Pharma Blog Watch

Telik's Failure May Be Sign to Abandon TRAP Technology (QDIS Blog)
In his entry, Ed Vawter reports on the major Phase III failure for Telik's cancer drug, Telcyta.

"One of the things to keep in mind with cancer drugs is that unlike other drug categories, with cancer you have to compare against the standard of care. This means you are comparing your drug against a proven drug for a given indication."

"I should also add that it wasn't just one study; it was three Phase III registration trials in ovarian and lung cancer, as well as in combination with another drug for ovarian cancer. The fact that all three trials failed to meet its endpoints seems to point to the fact that the drug may not be working and should be discontinued."

"One of the problems with small companies is their hesitancy to kill drugs early on. Too many times, in my experience, they throw good money after bad by trying to keep a project alive when it should have been killed a long time ago. This is especially true if the company only has a single compound in their pipeline. Fortunately, Telik has another drug in its pipeline called Telintra (TLK199) although it is in early stage trials."

"It will be interesting to keep an eye on Telintra since this is the second drug to come out of their discovery platform called TRAP (target-related affinity profiling). If a second drug fails, it may point to the fact that this technology isn't worthwhile."