Pfizer pancreatic cancer drug fails, trial halted

New York, January 31: Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker announced on Friday that it has halted a research work aimed to study the effects of an experimental drug developed to cure advanced pancreatic cancerdefine.

The research in its late stage was put to an end following the report given by an independent monitoring board. The report showed that the drug had no ability to effectively cure pancreatic cancerdefine or enhance the longevity of the patient.

Malignant tumordefine of pancreasdefine is called pancreatic cancer. About 37,680 individuals are diagnosed with this dangerous cancer form in the United Cancer annually and nearly 34,290 people lose their lives to this cancer type each year.

However, axitinib, a drug manufactured by the giant pharmaceutical company is still in the mid way of clinical trials to test its efficacy to treat late stage kidney cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, colondefine cancer and other tumor types.

Mace Rothenberg, head of Pfizer's oncology business unit stated, "These results were disappointing, given the trend toward prolonged survival seen in a Phase II study of axitinib in this extremely difficult-to-treat patient population."

Initially, the experts anticipated that when administered along with chemotherapy axitinib could successfully treat the lethal and incurable advanced pancreatic cancer. To confirm this possibility, the company wanted to proceed into Phase III trials, even though that would have been more extensive and expensive for the company.

But now, the company has alerted all the clinical trial researchers and even the regulatory agencies about the study findings and also that the research has been halted now. The company has also recommended cancer patients to discontinue the consumption of the drug.

There are many drugs that are in line to enter the clinical trials so that they can be tested against pancreatic cancer, the company said.

Ironically, in last few years, the company has carried out a number of unproductive researches and studies. In fact, at present the company is trying hard to figure out some alternative to swap the drug called Lipitor (cholesterol fighter) from the market as it is supposed to go off patent in late 2011.

To make its ground more steadfast, the company recently took over the rival company Wyeth for $68 billion. Wyeth (formerly known by the name American Home Products (AHP)) is famous for manufacturing the over-the-counter (OTC) drugs Robitussin and the analgesic Advil (ibuprofen), as well as the prescription drugs Premarin and Effexor.