Erbitux equal to Avastin in colorectal cancer survival, FIRE-3 study shows

30 June 2014

Merck Serono, the biotech subsidiary of Germany’s Merck KGaA (MRK: DE), has released positive new clinical trial results comparing its cancer drug Erbitux (cetuximab) with Swiss drug major Roche’s (ROG: SIX) blockbuster Avastin (bevacizumab).

Emerging data from the FIRE-3 study, presented at the 16th World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer (WCGC), has shown significantly higher overall response rate (ORR) (72.5% versus 55.5%) (p=0.0063) and rate of early tumor shrinkage (ETS) (69.2% versus 47.4%) (p=0.0006) in patients with RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) with Erbitux plus chemotherapy (n=120) compared to bevacizumab plus chemotherapy (n=137) (p=0.0006).

This represents a 45.9% increase in ETS in the cetuximab plus FOLFIRI arm compared to the bevacizumab plus FOLFIRI arm, the company noted.

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