Pharma Blog Watch

Amgen's Vectibix Glitch (In the Pipeline)
In his blog, Derek Lowe discusses a recent announcement by Amgen that it discontinued treatment with Vectibix in a Phase III trial evaluating Vectibix plus standard chemotherapy and Avastin for first-line metastatic colorectal cancer. "[Vectibix is] an EGFR inhibitor (same space as Imclone's Erbitux), and this trial was the first to test a 'dual biologics' approach to colon cancer."

"Unfortunately, in one of those unexpected results that cancer trials are always delivering, the two-protein-therapeutics group actually showed slightly worse survival data than did the standard-of-care group, and that takes care of that," he writes. "By itself, this result isn't enough to call Vectibix a failure by any means. But its expected rise to overshadow Erbitux has clearly been delayed."

FDA Committee to Review Acomplia (BrandweekNRX)
In his entry, Jim Edwards writes about a recent announcement by sanofi-aventis that an FDA advisory committee will review its application for Acomplia in June. "This application has been delayed before, so the tension will be mounting among the sanofites all through the summer."

"Second, [a] report by Decision Resources notes that Acomplia will become the 'gold standard' in weight-loss treatment — despite side effects of depression and anxiety among users," he adds. "Hold on a second: Depression and anxiety have caused havoc for Roche's Tamiflu and Lilly's Strattera (both linked to reports of suicide). I can't see the press giving sanofi a free pass on this issue if those side effects are in any way significant."