Bayer and Onyx Pharmaceuticals announced that the New England Journal of Medicine has published their pivotal Phase III trial demonstrating that Nexavar® (sorafenib) tablets doubled median progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), or kidney cancer. The trial is the largest randomized controlled trial ever conducted in advanced RCC.
“Historically, patients with kidney cancer have had limited treatment options and there has been a particularly critical need for new therapies to help patients with advanced disease,” said co-principal investigator Ronald Bukowski, M.D., Director of the Experimental Therapeutics Program of The Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center in Cleveland, OH. “This landmark study demonstrated the efficacy, tolerability and clinical benefit of Nexavar, which has rapidly become a valuable weapon against this devastating disease.”
Based on these data, Nexavar was granted U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the treatment of patients with advanced RCC, or kidney cancer, on December 20, 2005. Since then, Nexavar has been approved in nearly 50 countries.
“Nexavar was the first new drug approved for patients with advanced kidney cancer in over a decade,” said Bill Bro, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Kidney Cancer Association (KCA). “With the advent of targeted therapies such as Nexavar, there has been remarkable change – patients are experiencing improved outcomes without the toxic effects traditionally associated with chemotherapy.”
Phase III Summary
More than 900 patients with advanced RCC were randomized one-to-one to receive either 400 mg Nexavar or placebo orally twice a day in this randomized, multi-national, placebo-controlled Phase III study. The endpoints of the study are overall survival (OS), PFS, overall response rate and safety. PFS measures the length of time that a patient lives without evident tumor growth or death.
PFS doubled to a median of 5.5 months in patients receiving Nexavar compared to 2.8 months for patients receiving placebo (p
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