Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD), a biotech company, has announced unsatisfactory results from a study that was meant to establish the efficacy of simtuzumab in Pancreatic Cancer Treatment. The study, which was at phase II, involved adding 200 or 700 milligrams of simtuzumab to gemcitabine in a bid to establish whether that would substantially improve progression-free survival (PFS) compared to the addition of placebo to gemcitabine.
The trial involved 236 patients who have advanced pancreatic cancer. Half of the patients were intravenously given gemcitabine and an addition of simtuzumab while the other half was given a combination of placebo and gemcitabine. Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) revealed that the study’s fundamental endpoint was to establish whether an addition of simtuzumab would give better results in terms of PFS after 28 days from the day a patient is given the treatment, compared to an addition of placebo to the same agent. However, the finding revealed that there wasn’t any significant difference in the two. There also weren’t any other notable differences on how the different patients reacted to the treatment.
“Although simtuzumab did not provide clinical benefit in difficult-to-treat advanced pancreatic cancer patients in this study, we continue to explore simtuzumab in other areas of unmet medical need, with ongoing clinical trials in colorectal cancer, myelofibrosis and serious fibrotic lung and liver diseases,”
said Norbert Bischofberger, the executive vice president of R&D and chief scientific officer at Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD).
Simtuzumab is also undergoing some 5 trials in other areas of treatment such as advanced colorectal cancer where it’s combined with FOLFIRI and for the treatment of myelofibrosis where it’s added to ruxolitinib. The other 3 areas include liver fibrosis, primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), and monotherapy for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) has also revealed that there are some other ongoing evaluations for the effective treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer.
This article has been written by Victor Ochieng.
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