with Platinum Etoposide). The main goal of the studies was to show that the drug had a response rate of not less than 10% in treating lung cancer patients. However, amuvatinib only reached a 9.5% response rate.

"This clinical proof of concept (cPOC) amuvatinib trial was designed in two parts to define clinical activity and confirm clinical benefit and safety in combination with chemotherapy. We have decided to end the clinical development of amuvatinib despite the favorable safety and preliminary clinical activity we observed in the first stage of this Phase 2 trial and in the earlier Phase 1b trial in combination platinum-etoposide based chemotherapy. We will consider the possibility of licensing the compound to any partners who would be interested in its further development."

James Manuso, chairman and chief executive officer at Astex.

Astex is now going to consider licensing the compound to any partners interested in its development. The pharmaceutical company also has partnerships in drug development with Novartis and J&amp,J.