Lilly finds genes to predict responses to Alimta and Gemzar

Eli Lilly says that data from a correlative analysis of 90 women receiving adjuvant chemotherapy presented at the 42nd American Society of Clincial Oncology's annual meeting held in Atlanta, Georgia, found gene expression profiles that can predict patient reponses to its anticacner drugs Alimta (pemetrexed) and Gemzar (gemcitabine).

An alliance of Lilly scientists and academic researchers, performed DNA microarray analysis on pre-treatment core biopsies from 90 breast cancer patients. They then treated the first group (L9819) with four cycles of doxorubicin and cyclophospharmide (AC), followed by four cycles of Taxol (paclitaxel) or Taxol plus Herceptin (trastuzumab). The second group of patients (S329) received four cycles of Gemzar and doxorubicin followed by four cycles of Gemzar and cisplatin and assessed clinical responses using Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors guidelines.

Lilly noted that successful microarrays were obtained on 45 of the L9819 group and 46 of the S329 group, adding that separate analyses on each dataset identified gene expression patterns that predicted with 75%-80% accuracy clinical response in those patients that completed all eight cycles of chemotherapy.