Lilly's Alimta shows benefit in hard-to-treat lung cancer patients

US drug major Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) says that a new subgroup analysis of data from the pivotal Phase III PARAMOUNT study showed that continuation maintenance therapy with Alimta (pemetrexed for injection) also reduces the risk of disease progression in patients aged 70 years or older with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common type of lung cancer.

Alimta, which generated second-quarter 2011 sales of $613.4 million, just a few days ago received backing from a European Medicines Agency advisory committee as monotherapy for the maintenance treatment of locally-advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer other than predominantly squamous cell histology in patients whose disease has not progressed immediately following platinum-based chemotherapy (The Pharma Letter September 27). As maintenance therapy in non-small cell lung cancer following first line treatment, Alimta is no longer restricted to only follow specific combinations of platinum-based chemotherapy.

Results from the new analysis were presented during the Lung Cancer - Metastatic Poster Session at the 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress (formerly known as the ECCO-ESMO Cancer Congress) in Stockholm, Sweden.